Quotes by Activists - Page 27

You are so much more than your mistakes.
Bryant McGill
When the ax came into the forest the trees said the handle is one of us.
Alice Walker
It is only those who do nothing who makes no mistake.
Pyotr Kropotkin
Completing the circle is both philosophical and tactical - there is a growing sense of mastery that comes with practice, diligence, and experience.
Eric Mann
It is a responsibility for those that see and have understanding, and choose to not be bridled by fear, to step forward and lead the way.
Bryant McGill
Some victims do need to "blame" themselves and take responsibility.
Bryant McGill
It is exclusively other people's responsibility to please themselves.
Bryant McGill
You are only responsible for the effort, not the outcome.
Bryant McGill
If you have the gift of frustration and the deep sense that the world is a mess, thank God for that; not everyone has that gift of vision. It also means that you have a responsibility to lead us in new ways.
Shane Claiborne
Get this through your head — you are not responsible for other people's happiness.
Bryant McGill
You are responsible for doing what good you can with what you have, and any good is better than none.
Bryant McGill
A great deal of what I say just leaves me open, I suppose, to a vast amount of misunderstanding. A great deal of what I say is based on an assumption which I hold and don’t always state. You know my fury about people is based precisely on the fact that I consider them to be responsible, moral creatures who so often do not act that way. But I am not surprised when they do. I am not that wretched a pessimist, and I wouldn’t sound the way I sound if I did not expect what I expect from human beings, if I didn’t have some ultimate faith and love, faith in them and love for them. You see, I am a human being too, and I have no right to stand in judgment of the world as though I am not a part of it. What I am demanding of other people is what I am demanding of myself.
James Baldwin
I'm not interested in anybody's guilt. Guilt is a luxury that we can no longer afford. I know you didn't do it, and I didn't do it either, but I am responsible for it because I am a man and a citizen of this country and you are responsible for it, too, for the very same reason... Anyone who is trying to be conscious must begin to dismiss the vocabulary which we've used so long to cover it up, to lie about the way things are.
James Baldwin
Yes, it's vital to make lifestyle choices to mitigate damage caused by being a member of industrialized civilization, but to assign primary responsibility to oneself, and to focus primarily on making oneself better, is an immense copout, an abrogation of responsibility.
Derrick Jensen
It is wrong and immoral to seek to escape the consequences of one's acts.
Mahatma Gandhi
Oddly, I had never thought of myself as a feminist. I had been denounced by certain radical feminist collectives as a ‘lackey’ for men. That charge was based on my having written and sung two albums of songs that my female accusers claimed elevated and praised men. Resenting that label, I had joined the majority of black women in America in denouncing feminism… . The feminists were right. The value of my life had been obliterated as much by being female as by being black and poor. Racism and sexism in America were equal partners in my oppression.
Elaine Brown
The matter came up for judicial investigation, but as might have been expected, the white people concluded it was unnecessary to wait the result of the investigation—that it was preferable to hang the accused first and try him afterward.
Ida B. Wells-Barnett
Although I have always rejected this fear of the other, and the racism that it inevitably fuels, I have learned from experience that it is a deeply rooted need in the human psyche. at the slightest provocation we will put distance between ourselves and those we cannot or do not want to understand
Susan Nathan
It must be remembered that in those great days I was considered to be an "integrationist" - this was never, quite, my own idea of myself - and Malcolm was considered to be a "racist in reverse." This formulation, in terms of power - and power is the arena in which racism is acted out - means absolutely nothing: it may even be described as a cowardly formulation. The powerless, by definition, can never be "racists," for they can never make the world pay for what they feel or fear except by the suicidal endeavor which makes them fanatics or revolutionaries, or both.
James Baldwin
Now I had won the gold medal. But it didn't mean anything, because I didn't have the right color skin.
Muhammad Ali
Ignorance of how we are shaped racially is the first sign of privilege. In other words. It is a privilege to ignore the consequences of race in America.
Tim Wise
...After all, acknowledging unfairness then calls decent people forth to correct those injustices. And since most persons are at their core, decent folks, the need to ignore evidence of injustice is powerful: To do otherwise would force whites to either push for change (which they would perceive as against their interests) or live consciously as hypocrites who speak of freedom and opportunity but perpetuate a system of inequality.The irony of American history is the tendency of good white Americanas to presume racial innocence. Ignorance of how we are shaped racially is the first sign of privilege.In other words. It is a privilege to ignore the consequences of race in America.
Tim Wise
I am pleased God made my skin black. I only wish He had to made it thicker.
Curt Flood
The irony of American history is the tendency of good white Americanas to presume racial innocence. Ignorance of how we are shaped racially is the first sign of privilege.In other words. It is a privilege to ignore the consequences of race in America.
Tim Wise
In the beginning—and neither can this be overstated—a Negro just cannot believe that white people are treating him as they do; he does not know what he has done to merit it. And when he realizes that the treatment accorded him has nothing to do with anything he has done, that the attempt of white people to destroy him—for that is what it is—is utterly gratuitous, it is not hard for him to think of white people as devils.
James Baldwin
White Americans find it as difficult as white people elsewhere do to divest themselves of the notion that they are in possession of some intrinsic value that black people need, or want. And this assumption—which, for example, makes the solution to the Negro problem depend on the speed with which Negroes accept and adopt white standards—is revealed in all kinds of striking ways, from Bobby Kennedy's assurance that a Negro can become President in forty years to the unfortunate tone of warm congratulation with which so many liberals address their Negro equals.
James Baldwin
Women of color have no call to trust white women until white women take a gander at the world around them, investigate, learn and annihilate ignorance founded in being white in a society where the perspective and voice presented to the general public is white.
Inga Muscio
You get so used to being hit you find you're always waiting for it. (...) How can I say what it feels like? I don't know. I know everybody's in trouble and nothing is easy, but how can I explain to you what it feels like to be black when I don't understand it and don't want to and spend all my time trying to forget it? I don't want to hate anybody - but now maybe, I can't love anybody either - are we friends? Can we really be friends?
James Baldwin
Racism breeds racism in reverse.
Mary Brave Bird
At the time of the liberation of the camps, I remember, we were convinced that after Auschwitz there would be no more wars, no more racism, no more hatred, no more anti-Semitism. We were wrong. This produced a feeling close to despair. For if Auschwitz could not cure mankind of racism, was there any chance of success ever? The fact is, the world has learned nothing. Otherwise, how is one to comprehend the atrocities committed in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia…
Elie Wiesel
I think now that this obsession with identifying racism, which I saw so often among Somalis too, was really a comfort mechanism, to keep people from feeling personally inadequate and to externalize the causes of their unhappiness.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Segmentation was wrong when it was forced by white people, and I believe it is still wrong when it is requested by black people.
Coretta Scott King
When I walk in, they may like me or dislike me, but everybody knows I'm here
Maya Angelou
The Constitution gives you the right, as a white man, to have a rifle in your home. The Constitution gives you the right to protect yourself. Why is it ‘ominous’ when black people even talk of having rifles? Why don’t we have the right to self-defense? Is it because maybe you know we’re going to have to defend ourselves against you?
James Baldwin
If we do not know how to meaningfully talk about racism, our actions will move in misleading directions.
Angela Y. Davis
It is shameful, I feel, that we even have to make this point. That it is necessary to say, even once, that Black lives matter is itself a testimony to the racism of our society. It ought to be obvious that Black lives matter, that Black people matter, and by implication, that their murder, especially at the hands of the state, cannot go unanswered. And yet it is not obvious. It the context of the legal system, the recent evidence suggests that it is not even true. The slogan represents, then, not simply a fact, but more importantly a challenge. If we believe it, we must make it real.
Kristian Williams
I believe that the truth of any subject only comes when all sides of the story are put together.
Alice Walker
You were born into a society which spelled out with brutal clarity, and in as many ways as possible, that you were a worthless human being. You were not expected to aspire to excellence: you were expected to make peace with mediocrity.
James Baldwin
People often call fighting racism being 'PC' when they don't want to confront their own prejudice
DaShanne Stokes
Racism hurts everyone, including racists themselves.
DaShanne Stokes
Tolerance of intolerance enables oppression.
DaShanne Stokes
Reducing a group to a slur or stereotype reduces us all.
DaShanne Stokes
Urging an organization to be inclusive is not an attack. It's progress.
DaShanne Stokes
It's illegal to deny people their records due to race or gender. Adoptees deserve the same rights and protections.
DaShanne Stokes
Privilege is when you can afford to sit back and watch as others' rights are trampled upon.
DaShanne Stokes
You're not under attack when others gain rights and privileges you've always had.
DaShanne Stokes
Never be content to sit back and watch as others' rights are trampled upon. Your rights could be next.
DaShanne Stokes
Privilege is not knowing that you're hurting others and not listening when they tell you.
DaShanne Stokes
We must tell the world that even though we elected a bigot, bigotry will not prevail.
DaShanne Stokes
Whites saying 'make America white again' is like millionaires saying 'make the wealthy rich again.
DaShanne Stokes
We live in a nation of pigs and murderers.
James Baldwin
The minute we look away, the minute we stop fighting back, that's the minute bigotry wins.
DaShanne Stokes
Bigotry is based on deception, of oneself and of others.
DaShanne Stokes
...they ain't never met nobody they didn't lie to and steal from.
James Baldwin
Political correctness' as 'over-sensitivity' is code for saying the privileged shouldn't have their unearned privileges questioned.
DaShanne Stokes
Saying something is 'politically correct' is often a way of dismissing the voices of the oppressed.
DaShanne Stokes
It speaks volumes when people who are discriminated against go on to discriminate against others.
DaShanne Stokes
Standing against discrimination for some while supporting discrimination against others hurts us all.
DaShanne Stokes
The real reason that nonviolence is considered to be a virtue in Negroes— I am not speaking now of its racial value, another matter altogether— is that white men do not want their lives, their self-image, or their property threatened. One wishes they would say so more often.
James Baldwin
In a racist society it is not enough to be non-racist, we must be anti-racist.
Angela Y. Davis