Quotes About Oppression

Those in power must spend a lot of their time laughing at us.

He beat me like he beat the children. Cept he don't never hardly beat them. He say, Celie, git the belt. The children be outside the room peeking through the cracks. It all I can do not to cry. I make myself wood. I say to myself, Celie, you a tree. That's how come I know trees fear man.

Some colored people so scared of whitefolks they claim to love the cotton gin.

What did it mean for a black woman to be an artist in our grandmothers' time? In our great-grandmothers' day? It is an answer cruel enough to stop the blood.

All History is current; all injustice continues on some level, somewhere in the world.

Hard times' is a phrase the English love to use, when speaking of Africa. And it is easy to forget that Africa's 'hard times' were made harder by them.

There is a special grief felt by the children and grandchildren of those who were forbidden to read, forbidden to question or to know.

Let him hear me. If [god] ever listened to poor colored women, the world would be a different place.

Pagan At home in the countryside I make the decision to leave your book --overdue at the library-- face up, 'promiscuous' out in the sun. Pagan. I laugh to see this was our religion all along. Hidden even from ourselves taught early not to touch the earth. Years of white gloves straight seamed hose. 'Being good girls.' Scripture like chains. Dogma like flies. Smiles like locks and lies.

We do not admire their president. We know why the White House is white. We do not find their children irresistible; We do not agree they should inherit the earth.

Anyhow, I say, the God I been praying and writing to is a man. And act just like all the other mens I know. Trifling, forgitful and lowdown. She say, Miss Celie, you better hush. God might hear you. Let 'im hear me, I say. If he ever listened to poor colored women the world would be a different place, I can tell you.

Lord, this is some thick shit Black women must get through.

Sofia take up the clothes, straighten them out, stand by the ironing board with her hand on the iron. Sofia the kind of woman no matter what she have in her hand it look like a weapon.

She used to read to us without pity; forcing words, lies, other folks' habits, whole lives upon us two, sitting trapped and ignorant underneath her voice. She washed us in a river of make-believe, burned us with a lot of knowledge we didn't necessarily need to know.

But I don't want you to fight 'em until you gits completely fagged so that you turns into a black cracker yourself! For then they bondage over you in complete.

Tashi dice que quiere enfrentarse al pelotón de fusilamiento vestida de rojo. Le recuerdo que su sentencia está siendo apelada. También cabe la esperanza de que los Estados Unidos hagan valer la ciudadanía norteamericana de Tashi. Es igual, quiero ir de rojo, dice, pase lo que pase. Estoy harta del blanco y el negro. Ninguno va primero. El rojo, el color de la sangre de mujer, los precede a ambos. De modo que cosemos.

He beat me when you not here, I say. Who do, she say, Albert? Mr ____, I say. I can't believe it, she say. She sit down on the bench next to me real hard, like she drop. What he beat you for? she ast. For being me and not you.

When Pa tell you to do something, you do it, he say. When he say not to, you don't. You don't do what he say, he beat you. Sometime beat me anyhow, I say, whether I do what he say or not. That's right, say Harpo. But not Sofia. She do what she want, don't pay me no mind at all. I try to beat her, she black my eyes. Oh, boo-hoo, he cry. Boo-hoo-hoo.

But what was good tween us must have been nothing but bodies, she say. Cause I don't know the Albert that don't dance, can't hardly laugh, never talk bout nothing, beat you and hid your sister Nettie's letters. Who he?

And you know how some whitefolks is, won't let well enough alone. If they want to bad enough, they gon harass a blessing from you if it kill.

Shug! I say. God wrote the bible, white folks had nothing to do with it. How come he look just like them, then? she say. Only bigger? And a heap more hair. How come the bible just like everything else they make, all about them doing one thing and another, and all the colored folks doing is gitting cursed? I never thought bout that.

White folks is a miracle of affliction, say Sofia.

All my life I had to fight. I had to fight my daddy. I had to fight my brothers. I had to fight my cousins and my uncles. A girl child ain't safe in a family of men.

Leute mit Krawatten an sehn aus, wie wenn sie gelyncht werden.