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Quote by Jennifer S. Meyers

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Jennifer S. Meyers

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“Dear reader, I wrote this book for a boy I knew who died too young. I wrote this book for "our three winners" whose lives were ended by bigotry. I wrote this book for an inventive kid whose world was turned upside down because he built a clock. In America, we tend to ignore an uncomfortable history- our history. We want our wrongs to stay in the past to bury the truth and see history through rose-colored glasses, but the thing about buried truths? They come back to haunt you. For years, the ghosts of all those this nation has wronged have been rising up clamoring for their stories to be recognized. It's up to us to give voice to those whose voices have been forcibly oppressed or forgotten. We might not be able to give them Justice- because what is Justice to the victims of racism bigotry misogyny- but we can speak truth to power and insist on accountability. When I started writing Hollow Fires in 2019, it was against the backdrop of years of toxic damaging lies from our elected official, from the highest offices of this country. It was in the midst of a societal upheaval of people taking to the streets demanding change, so we could strive for that more perfect union politicians constantly laud. I wrote this book to ask uncomfortable questions and confront hard truths because inside us there's a small voice that says we can do better. We must. These voices need to be a chorus. A song we belt out together. And now as Hollow Fires goes to print, I'm watching heartbreaking images on the news of Afghans trying to flee their country fearful that the Taliban will retaliate against them, journalists, human rights workers and interpreters just like Jawad's father. Unfortunately, the United States has a terrible history of occupying other nations, asking those country's citizens for help, and then all too often ignoring the pleas of local allies and leaving them behind to potentially face imprisonment or torture for aiding the United States. We've witnessed Afghans desperately handing their babies to American soldiers over airport barricades, we've seen images of people trying to jump onto departing US. Military planes, reviving painful memories of Saigon in 1975, yet we hear a cacophony of hate from comfortably situated xenophobic American pundits decrying the potential influx of Afghan refugees. Mind you, these refugees have been forcibly displaced in part because of the actions of the United States and the few who are lucky enough to make it to the United States and get visas, permanent residency and citizenship (make no mistake these are huge hurdles) are sometimes cruelly subjected to bigotry and hate in the communities they land in as Americans. Shouldn't we ask more of ourselves? Isn't that what it means to call on the better angels of our nature? The commentators who scream against allowing in refugees, the same talking heads who think the horrifyingly inhumane treatment of migrants at our border with Mexico is justified buy into a deeply ingrained American myth- that they are always only "winners" and "losers". That war is a zero sum game. That extending a helping hand to a displaced individual somehow means that somewhere some American is getting less, but that binary is a lie. Here's the truth. Giving aid and comfort to a displaced person doesn't mean we can't also help Americans in need. We can and must do both. We have choices to make. Important ones. About our future, about who we are as a nation, as a people and as human beings. One of these choices is to live in a world where we call alternative facts what they really truly are- lies that obfuscate, deceits that give cover to Injustice, tools of cynical politicians. I'm asking us to speak tough truths out loud. To know we can do better and be better. I'm asking us to step forward, to face the truth of all we are, lanterns held high, eliminating the dark. Warmly, Samira Ahmed”

InspirationalActivismCall To ActionHollow Fires
Author:Samira Ahmed
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“Be The Change, Not The Caption (Sonnet) Do good, don't delegate. Go vital, not viral. Dare the deed, not drama. Be the specimen, not a spectacle. Speak truth, not trends. Carve meaning, not metrics. Plant roots, not rumors. Foster oneness, not optics. Lend a hand, not hashtag. Trigger action, not attention. Stir up lives, not likes. Be the change, not the caption.”

Social JusticeSocial MediaHumanitarianActivismActivistGood DeedsBe The ChangeVitalLend A HandAttention Seeker
Book:The God Sonnets: Naskar Art of Theology
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“The power structure automatically imposes a frame of reference which force people to see things from the Man's point of view. When a policeman shoots a nigger, that's 'law and order.' But when a black man defends himself against a pig, that's 'violence.' The role of the revolutionary is to create public theatre which creates a revolutionary frame of reference. The power to define is the power to control.”

PerspectiveActivismRevolutionary
Book:Do It!: Scenarios of the Revolution
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“Unwrite Me, You Cannot (Sonnet 1949) I've written my life on the fabric of time, no matter how much you try, you cannot unwrite me. My childhood friends are now parents to children, while I stand alone as the keeper of humanity. Even the woman I once dreamt a life with, is now a mother, yet my struggle continues for eternity. May they all have a full and flourishing life, but mine is to die as the lampbearer of liberty. I took the road less travelled, of my own accord, so the marginalized could have some tranquility. There's nothing groundbreaking in a life of comfort, we break ground by being antidote to animosity. I've written my life on the fabric of time, try all you like, unwrite me, you cannot. You can pin me to the ground or on the wall, but unsee, unhear, unwrite me, you cannot.”

SacrificeHumanitarianActivismService Of HumanityActivistAltruismHumanitarianismSocial WorkSocial Reformer
Book:Azad Earth Army: When The World Cries Blood
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“A protest should be undeniable. It should not ask the oppressed to become scholars of your rhetoric. It should not demand a prerequisite reading list before it makes sense. A protest is not a lecture series; it is an eruption, a call, a demand. It is a truth so raw that even a passerby, even a child, even the most disengaged person in the crowd should be able to hear it and know, in their gut, what is being said.”

FreedomRevolutionActivismProtestActivistFightProtesting
Author:Darnell Lamont Walker
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