Oppressors Quotes - Page 7

• It's our own small voice within that is our oppressor; it says we are not worthy and not powerful enough. Our limited beliefs are the real foes we need to fight and conquer.

  Yehuda Berg

  Powerful, Real, Fighting

  "Talkin’ About a Revolution" by Yehuda Berg, www.huffingtonpost.com. March 2, 2011.

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• REVOLUTIONARY: An oppressed person waiting for the opportunity to become an oppressor.

  Rick Bayan

  Opportunity, Waiting, Revolutionary

  9 Copy quote

• But almost always, during the initial stage of the struggle, the oppressed, instead of striving for liberation, tend themselves to become oppressors, or sub oppressors. The very structure of their thought has been conditioned by the contradiction of the concrete, existential situation by which they were shaped. Their ideal is to be men; but for them to be men is to be oppressors

  Paulo Freire

  Struggle, Men, Existential

  Paulo Freire (2014). “Pedagogy of the Oppressed: 30th Anniversary Edition”, p.45, Bloomsbury Publishing USA

  21 Copy quote

  Show source

• It's almost impossible to separate the actions, or it's also, it's almost impossible to separate the oppression and exploitation, criminal oppression and criminal exploitation of the American negro from the color of the skin of the person who is the oppressor or the exploiter.

  Malcolm X

  Color, Skins, Criminals

  Interview with Robert Penn Warren, whospeaks.library.vanderbilt.edu. June 2, 1964.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• White women and black men have it both ways. They can act as oppressor or ... and oppression of others.

  Bell Hooks

  Men, White, Black

  5 Copy quote

• What we consider is that the Venezuelan government is not a leftist government, has nothing of a leftist government. It is an oppressor, an oppressive government, it is a murderer - he murders them - the peasant fights in the region of Falcon, for example, where there are military advisers of the U.S.

  Che Guevara

  Military, Fighting, Government

  Source: guevaristas.org

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Why does the guerrilla fighter fight? We must come to the inevitable conclusion that the guerrilla fighter is a social reformer, that he takes up arms responding to the angry protest of the people against their oppressors, and that he fights in order to change the social system that keeps all his unarmed brothers in ignominy and misery.

  Che Guevara

  Brother, Fighting, Order

  Che Guevara (2002). “Guerrilla Warfare”, p.52, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• We shall never secure emancipation from the tyranny of the white oppressor until we have achieved it in our own souls.

  W. E. B. Du Bois

  White, Soul, Oppression

  40 Copy quote

• The former oppressors do not feel liberated. On the contrary, they genuinely consider themselves to be oppressed.

  Paulo Freire

  Former, Feels, Contrary

  Paulo Freire (2014). “Pedagogy of the Oppressed: 30th Anniversary Edition”, p.40, Bloomsbury Publishing USA

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• By identifying with the powerful, the disempowered achieve a measure of safety, at least for a moment. By doing the bidding of those in power, they become a necessary part of the system, useful so long as they serve to contain the stirrings and strivings of the oppressed. By making the rules and values of their oppressor their own, they separate themselves from the rest of their group and, temporarily at least, assuage the pain of their stigmatized status.

  Lillian B. Rubin

  Pain, Powerful, Long

  Lillian B. Rubin (1991). “Erotic Wars: What Happened to the Sexual Revolution?”, HarperCollins

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• ...Jews must learn to say without excuse, without equivocation: despite our history and our powerlessness in the past, despite allthe injustices that we have endured--today, now, the Palestinians are the victims of oppression, and their oppressors are the Israelis.

  Irena Klepfisz

  Past, Today, Injustice

  6 Copy quote

• The same educational process which inspires and stimulates the oppressor with the thought that he is everything and has accomplished everything worth while, depresses and crushes at the same time the spark of genius in the Negro by making him feel that his race does not amount to much and never will measure up to the standards of other peoples.

  Carter G. Woodson

  Crush, Depressing, Educational

  Carter G. Woodson (2006). “The Mis-Education of the Negro”, p.12, Book Tree

  89 Copy quote

  Show source

• Cats are oppressed, dogs terrify them, landladies starve them, boys stone them, everybody speaks of them with contempt. If they were human beings we could talk of their oppressors with a studied violence, add our strength to theirs, even organize the oppressed and like good politicians sell our charity for power.

  William Butler Yeats

  Dog, Cat, Boys

  William Butler Yeats (2015). “A Vision: The Revised 1937 Edition: The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats”, p.5, Simon and Schuster

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• Forgiveness is commendable, but apply not ointment to the wound of an oppressor.

  Saadi

  Forgiveness, Wounds, Commendable

  Saadi, Francis Gladwin, Eric Serejski (2016). “Gulistan or Rose Garden”, p.150, Innovations and Information

  20 Copy quote

  Show source

• Certain members of the oppressor class join the oppressed in their struggle for liberation.

  Paulo Freire

  Struggle, Class, Members

  Paulo Freire (2014). “Pedagogy of the Oppressed: 30th Anniversary Edition”, p.42, Bloomsbury Publishing USA

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• To pardon the oppressor is to deal harshly with the oppressed.

  Saadi

  Pardon, Tyranny, Deals

  13 Copy quote

• Feminism, unlike almost every other social movement, is not a struggle against a distinct oppressor - it's not the ruling class or the occupiers or the colonizers - it's against a deeply held set of beliefs and assumptions that we women, far too often, hold ourselves.

  Kavita Ramdas

  Motivation, Struggle, Inspiration

  36 Copy quote
• 

  What hurts the victim most is not the cruelty of the oppressor, but the silence of the bystander.

  Elie Wiesel

  Hurt, Pain, Bystanders

  "Courage To Care - Rescuers of Jews during the Holocaust" by Carol Rittner and Sandra Meyers, NYU Press, (p. 2), 1986.

  322 Copy quote

  Show source

• Generations will continue to meet the same fate unless the perennial oppressor-Britain-is removed, for she will unashamedly and mercilessly continue to maintain her occupation and economic exploitation of Ireland to judgment day, if she is not halted and ejected.

  Bobby Sands

  Fate, Generations, Occupation

  Bobby Sands (1997). “Bobby Sands: Writings from Prison”, Roberts Rinehart Publishers

  20 Copy quote

  Show source

• Come, all ye lovers of liberty, break the oppressor's rod, loose the iron grasp of mobocracy, and bring to condign punishment all those who trample under foot the glorious Constitution and the people's rights.

  Joseph Smith, Jr.

  Freedom, America, Rights

  6 Copy quote

• The last chapter in any successful genocide is the one in which the oppressor can remove their hands and say, 'My God, what are these people doing to themselves? They're killing each other. They're killing themselves while we watch them die.' This is how we came to own these United States. This is the legacy of manifest destiny.

  Aaron Huey

  Motivation, Inspiration, Successful

  42 Copy quote

• Our task is not to liberate the oppressed, but to liberate the oppressors

  Nelson Mandela

  Tasks, Oppressed

  31 Copy quote

• But a short time elapsed after the death of the great reformer of the Jewish religion, before his principles were departed from by those who professed to be his special servants, and perverted into an engine for enslaving mankind, and aggrandizing their oppressors in Church and State.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Faith Religion, Departed

  Thomas Jefferson (1853). “The writings of Thomas Jefferson: being his autobiography, correspondence, reports, messages, addresses, and other writings, official and private”, p.492

  17 Copy quote

  Show source

• How can the oppressed, as divided, unauthentic beings, participate in developing the pedagogy of their liberation? Only as they discover themselves to be 'hosts' of the oppressor can they contribute to the midwifery of their liberating pedagogy. As long as they live in the duality in which to be is to be like and to be like is to be like the oppressor, this contribution is impossible. The pedagogy of the oppressed is an instrument for their critical discovery that both they and their oppressors are manifestations of dehumanization.

  Paulo Freire

  Discovery, Long, Impossible

  Paulo Freire (2014). “Pedagogy of the Oppressed: 30th Anniversary Edition”, p.48, Bloomsbury Publishing USA

  33 Copy quote

  Show source

• Very few men imprisoned for economic crimes or even crimes of passion against the oppressor feel that they are really guilty.

  George Jackson

  Passion, Men, Guilty

  George Jackson (1970). “Soledad Brother: The Prison Letters of George Jackson”, Chicago Review Press

  21 Copy quote

  Show source