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Systems Of Oppression Quotes

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Systems Of Oppression Quotes

“As the rich get richer, the rest of us will be left in increasingly precarious situations. In the global recession that is upon us, the powerful will double down on their control of state and cultural apparatus, They will be determined to repress, or co-opt, the tremulous expressions of resistance that are gaining volume as the people rise of against death. The issue of co-option is pertinent. Our articulations of dissent too often mirror the parameters of our oppression, reproducing oppressive systems, unwittingly reinforcing them, or indeed 'diverse' them, to make them more 'inclusive' when in truth the need to dissolve.”

“I didn't create the system- I was born into it," I say at last. It feels like a fair thing to say. His face seems to be at war. A flash of anger, a sharp narrowing of his gaze, then a slight pull of his eyebrows- exasperation maybe, but smoothed away to make room for a clenched jaw. "Please stop talking before I do something I regret. Por favor." "What did I say that was so terrible?" My hands fly to my hips. "If you don't explain it to me, how am i supposed to know-" "I'm a little tired of explaining myself," Rumi says flatly. "Have been for years. And you all never listen. Do your own reading on the subject, why don't you? And then come back and we'll discuss whatever you like.”

“Whatever mainstream Western liberalism is--and I have no useful definition of it beyond something at its core transactional, centered on the magnanimous, enlightened image of the self and the dissonant belief that empathizing with the plight of the faraway oppressed is compatible with benefiting from the systems that oppress them--it subscribes to this calculus.”

“It may seem strange that people who have already obtained a position of power through violence, invest so much time into justifying their plunder with words. But even plunderers are human beings, whose violent ambitions must contend with the guilt that gnaws at them when they meet the eyes of their victims. And so a story must be told, one that raises a wall between themselves, and those they seek to throttle and rob.”

“White men get a choice. They get to choose they job, choose they house. They get to make black babies, then disappear into thin air, like they wasn't never there to begin with, like these black women they slept with or raped done laid on top of themselves and got pregnant. White men get to choose for black men too. Used to sell 'em; now they just send 'em to prison like they did my daddy, so that they can't be with they kids. Just about breaks my heart to see you, my son, my daddy's grandson, over here with these babies walking up and down Harlem who barely even know your name, let alone your face. Alls I can think is this ain't the way it's s posed to be. There are things you ain't learned from me, things you picked up from your father though you ain't know even him, things he picked up from white men. It makes me sad to see my you thinkin you can leave like your daddy did. You keep doin' what you doin' and the white man don't got to do it no more. He ain't got to sell you or put you in a coal mine to own you. He'll own you just as is, and he'll say you the one who did it. He'll say it's your fault.”