Quotes About Oppression

What a world this is, he thought. Children put us to shame with their pluck, and are shot in the back for it.

I don't care about my face! I'm tired of being stupid, and everybody keeping me stupid just for the sake of my face. Even if it means I have to run off and live in the wild caves with a bag over my head, I still want to know what's going on. I need to know.

She did not hate Clent for the way he had spoken. For most of her life she had been at the mercy of stronger and more powerful people who cared nothing for her. She had always been afraid, and her fear had made her angry.

No, not like me. He's no better than the other Fellmottes. Another rich man bent on what he thinks the world owes him, and willing to pay any price, as long as it's in the blood of others.

His gaze made her feel like a mouse in owl-country.

Silence itself could be used as deftly and cruelly as a kire

government is to protect the rights of the low from the tyranny of the high and not the property of the high from the desperation of the low.

The Bible is a profoundly liberating document, but there is no denying that it also contains deeply problematic texts—indeed, "texts of terror"2 that have adversely impacted the lives of women, slaves, Jews, Palestinians, Native Americans, and gays (to mention but a few). Such texts and prevalent interpretations of them may be described as "tyrannical" in the sense that they have legitimated the right of some to exercise unjust power or control over others. They

Wherever we went, the soldiers came to kill us, and it was all our own country. It was ours already when the Wasichus made the treaty with Red Cloud, that said it would be ours is long as grass should grow and water flow. That was only eight winter's before, and they were chasing us now because we remembered and they forgot.

I saw my evil day at hand. The sun rose dim on us in the morning, and at night it sank in a dark cloud, and looked like a ball of fire. That was the last sun that shone on Black Hawk. His heart is dead…. He is now a prisoner to the white man.

[Black Hawk] has done nothing for which an Indian ought to be ashamed. He has fought for his countrymen, the squaws and papooses, against white men, who came year after year, to cheat them and take away their lands. You know the cause of our making war. It is known to all white men. They ought to be ashamed of it.

Bad and cruel as our people were treated by the whites, not one of them was hurt or molested by our band. (...) The whites were complaining at the same time that we were intruding upon their rights. They made it appear that they were the injured party, and we the intruders. They called loudly to the great war chief to protect their property. How smooth must be the language of the whites, when they can make right look like wrong, and wrong like right.

Justice without strength is helpless, strength without justice is tyrannical…. Unable to make what is just strong, we have made what is strong just.

The iron hand crush'd the Tyrant's head And became a Tyrant in his stead.

I must create a system, or be enslav'd by another man's.

Equal rights before the law, freedom of conscience, freedom of the press, all of these things were...trampled underfoot and spat upon.

The white man made me a lot of promises, and they only kept one. They promised to take my land, and they took it. —Red Cloud

Slave driver, the table is turn.Catch a fire so you can get burn.

My music fights against the system that teaches to live and die.

I'n'I nah come to fight flesh and blood, But spiritual wickedness in 'igh and low places. So while they fight you down, Stand firm and give Jah thanks and praises. 'Cos I'n'I no expect to be justified by the laws of men - by the laws of men. Oh, true they have found me guilty, But through - through Jah proved my innocency.

So if you are the big tree, we are the small axe. Ready to cut you down, to cut you down.

The more people smoke herb, the more Babylon fall.

They say the sun an-a shines for all, But-a yin some people world, it never shine at all.

The Jap merely smiled and replied, "We Japanese know to the exact degree the extent of human endurance. Before you are liberated, you will learn that. You will see that we know how to beat a man to within an inch of his life and when one more blow will kill him. We also know how many grains of rice are required for a prisoner to live and work for one day." In the year that