Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by Assata Shakur

Quote by Assata Shakur

“Arrogance was one of the key factors that kept the white left so factionalized. I felt that instead of fighting together against a common enemy, they wasted time quarreling with each other about who had the right line.”

Quote by Assata Shakur

Book:Assata: An Autobiography
Create image

Work

Assata: An Autobiography

Assata Shakur's autobiography offers a personal account of her life, focusing on her involvement with the Black Panther Party and her subsequent escape from prison. The narrative delves into her political beliefs, the events that led to her fugitive status, and her ongoing activism. more

Author

Assata Shakur
Assata Shakur

Assata Shakur, born on July 16, 1947, is a renowned American activist. She is known for her involvement in the Black Power Movement, particularly for her association with the Black Panther Party. Shakur became a fugitive from justice after escaping from a New York state prison in 1979 and seeking refuge in Cuba. more

You May Also Like

“Instead of a mass movement saying 'No, we don't want [police],' the mass movement is saying 'How do we reform them? How do we hold a couple of them accountable?' The conversation should be: 'Why are they even here?' There are obviously many of us who have had that conversation, but it hasn't been the popular dialogue. Why do the police even exist? What are their origins? Many of us understand that their original task was to patrol slaves. Many of us understand that the first sheriff's department patrolled the US-Mexico border. That's not the public discourse. This has everything to do with the position that they've played in the last thirty years. It's also deeply rooted in anti-Black racism. The idea of not having police scares people. People say, 'What are we going to do with criminals?' by which they mean 'What are we going to do with Black people?' I believe we should abolish the police. I think they are extremely dangerous and will continue to be. That doesn't mean I don't believe in police reform...We do have to deal with the current crisis in the short term. That's important. We have to have solutions for people's real-life problems, and we have to allow people to decide what those solutions are. We also have to create a vision that's much bigger than the one we have right now. I was talking to one of the organizers in Ferguson. I said to her, this work is bigger than us. It's bigger than Black people. It's bigger than humans. This is a planetary crisis. If we don't solve it or at least set up a system that can help solve it, I don't think we'll survive.”

BlacklivesmatterPolicing The Planet
Author:Patrisse Cullors
Create image

“Jeremy Bentham argued that 'even in the best of times the great mass of citizens will most probably possess few resources other than their daily labour and, consequently, be always near indigence'. As long as working man was near indigence, hunger would remain an effective tool to goad him to labour. Bentham argued that an important task of government was to ensure conditions of deprivation, thereby guaranteeing that hunger would [be a constant motivation to work].”

GovernmentHungerIndigenceJeremy BenthamBentham
Book:Cult of Impotence: Selling the Myth of Powerlessness in the Global Economy
Create image