Oppressed Quotes - Page 24

• Let us remind ourselves that our work is far from complete. Where there is poverty and sickness, including AIDS, where human beings are being oppressed, there is more work to be done. Our work is for freedom for all.

  Nelson Mandela

  Done, Poverty, Sickness

  "Stars celebrate 90th birthday" by Damien Francis, www.theguardian.com. June 27, 2008.

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• I am not a terrorist, but neither am I a pacifist. I am simply a regular guy from the Palestinian street advocating only what every other oppressed person has advocated-the right to help myself in the absence of help from anywhere else.

  Marwan Barghouti

  Guy, Helping, Self Help

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• Never befriend the oppressed unless you are prepared to take on the oppressor.

  Ogden Nash

  Loyalty, Adversity, Prepared

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• The oppressed will always believe the worst about themselves.

  Frantz Fanon

  Believe, Worst, Always Believe

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• For the only great men among the unfree and the oppressed are those who struggle to destroy the oppressor.

  Walter Rodney

  Struggle, Men, Unfree

  Walter Rodney (2012). “How Europe Underdeveloped Africa”, p.131, Fahamu/Pambazuka

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• There is such a thing as the freedom of exhaustion. Some people are so worn down by the yoke of oppression that they give up. [...] The oppressed must never allow the conscience of the oppressor to slumber. [...] To accept injustice or segregation passively is to say to the oppressor that his actions are morally right.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Giving Up, People, Black History

  "Three Ways of Meeting Oppression". Essay by Martin Luther King, Jr., taken from MLK's book "Stride Toward Freedom", 1958.

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• Transformation is only valid if it is carried out with the people, not for them. Liberation is like a childbirth, and a painful one. The person who emerges is a new person: no longer either oppressor or oppressed, but a person in the process of achieving freedom. It is only the oppressed who, by freeing themselves, can free their oppressors.

  Paulo Freire

  People, Transformation, Painful

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• I learned from Hussain how to be wronged and be a winner, I learnt from Hussain how to attain victory while being oppressed.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Spiritual, Victory, Hussain

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• When the church hears the cry of the oppressed it cannot but denounce the social structures that give rise to and perpetuate the misery from which the cry arises.

  Oscar Romero

  Giving, Church, Misery

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• For me, men are not divided into believers and atheists, but between oppressors and oppressed, between those who want to keep this unjust society and those who want to struggle for justice.

  Frei Betto

  Atheist, Struggle, Men

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• The press is so powerful in its image-making role, it can make the criminal look like he's a the victim and make the victim look like he's the criminal. This is the press, an irresponsible press. It will make the criminal look like he's the victim and make the victim look like he's the criminal. If you aren't careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.

  Malcolm X

  Powerful, Hate, Media Control

  Malcolm X's speech at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem (December 13, 1964) as quoted in "Malcolm X Speaks: Selected Speeches and Statements" edited by George Breitman (p. 93), 1965.

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• It is bad to be oppressed by a minority, but it is worse to be oppressed by a majority. For there is a reserve of latent power in the masses which, if it is called into play, the minority can seldom resist. But from the absolute will of an entire people there is no appeal, no redemption, no refuge but treason.

  Lord Acton

  Play, People, Minorities

  John Emerich Edward Dalberg, Lord Acton (2016). “The History of Freedom (and other Essays)”, p.36, Jazzybee Verlag

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• I have always thought it was a terrible shame that the women's movement didn't realise how much easier it was to reach people by making them laugh than by shaking a fist and saying, 'Don't you see how oppressed you are.

  Nora Ephron

  People, Laughing, Movement

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• Violence is a personal necessity for the oppressed...It is not a strategy consciously devised. It is the deep, instinctive expression of a human being denied individuality.

  Richard Wright

  Expression, Individuality, Violence

  "Native Son". Book by Richard Wright, 1940.

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• To forgive an oppressor is oppression upon the oppressed.

  Umar

  Forgiving, Oppression, Oppressors

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• Being oppressed means the absence of choices

  Bell Hooks

  Mean, Choices, Absence

  bell hooks (2014). “Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center”, p.22, Routledge

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• Baby, black promoters oppressed me before white promoters ever got hold of me. Don't talk skin to me.

  Mahalia Jackson

  Baby, White, Black

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• If you want to know who the oppressed minorities in America are, simply look at who gets their own shelf in the bookstore. A black shelf, a women's shelf, and a gay shelf.

  Armistead Maupin

  Gay, America, Black

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• When women understand that governments and religions are human inventions; that Bibles, prayer-books, catechisms, and encyclical letters are all emanations from the brains of man, they will no longer be oppressed by the injunctions that come to them with the divine authority of *Thus sayeth the Lord.*

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton

  Atheist, Prayer, Book

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton (2003). “The Woman's Bible: A Classic Feminist Perspective”, p.8, Courier Corporation

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