Quotes About Oppression

Cruelty is contagious in uncivilized communities.

Historically, narratives of forgiveness were part of both the anti-slavery movement and the civil rights movement in America. 'Uncle Tom's Cabin,' for instance, was based loosely on the life of the Rev. Josiah Henson, who forgave his master that wanted to sell him and beat him after Henson begged him not to.

I've heard 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' read, and I tell you Mrs. Stowe's pen hasn't begun to paint what slavery is as I have seen it at the far South. I've seen de real thing, and I don't want to see it on no stage or in no theater.

Too many people hate the people that AIDS most affects: gay people and people of color. I do not mean dislike, or feel uncomfortable with. I mean hate. Downright hate. Down and dirty hate.

Our city finds itself in an uncomfortable place: on the frontline between freedom and auto_cracy.

Listen, there is no equality without the loss of power. Someone is going to have to lose power. That is really uncomfortable for some people to actually think about, but in order for marginalized people to gain power, white, cisgender, straight, people are going to have to lose some and that's just how it is.

In the end, glorification of splendid underdogs is nothing other than glorification of the splendid system that makes them so.

It bothers me to know there is the possibility that I as a Christian would be not only an underdog, but that I would be trodden upon if I claimed that I was a Christian.

There is also a natural and very, very strong empathy with the underdog, with people who have suffered, people who have been pushed around by foreigners in particular, but also by their own people.

I represent both the underdog and the overdog in our society.

The sad fact is that actual artistic oppression - book banning in its many modern forms - is a matter of course in the entertainment industry, especially when the underlying product is declared politically incorrect or runs contrary to the interests of Hollywood's political altar, the Democratic Party.

In a sense, all of my books have been about a 'poisonous pedagogy,' which engenders a culture of obedience, this underlying theme of patriarchal systems.

One of the ways the North Korea regime has kept power is by keeping its people ignorant of the living standards in the outside world. That's the underlying lie that supports the regime - not that their country is 'normal' but that they are better off.

The Arab Spring, with all of its failings and failures, exposed the lie that if we are to live, then we must live as slaves. It was an attempt to undermine not only the orthodoxy of dictatorship but also an international political orthodoxy where every activity must be approved by the profit logic of the 'ledger.'

Judge Afiuni has suffered enough. She has been subject to acts of violence and humiliations to undermine her human dignity. I am convinced that she must be set free.

The arrogance of power must be undermined.

All these systems are in place for the black race to fail, to always be underneath.

In the 1880s, women were decades away from earning the right to vote. Few owned property - if they were even permitted to do so. In addition to childcare obligations, many toiled in work that was either underpaid or not paid at all. Essentially, the gears of progress for women were moving slowly in just about every arena of life.

There is a hugely underserved population out there... those who are the least capable of paying pay the highest.

Communism possesses a language which every people can understand - its elements are hunger, envy, and death.

The law was made for one thing alone, for the exploitation of those who don't understand it, or are prevented by naked misery from obeying it.

Misanthropy is born, I think, out of an almost oppressive sense of loneliness, a conviction that there's no one on earth who understands you. I don't think misanthropes hate people: They hate that people hate them.

I have never really understood why in this country so many people look down on black people.

Human beings are addicted to power in an interesting way, and this is what makes a lot of people feel powerful: belittling people that are commonly belittled. I think if we understood that this was going on, that this was the mechanism at work within us, we wouldn't be that way.