Oppressors Quotes - Page 7

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

Bell Hooks

Men, White, Black

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It is the obligation of every person who claims to oppose oppression to resist the oppressor by every means at his or her disposal. Not to engage in physical resistance, armed resistance to oppression, is to serve the interests of the oppressor; no more, no less. There are no exceptions to the rule, no easy out.

Assata Shakur

Mean, Exception To The Rule, Resistance

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In the face of the oppressed I recognize my own face, and in the hands of the oppressor I recognize my own hands. Their flesh is my flesh, their blood is my blood, their pain is my pain, their smile is my smile.

Henri Nouwen

Pain, Blood, Hands

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There must be a very clear understanding that you cannot work for peace if you are not ready to struggle. And this is the very meaning of jihad: to manage your intention to get your inner peace when it comes to the spiritual journey. In our society, that means face injustice and hypocrisy, face the dictators, the exploiters, the oppressors if you want to free the oppressed, if you want peace based on justice.

Tariq Ramadan

Spiritual, Struggle, Mean

"Tariq Ramadan: My Absence Would Certainly Be The Most Powerful Speech I Have Ever Given At ISNA". Interview with Amina Chaudary, www.theislamicmonthly.com. August 14, 2014.

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There isn't a religion on earth that isn't damaging to the human race because every one of them is patriarchal and every one eliminates more than half of the human race - women. They are all oppressors of women.

Susan Powter

Race, Half, Earth

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But I was not obeying the first and greatest commandment - to love God first - nor is it clear that I was obeying the second - to love my neighbour. Hating the oppressors of my neighbour isn't perhaps quite what Christ had in mind.

Sheldon Vanauken

Hate, Mind, Firsts

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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

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Violence just hurts those who are already hurt...Instead of exposing the brutality of the oppressor, it justifies it.

Cesar Chavez

Peace, Hurt, Brutality

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A liberation movement that is nonviolent sets the oppressor free as well as the oppressed.

Barbara Deming

Strength, Movement, Liberation

Barbara Deming (1984). “We Are All Part of One Another: A Barbara Deming Reader”

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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

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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

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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.

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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

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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

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...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

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To be a Jew means always being with the oppressed and never the oppressors.

Marek Edelman

Mean, Jew, Oppressed

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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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Liberals tend to be much more concerned about business and corporations as the oppressors. They look to government as the solution. On the Right it's the opposite. They see business as good, as what generates wealth in society, and they see government as the oppressor, which makes it hard for especially small businesspeople.

Jonathan Haidt

Opposites, Government, Corporations

"Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt". "Tavis Smiley", www.pbs.org. May 7, 2012.

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Where is the man, who, if asked to become a slave, would not hurl back the offer indignantly in the teeth of the oppressor?

Charles Lenox Remond

Men, Teeth, Slave

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

Saadi

Pardon, Tyranny, Deals

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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