Quotes About Injustice

And no, they ain't in love with your mouth. Yonder, out there, they will see it broken and break it again. What you say out of it they will not heed. What you scream from it they do not hear. What you put into it to nourish your body they will snatch away and give you leavins instead. No, they don't love your mouth. You got to love it. This

Mister was allowed to be and stay what he was. But I wasn't allowed to be and stay what I was. Even if you cooked him you'd be cooking a rooster named Mister. But wasn't no way I'd ever be Paul D again, living or dead. Schoolteacher changed me. I was something else and that something was less than a chicken sitting in the sun on a tub.

Unlike a snake or a bear, a dead nigger could not be skinned for profit and was not worth his own dead weight in coin.

Everybody wants the life of a black man. White men want us dead or quiet—which is the same thing as dead. White women, same thing ... They won't even let you risk your own life, man, unless it's over them. You can't even die unless it's about them. What good is a man's life if he can't even choose what to die for?

He couldn't stay there surrounded by a passel of slaves whose silence made him imagine an avalanche seen from a great distance. No sound, just the knowledge of a roar he could not hear.

Slave life; freed life--everyday was a test and a trial. Nothing could be counted on in a world where even you were a solution you were a problem

There is no bad luck in the world but whitefolks.

Cuanto más se esforzaba la gente de color por convencerlos de lo buenos que eran, de lo inteligentes y cariñosos, de lo humanos que eran, cuanto más se esforzaban los negros en persuadir a los blancos de algo que a sus ojos estaba fuera de toda duda, más profunda e intrincada crecía la selva en su interior.

You have to understand that, Lord. You said, Suffer little children to come unto me, and harm them not. Did you forget? Did you forget about the children? Yes. You forgot. You let them go wanting, sit on road shoulders, crying next to their dead mothers. I've seen them charred, lame, halt. You forgot, Lord. You forgot how and when to be God.

The righteous look every Negro learned to recognize along with his ma'am's tit. Like a flag hoisted, this righteousness telegraphed and announced the faggot, the whip, the fist, the lie, long before it went public.

Well, feel this, why don't you? Feel how it feels to have a bed to sleep in and somebody there not worrying you to death about what you got to do each day to deserve it. Feel how that feels. And if that don't get it, feel how it feels to be a colouredwoman roaming the roads with anything God made liable to jump on you. Feel that.

Well, you not the first by a long shot. An integrated army is integrated misery. You all go fight, come back, they treat you like dogs. Change that. They treat dogs better.

Listening to the doves in Alfred, Georgia, and having neither the right nor the permission to enjoy it because in that place mist, doves, sunlight, copper dirt, moon—everything belonged to the men who had the guns

Not just work, kill, or maim you, but dirty you. Dirty you so bad you couldn't like yourself anymore. Dirty you so bad you forgot who you were and couldn't think it up.

That anybody white could take your whole self for anything that came to mind. Not just work, kill, or maim you, but dirty you. Dirty you so bad you couldn't like yourself anymore. Dirty you so bad you forgot who you were and couldn't think it up.

And him. Eighteen seventy-four and whitefolks were still on the loose.

the lesson she had learned from her sixty years a slave and ten years free: that there was no bad luck in the world but whitepeople. "They don't know when to stop," she said, and returned to her bed, pulled up the quilt and left them to hold that thought forever

If you can only be tall because someone else is on their knees, then you have a serious problem.

That anybody white could take your whole self for anything that came to mind. Not just work, kill, or maim you, but dirty you. Dirty you so bad you couldn't like yourself anymore. Dirty you so bad you forgot who you were and couldn't think it up. And though she and others lived through and

Probably best, he thought. If a Negro got legs he ought to use them. Sit down too long, somebody will figure out a way to tie them up. Still. . . if her boys were gone . . .

Booker cut her off. "Scientifically there's no such thing as race, Bride, so racism without race is a choice. Taught, of course, by those who need it, but still a choice. Folks who practice it would be nothing without it.

El amor no es nunca mejor que el amante. La gente inicua ama inicuamente, los violentos aman violentamente, las personas débiles aman débilmente, las estúpidas aman estúpidamente, pero el amor de un hombre libre nunca es seguro. El ser amado nunca se ve recompensado. Sólo el amante posee su don de amor. El ser amado es arrancado de sus raíces, neutralizado, congelado en el brillo de la mirada que el amante tiene vuelta hacia su propio interior.

Things got better but I still had to be careful. Very careful in how I raised her. I had to be strict, very strict. Lula Ann needed to learn how to behave, how to keep her head down and not to make trouble. I don't care how many times she changes her name. Her color is a cross she will always carry. But it's not my fault. It's not my fault. It's not my fault. It's not.

Bodacious black Eves unredeemed by Mary, they are like panicked does leaping toward a sun that has finished burning off the mist and now pours its holy oil over the hides of game. God at their side, the men take aim. For Ruby.