Eric Liu quotes

We tend to think of politics as bad, full of dirty tricks, negative ads, big campaigns, but I am here to explore the original meaning of politics, which is positive and has to do with balancing competing interests and looking for solutions. (Eric Liu)
After watching my first World Series in 1977, I wanted to be Reggie Jackson. I bought a big Reggie poster. I ate Reggie candy bars. I entered a phase during which I insisted on having the same style of glasses Reggie had: gold wire frames with the double bar across. View quote
Eric Liu
There have been, in recent years, many Asian American pioneers in the public eye who've defied the condescendingly complimentary 'model minority' stereotype: actors like Lucy Liu, artists like Maya Lin, moguls like Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh. They are known, often admired. View quote
Eric Liu
The next time someone uses denial of citizenship as a weapon or brandishes the special status conferred upon him by the accident of birth, ask him this: What have you done lately to earn it? View quote
Eric Liu
Today's multiracial Americans are at greater liberty to choose how they'd like to be seen, and under less pressure to pass for white. View quote
Eric Liu
Identity in America is complicated but it's also simple: it's about whom you identify with and who identifies with you. View quote
Eric Liu
Great numbers of Asian Americans do not fit the model minority or 'tiger family' stereotypes, living instead in multigenerational poverty far from the mainstream. View quote
Eric Liu
From the right, you get demagogues shouting about brown-skinned anchor babies and clamoring to deport the undocumented. From the left, you get advocacy for the oppressed but otherwise, when it comes to national civic identity, mainly silence. View quote
Eric Liu
Today, public understanding of our past and our system of government is pitifully low. View quote
Eric Liu
Imagine filling a college with the first 1,000 students to get perfect SATs. Whatever the racial composition of that class would be, the notion seems absurd because we know that college in America is supposed to be about creating citizens and leaders in a diverse nation. View quote
Eric Liu
Throughout this country's history there have of course been systematic efforts to create an official underclass. (Eric Liu)
To be sure, the United States has profound problems, not least our faltering educational and physical infrastructure. View quote
Eric Liu
Conservatives forget that citizenship is more than a thing to withhold from immigrants. Progressives forget it's more than a set of rights. View quote
Eric Liu
Jeremy Lin is the only Asian American in the NBA today and one of the few in any professional U.S. sport. His arrival is surely leading other talented Asian American athletes this week to contemplate a pro career. View quote
Eric Liu
If whiteness were of no particular advantage, then having a fuller color wheel of skin tones would be purely a matter of celebration. But whiteness - just a drop of it - does still carry privilege. You learn that very young in America. View quote
Eric Liu
My grandfather was a general in the Nationalist Chinese Air Force during World War II, and I grew up hearing the pilot stories and seeing pictures of him in uniform. View quote
Eric Liu
Many smart folks seem to think that if you just get your metaphors and messages right, you'll win. That if you start describing what you favor as a 'moral value' - 'affordable health care is a moral value' etc., - then you'll appeal to red-state voters. View quote
Eric Liu
Sometimes when I listen to fellow progressives, I wonder if the only lesson we took away from the '04 elections is that politics is a word game. View quote
Eric Liu
America is exceptional: but because it yields the likes of Obama, not the likes of Bush. View quote
Eric Liu
If half-black Barack Obama had decided years ago to call himself white - which his genes certainly entitled him to do - his story would have carried very different meaning. If millions of part-black people had followed him into whiteness, then the N.A.A.C.P. would be in true crisis. View quote
Eric Liu
The Boomers have modeled a set of bad habits, and one grand gesture is not going to unwind all those bad habits. (Eric Liu)
The nativism behind the push to repeal or amend the Fourteenth is ugly and obvious. View quote
Eric Liu
'The Purpose-Driven Life' is not just a mega-bestselling work of Christian faith; it is the thing that every voter, secular or not, yearns for. View quote
Eric Liu
What we should celebrate more than diversity is what we do with it. How do we bring everyone in the tent and create something together? In a twenty-first century way that activates our true potential, we all need to become sworn-again. View quote
Eric Liu
We all want merit to mean something, and we all may be tempted to reduce that meaning to something measurable and concrete like an SAT score. The reality, though, is that who deserves entry into an institution depends on what the institution exists to do. View quote
Eric Liu