Quotes About Oppression

It is true that the victim was a black man, and there is a school of thought which would regard such an offence as less serious when the victim is black.

I knew that not all whites are racist, but that the oppression she was committed to resist was racial and emanated from whites.

Everybody at some level believes in it. It's a deeply seductive image. The image that we all want, as oppressed people, is an image of our masters finally loving us and recognizing our humanity. It is this image that keeps prostitutes with their pimps, the colonized with their colonizers and battered women with their batterers. Everybody dreams of one day being safe.

In ways so closely tied to an individual's sense of self that it may not be apparent, the set of assumptions, privileges, and benefits that accompany the status of being white can become a valuable asset that whites seek to protect.

a system of domination will always be undernourished.

We have been taught, in ways large and small, religious and secular, that life is based on hierarchies, and that those higher on these hierarchies dominate those lower, either by right or by might. We have been taught that there are myriad literal and metaphorical food chains where the one at the top is the king of the jungle.

Civilization is based on a clearly defined and widely accepted yet often unarticulated hierarchy. Violence done by those higher on the hierarchy to those lower is nearly always invisible, that is, unnoticed. When it is noticed, it is fully rationalized. Violence done by those lower on the hierarchy to those higher is unthinkable, and when it does occur is regarded with shock, horror, and the fetishization of the victims.

One planter in Georgia argued that a former slave had shown himself "certainly unfit for freedom" because, "impudently," he didn't allow himself to be whipped.

In South Carolina, a man was murdered and his stepdaughter whipped because she'd had the insolence to "embarrass" a white family by bearing the child of one of its members.

Those in power have made it so we have to pay simply to exist on the planet. We have to pay for a place to sleep, and we have to pay for food. If we don't, people with guns come and force us to pay. That's violent.

So long as we only believe in the justice of the state, of the law-made by those in power, to serve those in power-so long will we continue to be exploited by those in power.

He who allows oppression shares the crime.

When we see others as the enemy, we risk becoming what we hate. When we oppress others, we end up oppressing ourselves. All of our humanity is dependent upon recognizing the humanity in others.

If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.

In the Ramayana many women are killed or mutilated on the grounds of them being demons: Tadaka is the first amongst them and Surpanakha is the most well known. But there are others such as Ayomukhi, Simhika, Surasa, Lankini and even Mandodari, the wife of Ravana, and Chandrasena, the wife of Mahiravana. It is difficult to digest that these are simply metaphors for wild, untamed nature. There is clearly an acceptance of male violence against women.

Every victim will, given a chance, turn victimizer.

he won't let us use a dictionary. How's

Gerçekten, kad?nlar?n pencerelerine takt?rd?klar? demir parmakl?klar bana göre cinsel ?iddetin kol gezdi?i bir toplumun en aç?k belirtisidir ve böyle bir toplumda hapishaneye t?k?lanlar kurbanlar?n kendileridir.

The honest truth is that if this government were to propose the massacre of the first-born, it would still have no difficulty in getting it through the Commons.

state that has denied opportunity for quality education for Negroes has no right to demand literacy as a prerequisite for voting

Violence is the weapon of the weak. - Ralph Abernathy

What I really tried to do with Helen was make her show this sad side of her. She was married off at 16, was so young and living in this castle that can't leave because of how she looks, and married to a man she hates and three times her age.

A woman who 'acts like a man' - who is bold and assertive, and refuses to defer to male authority - is threatening to a system that makes women responsible for men's feelings.

I do not care for prejudice in any form. In my opinion, we women have been subjected to so much of it that I cannot see how anyone of my sex could fail to identify with those similarly oppressed.