Quotes about Oppression

Privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily.

When people are voiceless, they will have temper tantrums like a child who has not been paid attention to. And riots are massive temper tantrums from a neglected and voiceless people.

If we do not act, we shall surely be dragged down the long, dark, and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight.

Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The urge for freedom will eventually come. This is what has happened to the American Negro. Something within has reminded him of his birthright of freedom; something without has reminded him that he can gain it.

The slaveholders of America had devised with almost scientific precision their systems for keeping the Negro defenseless, emotionally and physically.

How often have the frustrations of second-class citizenship and humiliating status led us into blind outrage against each other and the real cause and course of our dilemma been ignored?

Geweldloos verzet kon volgens hem alleen vruchten afwerpen als de groepen waartegen het verzet werd gepleegd over enig moreel besef beschikten

Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be taken by the oppressed.

when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of 'nobodiness'—then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair.

This was not true for the Negro. There were two and one-half times as many jobless Negroes as whites in 1963, and their median income was half that of the white man. Many white Americans of good will have never connected bigotry with economic exploitation. They have deplored prejudice, but tolerated or ignored economic injustice. But the Negro knows that these two evils have a malignant kinship.

I had also learned that the inseparable twin of racial injustice was economic injustice.

Lamentably, it is an historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but, as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups tend to be more immoral than individuals.