Quotes About Oppression

You got to take a deep breath and give up. The system is rigged against you.

I had to leave, and my husband was forced to stay on this plantation until after the harvest season was over. And then the man that we had worked for, he'd taken the car, and the most of the few things we had had been stolen.

The king, you say, desires to do what is right. My clergy are banished, my possessions are taken from me, the sword hangs over my neck. Do you call this right?

The breakdown of the black community, in order to maintain slavery, began with the breakdown of the black family. Men and women were not legally allowed to get married because you couldn't have that kind of love. It might get in the way of the economics of slavery. Your children could be taken from you and literally sold down the river.

Armed police at my apartment doors in 2011 was scary, but the sudden - and not exactly legal - takeover of 48 per cent of VKontakte, that coincided with a fabricated case against myself in April 2013, was more frightening.

The 'Grace of Kings' begins as a very dark, complicated world filled with injustices - among them the oppressed position of women - but gradually transforms into something better through a series of revolutions. But since real social change takes a long time, even by the end of the book, only the seeds of deep change have been planted.

The poor man looks upon the law as an enemy, not as a friend. For him, the law is always taking something away.

So whether that's taking a bunch of people from Chicago down to Standing Rock or being in Flint, Michigan, or being in Palestine or Baton Rouge after Alton Sterling's killing, I've been trying to, just as a man, be present and stand with the struggling and oppressed people around the world.

Like everbody, I'm addicted to 'The Handmaid's Tale.'

'The Handmaid's Tale' is a horrifying and horrifyingly possible vision of the future.

I'm trying to make people understand: yes, women are oppressed in 'The Handmaid's Tale.' But the men are also oppressed, too. It's just a very scary world for anyone.

The interesting thing about 'The Handmaid's Tale' is that everything that happens in it has happened or is happening somewhere in the world.

'The Handmaid's Tale' is a very special story.

'The Handmaid's Tale' will blow people away.

'The Handmaid's Tale' breaks my heart. It's a show based on the book written in the '80s by Margaret Atwood - who is a spectacular talent. That book is a work of art.

But blacks make little to no progress and, worse, the preoccupation with injustice only leaves them eternally inconsolable and cut off from their own best energies and talents.

The Taliban knows they have more to fear from an educated girl than an American drone.

The people suffering most from the Taliban were Afghans.

Does the global Left - as well as the Israeli Left - truly not care about the horrific Taliban regime, the terrible oppression of women in Gulf states, and the mass hanging festivals in Iran?

Eighty-five percent cannot read when they enter the security forces of Afghanistan. Why? Because the Taliban withheld education during the period of time in which these men and women would have learned to read.

When the Taliban was ruling Afghanistan, women were not allowed to go to school, to work, or even leave the house without a male chaperone. The greatest moment was when that ended.

It's not lost on me that every single person who told their story about Harvey Weinstein talked about how they were silenced, how they were encouraged not to speak up, how they were embarrassed or ashamed to speak up.

With no education, you have neocolonialism instead of colonialism, like you've got in Africa now and like you've got in Haiti. So what we're talking about is there has to be an educational program. That's very important.

But black people fall for that same argument, and they go around talking about law breakers. We did not make the laws in this country. We are neither morally nor legally confined to those laws. Those laws that keep them up, keep us down.