Women Activists From Canada

"If you have a face, you have a place in the conversation about AI."

"How will people build professional callouses if the early work that may be viewed as mundane essentials are taken over by AI systems?"

"AI will not solve poverty, because the conditions that lead to societies that pursue profit over people are not technical. AI will not solve discrimination, because the cultural patterns that say one group of people is better than another because of their gender, their skin color, the way they speak, their height, or their wealth are not technical. AI will not solve climate change, because the political and economic choices that exploit the earth’s resources are not technical matters. As tempting as it may be, we cannot use AI to sidestep the hard work of organizing society so that where you are born, the resources of your community, and the labels placed upon you are not the primary determinants of your destiny. We cannot use AI to sidestep conversations about patriarchy, white supremacy, ableism, or who holds power and who doesn’t."

"Defaults are not neutral. They often reflect the coded gaze—the preferences of those who have the power to choose what subjects to focus on"

"We should be able to stand up like every other minority group in this country and say we deserve justice — and say it loudly. We have every right to avail ourselves of the legal system, to equal protection under the law."

"“We will continue to do what we do best,” Goldstein said. “Advocate against Jew-hatred and file groundbreaking civil rights cases to ensure our clients achieve the respect they deserve.”"

"“I’m reminded of M.J. Nurenberger’s ‘The Scared and the Doomed,’ ” “During our people’s darkest hour, as Hitler’s war machine kicked into high gear, much of the Diaspora establishment eschewed collective action to save European Jewry. These cosmopolitan, assimilated Jews did not want to risk their hard-earned place in American society by speaking out of turn. They wanted to be a part of the prevailing culture, not disturb it.”"

"“If we don’t fight to enforce our rights, why should we expect anyone to respect them?”"

"“Don’t expect any civil rights movement to respect you if you don’t respect yourself. We are strong when we lead by example, not when we bow to radicalism or partisanship.”"

"“now is the time for a Jewish civil rights movement” and pointed out that “litigation is always the last resort.”"

"“Exposing the state-sponsored indoctrination and recruitment of innocent Muslim children was eye-opening,” she said. “This hate education is the root cause of terrorism.”"

"“If you can’t articulate why Jews, a minority community, deserve the right to sovereignty, then you have already ceded that space to the Jew-haters who are invading the left, and who seek to move the left toward a place that denies the right of Israel to exist,”"

"“the price of anti-Semitism in the U.S. is plummeting. And it’s only going to get cheaper if American Jews avoid demanding respect and asserting their Jewish Zionist pride. It’s time for the Jewish community as a whole to reject the anti-Semitic regressive left, not empower it,”"

"“We will argue, on the basis of anti-discrimination law, against applying the requirements exclusively to Israel,” Goldstein said. “We are committed to challenging enforcement in every country and every locality that attempts to discriminate on the basis of ethnicity or religion.”"

"“outstanding complaint” they filed on behalf of a client at Columbia University who was allegedly spat on and called a “dirty Zionist” in the university quad; this happened four years ago,"

"An intelligent, forceful Jewish pride movement… Jews have always supported other minority pride movements. Now it’s time for ours.”"

"“When I first proposed a Jewish civil rights litigation fund there was backlash from some of the traditional Jewish leadership,” Goldstein said. “ ‘That’s too aggressive,’"

"We are all very concerned,”"

"materializing in ways that we could only imagine in our worst nightmare.”"

"“important to work with them to guide them on what to do.”"

"“There is this very liberal, democratic tradition in our country: using the courts to engage in litigation to uphold the basic rights of minorities,”"

"“We have never ourselves, as a minority community, really taken advantage of our rights to equal protection under the law, by strategically using the legal system to fight against anti-Semitic discrimination.”"

"“Yet, while Jews have always been at the forefront of advocating for other minorities — Rabbi [Abraham Joshua] Heschel marching with Martin Luther King [Jr.], for example — we have never ourselves, as a minority community, really taken advantage of our rights to equal protection under the law, by strategically using the legal system to fight against anti-Semitic discrimination.”"

"As a civil rights attorney, aggressively asserting the rights of my clients to be free from unlawful discrimination is a compliment. That means you’re a good lawyer. Can you imagine the NAACP (The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) being accused by the black community of too aggressively advocating for black civil rights? If we don’t stand up for ourselves, who will? And if we don’t fight to enforce our rights, why should we expect anyone to respect them?”"

"“The community spends so much money on so-called pro-Israel advocacy, and it’s not moving the needle. Dollars are being spent educating Jewish students how to defend themselves, handing out pamphlets and leaflets for them to memorize, as though it’s the job of a Jewish student to defend Israel. The change you can make with one lawsuit or even one legal letter is enormous,” she said. “Not only can you ensure that the rights of your clients are respected and protected, and that similar unlawful behavior is deterred, but you go from defense to offense. And when one minority community enforces the law, all minority communities benefit.”"

"I'm not the only one who has experienced this, it's a pattern."

"‘My success is in my students’ achievements.’"

"I have committed my life to fighting for climate justice, this is our planet, and we are all responsible for taking care of it"

"Human activities are the main contributors to climate change"

"He is so joyful all the time. You know, he made me laugh, he made me smile, and I needed that, and it endeared me to him. But I'm not gonna be like, "Oh, I loved him." I didn't. I didn't. I liked him the way I would like a friend's dog, but he didn't feel like my dog. He felt like a stranger that I was sleeping with. And it's kind like losing the love of your life and starting to date straight away. Like putting this bandaid on a gaping wound — but it's hard to fall in love in the midst of healing."

"The fun of living with a , like — progressive meaning you lose vision slowly over time as your retina, a very important piece of the eye, and its function deteriorates, aka breaks down. So you slowly lose the ability to see. I was born legally blind, so I've always been legally blind — though I consider my childhood my quote sighted years because I could see color, I could read print, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then when I was a child, I slowly would go through spurts of losing vision, and then having my vision stabilize. The majority of my vision loss, which is what I consider myself to have gone blind, is when I was fourteen years old. That was the most significant rapid chunk of my vision loss."

"I don't want to make it seem like once you get to the self-acceptance phase — life is good now! Or once you learn how to cope and accommodate yourself and gain all your skills — life is good now! I don't wanna paint that picture — because, frankly, it's just not true."

"The truth is, the lives of activists are much more complicated than what the novel presented. My father was not a regular man nor a regular father. He gave himself to his cause, and our relationship was forged by distance. There is no resentment. The world needs people like my father."

"The values of freedom and democracy upon which America was founded are the same values that once inspired my father and are the ones to which he remains dedicated. Those values are not just every American’s birthright; they are the fundamental rights of all human beings."

"In a country without meaningful rule of law, my family has no means appeal my father's conviction, despite having secured exonerating evidence for the charges against him. The lawyers we've retained on his behalf are routinely intimidated by authorities, obstructed from visiting him and threatened with disbarment. Because of my outspokenness, the Chinese government repeatedly refuses my visa applications. Consequently I have been unable to visit him for the past seven years."

""I was born in 1989, and my father, being a democracy activist, he was paying a lot of attention to what was going on in Tiananmen, in Beijing, at that time, so after the massacre, he named me Ti-Anna to commemorate the victims ... and also to celebrate the ideals of freedom and democracy. He really wanted to remember their courage."

"The conversations about human rights in China, they can be a little numbingly familiar after you talk about it."

"I think a lot of my work is about un-shaming things or de-shaming things."

"That was a life lesson to me. Because, yes it's important to take back those choices and be who we are un-apologetically, but we should always think of it in the modern context and what makes sense for our lives today, and to not be fundamentalist about anything. (as an answer to using a modern tattoo technique on herself, as opposed to a more traditional technique)"

"I find so much inspiration in Indigenous cultures around this planet. Right now, there are so many cultures that can show us different ways of being human. And they have existed for thousands of years. Indigenous people, for them, the extinction event that we are just as a colonial society coming on into awareness about-- for them, it's been happening for 500 years."

"I always say that we’ve got to do two things. One, we have to look at our personal lives, and how we can reduce our climate emissions, how we can reduce our ecological footprint. That's the stuff that's our homework we all have to do. But we also have to get political...we have seen an increased awareness of Canadians. We do have an election where all parties are at least addressing the climate. That's new. So we are seeing a shift in awareness. And I think we're seeing in the climate strikes and marches that have been happening over the last few years, we're seeing that people are realizing they have to get political."

"all the things that are right for the planet are more expensive, or more difficult, take more time. I mean, our whole society is built towards destroying ecosystems, essentially...we need systems change, and we need our governments to help us out here and make being a Canadian not congruent with destroying the climate."

"We got to make sure we are involved and realize that now is the moment and we have agency, what we do is going to impact all of our lives in our children's lives."

"If you don't get a vaccine, if you don't wash your hands, if you don't pay attention, your actions could have devastating effects. And this is the same for climate change. So I think right now, there's a huge opportunity for, you know, all of us individuals to take advantage of what we are learning right now, and apply it properly to the climate crisis that no one can deny is happening."

"The lessons that are currently before us, should we choose to really integrate and learn from them, the lessons we've learned from COVID could directly apply to climate change and how we actually address a real emergency…We've learned that we are all totally interconnected in an extremely profound way, not only with our neighbors, with our communities, but also with people in London, people in China, we are just totally undeniably interconnected."

"COVID has changed our conversation about well being. Now what we're talking about in terms of well being, of mental wellness, physical wellness, it's very different from even a year ago. And so I think that we now have a different understanding of how we want to be living, and it's totally congruent to where we need to be living if we're going to address the climate crisis."

"If you don’t know how to fix it, please, stop breaking it."

"I known I'm only a child, yet I know we're all in the this together and should act as one single world towards one single goal"

"This aged economic system is out of date!"

"Our current economic system is promoting the car, one car per person, it's promoting highways, it's promoting the fossil fuel industry, it's promoting very individualistic society."