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People are tried and convicted in the newspapers and on television before they ever see a courtroom.

Assata Shakur

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Assata Shakur
Age: 77
Born: 1947
Born: July 14
Activist
Jamaica
Queens
Joanne Deborah Byron
Television
Ever
People
Convicted
Courtroom
Newspapers
Tried

More quotes by Assata Shakur

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There is something about Sundiata [Acoli] that exudes calm. From every part of his being you can sense the presence of revolutionary spirit and fervor. And his love for Black people is so intense that you can almost touch it and hold it in your hand.
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. 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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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 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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The government recognized immediately that Rap music has enormous revolutionary potential and politicians immediately came together to end it.
Assata Shakur
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What most impressed me about Cuba was the optimism.
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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I believe in life. And I have seen the death parade
Assata Shakur
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Cubans understand that theirs is a country that provides sanctuary for people fleeing oppression. As a nation, they are very proud of this stance. They don't care how much the U.S. government badgers or attacks them.
Assata Shakur
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People think that in order for something to work, it has to be complicated, but a lot of times the opposite is true. We usually reach success by putting the simple truths that we know into practice.
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 miss friends and family. If it weren't for visits from old friends and other African Americans I meet who come to Cuba, I'd probably be in some kind of time warp.
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.
Assata Shakur
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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 are really beginning to see the mechanisms of imperialism. When colonialism existed people could see colonialism. When racial segregation existed in its apartheid form, people could see the whites only signs. But it's much more difficult to see the structures of neo-imperialism, neo-colonialism, neo-slavery.
Assata Shakur
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I can't do nothin except try to find cloud nine.
Assata Shakur
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I had to adjust to living in a Third World country, which means that things people in the U.S. take for granted-like hot running water whenever you turn on the tap-are not always available.
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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In the long run, the people are our only appeal. The only ones who can free us are ourselves.
Assata Shakur
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Being a warrior and being a struggler has been forced on me by oppression, otherwise I would have been free to be so much more.
Assata Shakur