Quotes About Oppression

Whenever domination is present, love is lacking.

...love is essentially a much simpler phenomenon--it becomes complicated, corrupted or obstructed by an unequal balance of power.

This isn't an accident; this happens because to people at the top, the scariest thing is how many people there are below. They need to watch us. They need to monitor what we're thinking. It's the only thing between them and a guillotine.

And with the final question, "Why didn't they fight back?" came the inevitable dismissal. "Because it would not have made a difference.

Solange Gott ein Mann ist, nicht ein Paar, kann das Leben einer Frau, nur so bleiben wie es heute ist, nämlich erbärmlich, die Frau als Proletarier der Schöpfung, wenn auch noch so elegant verkleidet.

The Black female is assaulted in her tender years by all those common forces of nature at the same time that she is caught in the tripartite crossfire of masculine prejudice, white illogical hate and Black lack of power. The fact that the adult American Negro female emerges a formidable character is often met with amazement, distaste and even belligerence. It is seldom accepted as an inevitable outcome of the struggle won by survivors and deserves respect if not enthusiastic acceptance.

If growing up is painful for the Southern Black girl, being aware of her displacement is the rust on the razor that threatens the throat. It is an unnecessary insult.

As far as I knew white women were never lonely, except in books. White men adored them, Black men desired them and Black women worked for them.

The Black woman in the South who raises sons, grandsons and nephews had her heartstrings tied to a hanging noose. Any break from routine may herald for them unbearable news.

But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream his wings are clipped and his feet are tied so he opens his throat to sing.

Cotton rows crisscross the world And dead-tired nights of yearning Thunderbolts on leather strops And all my body burning Sugar cane reach up to God And every baby crying Shame a blanket of my night And all my days are dying

I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

Every person under the sound of my voice is a soldier. You are either fighting for your freedom or betraying the fight for freedom or enlisted in the army to deny somebody else freedom.

The plague of racism is insidious, entering into our minds as smoothly and quietly and invisibly as floating airborne microbes enter into our bodies to find lifelong purchase in our bloodstreams.

It seemed terribly unfair to have a toothache and a headache and have to bear at the same time the heavy burden of Blackness.

It's another to the body, and it looks like Louis is going down.' My race groaned. It was our people falling. It was another lynching, yet another Black man hanging on a tree. One more woman ambushed and raped. A Black boy whipped and maimed. It was hounds on the trip of a man running through slimy swamps. It was a white woman slapping her maid for being forgetful.

Because I was really white and because a cruel fairy stepmother, who was understandably jealous of my beauty, had turned me into a too-big Negro girl, with nappy black hair, broad feet and a space between her teeth that would hold a number-two pencil.

The Black woman in the South who raises sons, grandsons and nephews had her heartstrings tied to a hanging noose.

Life was cheap and death entirely free.

Later he explained that when a person is beating you you should scream as loud as possible; maybe the whipper will become embarrassed or else some sympathetic soul might come to your rescue.

The Black female is assaulted in her tender years by all those common forces of nature at the same time that she is caught in the tripartite crossfire of masculine prejudice, white illogical hate and Black lack of power. The

But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream his wings are clipped and his feet are tied so he opens his throat to sing. The caged bird sings with a fearful trill of things unknown but longed for still and his tune is heard on the distant hill for the caged bird sings of freedom. from Caged Bird

My race groaned. It was our people falling. It was another lynching, yet another Black man hanging on a tree. One more woman ambushed and raped. A Black boy whipped and maimed. It was hounds on the trail of a man running through slimy swamps. It was a white woman slapping her maid for being forgetful.

She was born poor and powerless in a land where power is money and money is adored. Born black in a land where might is white and white is adored. Born female in a land where decisions are masculine and masculinity controls.