Quotes About Oppression

I found myself compelled to fight back from my eyes the tears, and quanch my heart trobling to my throat to not weep before him. But Sacco's name will live in the hearts of the people when your name, your laws, institutions and your false god are but a dim rememoring of a cursed past in which man was wolf to the man.

The supreme mystery of despotism, its prop and stay, is to keep men in a state of deception, and with the specious title of religion to cloak the fear by which they must be held in check, so that they will fight for their servitude as if for salvation.

Laws which prescribe what everyone must believe, and forbid men to say or write anything against this or that opinion, are often passed to gratify, or rather to appease the anger of those who cannot abide independent minds.

Tyranny is most violent where individual beliefs, which are an inalienable right, are regarded as criminal.

What can be more calamitous than that men should be regarded as enemies and put to death, not for any crime or misdeed, but for being of independent mind?

Both class and race survive education, and neither should. What is education then If it doesn't help a human being to recognize that humanity is humanity, what is it for So you can make a bigger salary than other people

I realized that with African American people, where we've been blocked from being all that God meant for us to be, I don't have time to be patient.

With corsets, it's interesting when you put them on, realizing that's what women actually wore. They're just so constricting.

Ironically, when I've asked my straight friends to join me in hanging a rainbow flag, they answer, 'But someone might think we're gay,' not realizing that is exactly the point. To be mistaken for the oppressed is to momentarily become the oppressed.

There is no reason against woman's elevation, but prejudices.

How is it reasonable that in a country purporting to be a democracy, I am not permitted to speak freely? Why, as a politician, should I be banned from expressing political opinions? Why, as a student of history, can I not present the facts as I see them, without fear of reprisal?

It's a controversial issue: many feminists reasonably worry that by taking the concentration off gender as an independent locus of oppression, we dilute the strength of a women's movement, or of women's rights advocacy.

Ofglen is a little different than the other Handmaids because she has a really rebellious spirit and she has the hope that she could escape.

When Tunisians overthrew Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in 29 days and Egyptians Hosni Mubarak in 18 days, it was an appropriate rebuke to dictators and Bin Laden.

Reckless capitalism kills black people.

As recognized since ancient times, the coexistence of very rich and very poor leads to two possibilities, neither a happy one. The rich can rule alone, disenfranchising or even enslaving the poor, or the poor can rise up and confiscate the wealth of the rich.

Bahai Iranians are barred from holding government jobs, their children are excluded from the nation's university system, their marriages are not recognized and their cemeteries and holy places have been desecrated. It is government policy to incite hatred of Bahais in the official media.

Dr. King gave his life to peace and justice and reconciliation between people, black and white, rich and poor, and he was a great hero for not only people who were oppressed in our country but for people who believed in justice both here and around the world.

The American imagination has never been able to fully recover from its white-supremacist beginnings.

Any non-commissioned officer is more of an enemy to a recruit, any schoolmaster to a pupil, then they are if they were free.

Assad's brutality has nurtured extremism and been its main recruiting sergeant.

The cyclical rebirth of caste in America is a recurring racial nightmare.

As described in 'The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness,' the cyclical rebirth of caste in America is a recurring racial nightmare.

Colonialism deprives you of your self-esteem and to get it back you have to fight to redress the balance.