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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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The attitudes of many police organizations were extremely negative to the prospect of Rap, and many officials weren't afraid to say that they were against it. To them, Rappers were just criminals waiting to get caught.
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The government recognized immediately that Rap music has enormous revolutionary potential and politicians immediately came together to end it.
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We usually reach success by putting the simple truths that we know into practice.
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Peace is a rare gift. Peace of mind, peaceful sleeps, and peaceful spirits are all luxuries that few rebels can ever afford.
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Racism had grown out of slavery and exploitation and was very hard to eradicate quickly and completely.
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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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What most impressed me about Cuba was the optimism.
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.
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Dreams and reality are opposites. Action synthesizes them.
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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
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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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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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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.
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I worked, studied, mothered and continued to be an activist. I found that Cuba was much different from the US its government was genuinely trying to erase racism.
Assata Shakur
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I don't have to live up to that Superwoman myth. I can cry and be human and lean on people who take care of me. That can be very liberating.
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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To become free, you have to be acutely aware of being a slave.
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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Only the strong go crazy. The weak just go along.
Assata Shakur
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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