Quotes About Oppression

They rounded up the Indians in camps, the women and children and whatever they could carry on their backs, and marched them west of the Mississippi. The Trail of Tears and Death

ravages of prejudice and its bully partner, violence.

The niggers did not post sentries over their dead. Niggers did not pound on the door of the sheriff, they did not haunt the offices of the newspapermen. No sheriff paid them any mind, no journalist listened to their stories. The bodies of their loved ones disappeared into sacks and reappeared in the cool cellars of medical schools to relinquish their secrets. Every one of them a miracle, in Stevens's view, providing instruction into the intricacies of God's design.

You need to be strong to survive the labor and to make us greater. We fatten hogs, not because it pleases us but because we need hogs to survive. But we can't have you too clever. We can't have you so fit you outrun us." She

En tanke bredte sig i hende som en skygge: at denne station ikke var den første på linjen, men dens endestation. Jernbanen var ikke begyndt under huset her, men i den anden ende af det sorte hul. Som om der ikke var nogen steder i verden, man kunne flygte til, kun steder, man kunne flygte fra.

There had been no kidnapped boys swabbing the decks and earning pats on the head from white kidnappers.

The Great War had always been between the white and the black. It always would be. Cora

Turns out if you write about police violence and atrocities, if you wait a month, it'll happen again, so... That's America.

Who knew the havoc and ruin they'd perpetrate if allowed to run free among decent people. Best to keep them all in here, on this island, bought for twenty-seven bucks from the Indians, the story went. Twenty-seven bucks went a lot further in those days.

She understood that the library would be empty if these scholars knew Fulton was colored. No one would have worshipped him, his books probably would never have been published at all, or would exist under a different name, the name of the plagiarizing white man Fulton had been fool enough to share his theories with.

The Uncle Tom, the grinning nigger, the house nigger who is to blame for her debased place in this world. Pompey gave them a blueprint for colored folk. How they acted. How they pleased white folks. How eager they would be for a piece of the dream that they would do anything for massa.

There was no hope for him as a colored man because the white world will not let a colored man rise, and there was no hope for him as a white man because it was a lie.

Since when do white people care about reason? They gonna put that cop in jail? The bartender looked up from his racing form. Put a white cop in jail for killing a black boy? Believe in the fucking tooth fairy. Buford knows what's up, Pepper said. Newspapers talking about 'looting,' Buford continued. Should ask the Indians about looting. This whole country's founded on taking other people's shit. How'd they fill their museums? Tutankhamun.

Ajarry didn't even make it to the gunwale when she tried to jump overboard. Her simpering posture and piteous aspect, recognizable from thousands of slaves before her, betrayed her intentions. Chained head to toe, head to toe, in exponential misery.

She wanted to tell him so mach, on the tarmac, the day he left. The world is run by brutal men and the surest proof is their armies. If they ask you to stand still, you should dance. If they ask you to burn the flag, wave it. If they ask you to murder, re-create.

Fear makes money, and it makes laws, and it takes land, and it builds settlements, and fear likes to keep everyone silent.

His body, his mind, his soul, had, for years, served only for the profit of others. He had his own people to whom he was pledged. Three million. They were the currency of his freedom.

The thing about the Occupation is that it never let you decide. It took away your ability for choice. Banish it and choice would appear.

Was there not wage slavery? Were there not the chains of financial oppression?

In the war I was subject to military law, but subject to law nevertheless; now I am at the mercy of an arbitrary power.

The dominant feeling is that this reign of terror can hardly last long, but that its fall will bury us.

Part of the problem is that these guys are jerks. They're knuckle-dragging, bone-headed bad guys and they really don't care if their actions hurt the women or the community. —MICHAEL SHIVELY, CRIMINOLOGIST N

they thought they could use their freedom licentiously and ruthlessly. The only thing that had changed for them was that they were now the oppressors instead of the oppressed. They became instigators, not objects, of willful force and injustice. They justified their behavior by their own terrible experiences.

A man counted only because he had a prison number. One literally became a number: dead or alive—that was unimportant; the life of a "number" was completely irrelevant.