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People get used to anything. The less you think about your oppression, the more your tolerance for it grows. After a while, people just think oppression is the normal state of things. But to become free, you have to be acutely aware of being a slave.

Assata Shakur

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Assata Shakur
Age: 77
Born: 1947
Born: July 14
Activist
Jamaica
Queens
Joanne Deborah Byron
Become
Tolerance
Used
Slave
States
Aware
Anything
Normal
Things
Grows
Think
State
Thinking
Free
Acutely
People
Less
Oppression

More quotes by Assata Shakur

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My fantasy of Cuba was that everybody was going to be going around looking like Fidel, with green uniforms - and it was very different from my vision of how Cuba was going to be.
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Black Revolutionaries do not drop from the moon. We are created by our conditions. We are shaped by our oppression. We are being manufactured in droves in the ghetto streets, places like attica, san quetin, bedford hills, leavenworth, and sing sing. They are turning out thousands of us.
Assata Shakur
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I can't do nothin except try to find cloud nine.
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And if I know anything at all, it's that a wall is just a wall and nothing more at all. It can be broken down.
Assata Shakur
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People come telling the truth. When I ask how thing are in the States, they don't give me the okeydoke. They say, Honey, things are hard. It reminds me I have to keep struggling.
Assata Shakur
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Part of being a revolutionary is creating a vision that is more humane. That is more fun, too. That is more loving. It's really working to create something beautiful.
Assata Shakur
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There's something nice about being able to go to sleep at night saying You know, tomorrow I'm gonna get up and I'm gonna do this and I'm gonna do that.... I think that being an activist on this planet is a privilege and a pleasure.
Assata Shakur
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The U.S. doesn't recognize the laws of Cuba. They can kidnap anybody and bring them back to the States to face the so-called justice system. There's no telling what the U.S. government will do to me. I'm in constant danger I guess I've gotten used to it.
Assata Shakur
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I believe in life. And I have seen the death parade
Assata Shakur
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People get used to anything. The less you think about your oppression, the more your tolerance for it grows.
Assata Shakur
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I advocate revolutionary changes...an end to capitalist exploitation, the abolition of racist policies, the eradication of sexism and the elimination of political repression. If that is a crime, then I am totally guilty
Assata Shakur
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Are you ready to sacrifice to end world hunger? To sacrifice to end colonialism? To end neo-colonialism? To end racism? To end sexism?
Assata Shakur
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I believe in living, I believe in birth, I believe in the sweat of love and in the fire of truth and I believe that a lost ship, steered by tired, sea sick sailors, can still be guided home to port
Assata Shakur
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We need to be weapons of mass construction, weapons of mass love. It's not enough just to change the system. We need to change ourselves.
Assata Shakur
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We are pregnant with freedom.
Assata Shakur
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We had to learn that we're beautiful. We had to relearn something forcefully taken from us. We had to learn about Black power. People have power if we unite. We learned the importance of coming together and being active
Assata Shakur
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Black revolutionaries do not drop from the moon. We are created by our conditions. Shaped by our oppression.
Assata Shakur
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This planet is a wonderful place, but a vulnerable place.
Assata Shakur
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I'm truly blessed, because many of my friends come to Cuba. They like it here-they can relax and not worry about drive-by shootings or getting raped.
Assata Shakur
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When Black people seriously organize and take up arms to fight for our liberation, there will be a lot of white people who will drop dead from no other reason than their own guilt and fear.
Assata Shakur