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Being in Cuba has allowed me to live in a society that is not at war with itself. There is a sense of community. It's a given in Cuba that, if you fall down, the person next to you is going to help you get up.

Assata Shakur

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Assata Shakur
Age: 77
Born: 1947
Born: July 14
Activist
Jamaica
Queens
Joanne Deborah Byron
Going
Fall
Sense
Helping
Cuba
Given
Allowed
Next
Community
Persons
Help
Person
Society
Live
War

More quotes by 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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My life wasn't beautiful and creative before I became politically active. My life was totally changed when I began to struggle.
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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If you're deaf, dumb, and blind to what's happening in the world, you're under no obligation to do anything. But if you know what's happening and you don't do anything but sit on your ass, then you're nothing but a punk
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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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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A revolutionary woman can't have no reactionary man.
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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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
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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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Peace is a rare gift. Peace of mind, peaceful sleeps, and peaceful spirits are all luxuries that few rebels can ever afford.
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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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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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.
Assata Shakur
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As far as I was concerned, the Panthers were 'baaaaaad.' The Party was more than bad it was bodacious. The sheer audacity of walking onto the California Senate floor with rifles, demanding that Black people have the right to bear arms and the right to self-defense, made me sit back and take a long look at them.
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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The real reason Cuba poses a threat has nothing to do with my being here or anyone else being here. It's because Cuba is an example of a country that is actively fighting against imperialist domination and insists on its own right to self-determination and sovereignty.
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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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