Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by Emma Dabiri

Quote by Emma Dabiri

Work

What White People Can Do Next: From Allyship to Coalition – An Empowering Guide to Interrogating Whiteness and Creating Justice

Browse quotes and source details for this work. more

Author

Emma Dabiri

Browse famous quotes and profile details for Emma Dabiri. more

You May Also Like

“World History 101 - The Actual History History is not a record of truth, history is a record of triumph. The triumphant writes history as it fits their narrative - or to be more accurate, history is written by the conquerors for maintaining the supremacy of the conquerors, while the conquered lose everything. Let me give you an example. In a commendable endeavor of goodwill and reparations a descendant of the British conquerors, President Lyndon Johnson started Hispanic Heritage Week, which was later expanded into a month by another white descendant, President Ronald Reagan - fast forward to present time - during the Hispanic Heritage Month the entire North America tries to celebrate Native American history. But there is a glitch - Spanish is not even a Native American language. Native Americans did not even speak Spanish, until the brutes of Spain overran Puerto Rico like pest bearing disease and destruction, after a pathetic criminal called Columbus stumbled upon "La Isabela" in the 1500s. Many of the natives struggled till death to save their home - many were killed by the foreign diseases to which they had no immunity. Those who lived, every last trace of their identity was wiped out, by the all-powerful and glorious spanish colonizers - their language, their traditions, their heritage, everything - just like the Portuguese did in Brazil. The Spaniards would've done the same to Philippines on the other side of the globe, had they had the convenience to stay longer. Heck, even the name Philippines is not the original name - the original name of the islands was (probably) Maniolas, as referred to by Ptolemy. But when the Spaniard retards of the time set foot there, they named it after, then crown prince, later Philip II of Spain. Just reminiscing those abominable atrocities makes my blood boil, and yet somehow, the brutal "glory" of the conquerors lives on as such even in this day and age, as glory that is. That's why José Martí is so important, that's why Kwanzaa is so important, that's why Darna is so important - in the making of a world that has a place for every culture, not just the culture of the conquerors. No other "civilized" people have done more damage to the world than the Europeans, and yet, on the pages of history books their glory of conquest is still packaged as glory, not as atrocity. Why is that? I don't know the answer - do you? Trillions of dollars, pounds and euros in aid won't suffice to undo the damage - but what just might heal those wounds from the past, is if the offspring of the oppressors and the offspring of the oppressed, both hand in hand and shoulder to shoulder, unravel the history as it happened, not as it was presented - what just might heal the scars of yesterday, is if together we come forward to learn about each other's past, so that for the first time in history, we can actually write "human history", not the "conquerors' history" - so that for the first time ever, we write history not as conquerors and conquered, not as oppressors and oppressed, but as one species - as one humankind.”

SlaveryNative AmericanColonialismWorld HistoryIndigenousFilipinoEuropean HistoryEurocentrismWhitewashHispanic Heritage Month
Book:Vande Vasudhaivam: 100 Sonnets for Our Planetary Pueblo
Create image

“Look at that blacksmith, for instance,” went on Father Brown calmly; “a good man, but not a Christian — hard, imperious, unforgiving. Well, his Scotch religion was made up by men who prayed on hills and high crags, and learnt to look down on the world more than to look up at heaven. Humility is the mother of giants. One sees great things from the valley; only small things from the peak.”

ReligionHumilityPrideStubbornnessObstinacy
Book:The Innocence of Father Brown
Create image

“Educating the Educators (Sonnet 2281) Greeks did not invent philosophy, philosophy had existed across Latin America, Africa, Arabia, India and China, thousands of years earlier, not as some elitist discipline, but as everyday way of life, later the europeans contributed their puny drop in the ocean, but of course, the myth of europe as the origin of philosophy goes deceptively well with the whitewashed history of earth. Maps of the world are whitewashed, history of the world is whitewashed, ethics of the world are whitewashed, knowledge of the world is whitewashed. No wisdom is flawless 'n absolute, ancient or modern, but the point is, enlightenment and civilization did not originate in europe, they were born of the lands colonially categorized as uncivilized.”

PhilosophyEducationKnowledgeColonialismIndigenous WisdomEurocentrismWhitewashEurocentricDecolonialAncient Culture
Book:Iftar-e Insaniyat: The First Supper
Create image

“Greeks did not invent philosophy, philosophy had existed across Latin America, Africa, Arabia, India and China, thousands of years earlier, not as some elitist discipline, but as everyday way of life, later the europeans contributed their puny drop in the ocean, but of course, the myth of europe as the origin of philosophy goes deceptively well with the whitewashed history of earth.”

PhilosophyEducationColonialismIndigenous WisdomEurocentrismWhitewashDecolonizingEurocentricDecolonialAncient Culture
Book:Iftar-e Insaniyat: The First Supper
Create image

“Life is Nonbiblical, Truth is Nonbinary (Sonnet 2349-2350) Atheism is a white european invention, outside the shortsighted gutter of eurocentrism there are people who don't need to believe in a creator to be holy, you can be sacred without being superstitious, the human world is teeming with such cultures where life is holy, duty is holy, laughter is holy, but of course your whitewashed, eurocentric little intellect cannot fathom nonduality - that's why you mustn't confuse intellect with wisdom, some of the brilliant minds are first class idiots, their binary brains have zero capacity for nuance, they confuse the backwater fiction-centric narrative of the church to be the entire lifespring of theology, so naturally, either they believe like sheep or reject like robot, because in a world of sheep and cyborgs either there is god or there is not, either you submit to blind faith or icecold logic, there is no place for heart, humanity and tolerance! Not Christ, but church doctrine was a major downgrade in theology existing hundreds and thousands of years prior, at the same time, european reductionism was a major downgrade in a wholesome life-centric understanding of truth. We need a life-centric understanding of truth, not truth-centric understanding of life - we need a human-centric realization of divine, not divine-centric realization of human.”

ChristianityTheologySufismNondualityAdvaitaRational ThinkingPursuit Of TruthNondualismEurocentrismMilitant Atheism
Book:Kral Fakir: When Calls The Kainat
Create image