Quotes About Oppression

That current flows fast and furious. It issues in a spate of words from the loudspeakers and the politicians. Every day they tell us that we are a free people, fighting to defend freedom.

Because you took advantage of my disadvantage.

The thought, when written down, becomes less oppressive, but some thoughts are like a cancerous tumor: you express is, you excise it, and it grows back worse than before.

It was something quite special, that feeling: an oppressive, hideous constraint as if I were sitting with the small ghost of somebody I had just killed.

I clearly understand, first, that the real human being is a poet and, second, that [the tyrant] is the incarnate negation of a poet.

My loathings are simple. stupidity, oppression, crime, cruelty, soft music.

And yet I have been fashioned so painstakingly,' thought Cincinnatus as he wept in the darkness. 'The curvature of my spine has been calculated so well, so mysteriously. I feel, tightly rolled up in my calves, so many miles that I could yet run in my lifetime. My head is so comfortable.' A clock struck a half, pertaining to some unknown hour. (Invitation to a beheading)

The one who kills is always his victim's inferior.

Literature under despotism: "The personality of the artist should develop freely and without restraint. One thing, however, we demand: acknowledgement of our creed." - Dr. Rosenberg, Minister of Culture – Third Reich "Every artist has the right to create freely; but we, Communists, must guide him according to plan." - Lenin pg. 7

My loathings are simple. stupidity, oppression, crime, cruelty, soft music. My pleasures are the most intense known to man: writing and butterfly hunting.

Arms in the hands of the Negro aroused fear both North and South. Not that the Negroes could not and would not fight, for these same blacks, largely under their own officers, had beaten back Louisiana whites at Port Hudson and Milliken's Bend. But, it was the silent verdict of all America that Negroes must not be allowed to fight for themselves. They were, therefore, dissuaded from every attempt at self-protection or aggression by their friends as well as their enemies.

C] an any sane man imagine that they will lightly lay aside their yearning and contentedly become he were of wood and drawers of water?

Daily the Negro is coming more and more to look upon law and justice, not as protecting safeguards, but as sources of humiliation and oppression. The laws are made by men who have little interest in him; they are executed by men who have absolutely no motive for treating the black people with courtesy or consideration; and, finally, the accused law-breaker is tried, not by his peers, but too often by men who would rather punish ten innocent Negroes than let one guilty one escape.

Don't you believe in nonviolence?' I asked. "'Yes,' said Miss Minnie, 'when the other parties are nonviolent, too. But when I have just come out of a funeral parlor from looking at a little small black boy shot three times by a full-grown cop, I think it is about time I raised my pocketbook and strike at least one blow for freedom.

Way Down South in Dixie (Break the heart of me) They hung my black young lover To a cross roads tree. Way Down South in Dixie (Bruised body high in air) I asked the white Lord Jesus What was the use of prayer. Way Down South in Dixie (Break the heart of me) Love is a naked shadow On a gnarled and naked tree.

The boss's got all he needs, certainly, Eats swell, Owns a lotta houses, Goes vacationin', Breaks strikes, Runs politics, bribes police, Pays off congress, And struts all over the earth-- But me, I ain't never had enough to eat. Me, I ain't never been warm in winter. Me, I ain't never known security-- All my life, been livin' hand to mouth, Hand to mouth.

There stands the white man, Boss of the fields-- Lord of the land And all that it yields. Here bend the black folks, Hands to the soil-- Bosses of nothing. Not even their toil.

Now I do not understand Why God don't protect a man From police brutality. Being poor and black, I've no weapon to strike back-- So who but the Lord Can protect me?

They will let you have dope Because they are quite willing To drug you or kill you. They will let you have babies Because they are quite willing To pauperize you-- Or use your kids as labor boys For army, air force, or uranium mine. They will let you have alcohol To make you sodden and drunk And foolish. They will gleefully let you Kill your damn self any way you choose With liquor, drugs, or whatever.

Why did white folks think you could live on nothing but art? Strange! Too strange! Too strange!

All the problems known to the Jews today in Hitler's Germany, we who are Negroes know here in America--with one difference. Here we may speak openly about our problems, write about them, protest, and seek to better our conditions. In Germany the Jews may do none of these things. Democracy permits us the freedom of a hope, and some action towards the realization of that hope.

There are some very stupid men in the capitals of the Western World--the more stupid because they think they are so wise. It would seem to me that almost anybody would know by now that colored peoples do not like to be ruled by outside forces, Jim Crowed, segregated, told what to do by aliens, and in general kicked around.

Sure I know you! You're a White Man. I'm a Negro. You take all the best jobs And leave us the garbage cans to empty and The halls to clean. You have a good time in a big house at Palm Beach And rent us the back alleys And the dirty slums.

You know, our machine gun company was named after Frederick Douglass...Herndon suggested the name, and Milt made a speech on the connection between Negro rights at home and the fight here in Spain. He said, 'Yesterday, Etheopia, Czechoslovakia--today, Spain--tomorrow, maybe America. Fascism won't stop anywhere--until we stop it.