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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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Assata Shakur
Age: 77
Born: 1947
Born: July 14
Activist
Jamaica
Queens
Joanne Deborah Byron
Anything
Think
Thinking
People
Oppression
Tolerance
Grows
Less
Used

More quotes by Assata Shakur

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Love is contraband in Hell, cause love is an acid that eats away bars. But you, me, and tomorrow hold hands and make vows that struggle will multiply. The hacksaw has two blades. The shotgun has two barrels. We are pregnant with freedom. We are a conspiracy.
Assata Shakur
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Unless you are addressing the issues people are concerned about and contributing positive direction, they'll never support you. The first thing the enemy tries to do is isolate revolutionaries from the masses of people, making us horrible and hideous monsters so that our people will hate us
Assata Shakur
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I trust Cuba as a principled country. Cuba's strength is that it has been steadfast in its commitment to the principles of liberation, freedom, of resistance to the kind of institutionalized terrorism that the United States government does every day.
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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I think that spirituality is important for all people to develop. I don't mean there necessarily has to be a religious aspect to spirituality. Some people are spiritual in a religious way, other people are spiritual in their work and in their art and in their treatment of other people.
Assata Shakur
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There's something about approaching 50 that's very liberating. Political struggle has always been a 24-hour-a-day job for me. I felt I could never take time out for myself. Now I feel I owe it to myself to develop in ways I've been putting off all my life.
Assata Shakur
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Hip Hop can be a very powerful weapon to help expand young people's political and social consciousness. But just as with any weapon, if you don't know how to use it, if you don't know where to point it, or what you're using it for, you can end up shooting yourself in the foot or killing your sisters or brothers.
Assata Shakur
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I must confess that waltzes do not move me, I guess I hummed the blues too early, and spent too many midnights out wailing to the rain.
Assata Shakur
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Before going back to college, i knew i didn't want to be an intellectual, spending my life in books and libraries without knowing what the hell is going on in the streets. Theory without practice is just as incomplete as practice without theory. The two have to go together.
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 am a 20th century escaped slave. Because of government persecution, I was left with no other choice than to flee from the political repression, racism and violence that dominate the U.S. government’s policy towards people of color.
Assata Shakur
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Every person that steps up and commits to social change helps solidify the black movement cause. It is not easy for those who fill in the leader role.
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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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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People are tried and convicted in the newspapers and on television before they ever see a courtroom.
Assata Shakur
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Cuba has its own moral system and priorities. That's what keeps it going, the belief that the country can control its own destiny.
Assata Shakur
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I had grown up at a time when people were being lynched, being attacked with water hoses. Becoming active and learning a different way of viewing my life was a healthy reaction to what I was seeing every day.
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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The US government's most acute fear is that other countries are going to follow the Cuban example. They want everybody to know that if you follow this example we will attack you in every way that we can.
Assata Shakur
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My life wasn't beautiful and creative before I became politically active. My life was totally changed when I began to struggle.
Assata Shakur