Quote

To become free, you have to be acutely aware of being a slave.

Assata Shakur

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Assata Shakur
Age: 77
Born: 1947
Born: July 14
Activist
Jamaica
Queens
Joanne Deborah Byron
Acutely
Slave
Aware
Free
Become

More quotes by Assata Shakur

Image
What most impressed me about Cuba was the optimism.
Assata Shakur
Image
We usually reach success by putting the simple truths that we know into practice.
Assata Shakur
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
This planet is a wonderful place, but a vulnerable place.
Assata Shakur
Image
The abnormal, the sick, the vicious have become more and more interwoven into the violent culture of the United States. Into the way news is seen, into the way movies are seen.
Assata Shakur
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Black revolutionaries do not drop from the moon. We are created by our conditions. Shaped by our oppression.
Assata Shakur
Image
Only the strong go crazy. The weak just go along.
Assata Shakur
Image
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
Image
The government recognized immediately that Rap music has enormous revolutionary potential and politicians immediately came together to end it.
Assata Shakur
Image
Racism had grown out of slavery and exploitation and was very hard to eradicate quickly and completely.
Assata Shakur
Image
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
Image
I think it's really hard to plan if you don't believe you can implement those plans.
Assata Shakur
Image
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