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The basic tenet of black consciousness is that the black man must reject all value systems that seek to make him a foreigner in the country of his birth and reduce his basic human dignity.

Steven Biko

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Steven Biko
Age: 30 †
Born: 1946
Born: December 18
Died: 1977
Died: September 12
Activist
Civil Rights Advocate
Politician
Trade Unionist
Writer
Amsterdam
Netherlands
Bantu Stephen Biko
Human
Basic
Humans
Dignity
Tenet
Country
Seek
Foreigner
Must
Birth
Foreigners
Make
Value
Reject
Men
Consciousness
Reduce
Values
Rejects
Black
Systems

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Sure there are a few good whites just as much as there are a few bad Blacks. However what we are concerned here with is group attitudes and group politics. The exception does not make a lie or the rule - it merely substantiates it.
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I think the central theme about black society is that it has got elements of a defeated society
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Any warning normally implies, even if it is tacit, that there should be changes
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To a large extent the evil-doers have succeeded in producing at the output end of their machine a kind of black man who is man only in form. This is the extent to which the process of dehumanization has advanced.
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It is better to die for an idea that will live, than to live for an idea that will die.
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I am against the fact that a settler minority should impose an entire system of values on an indigenous people.
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WOMEN must be at the forefront of nation-building to bring the South African citizenry together and, therefore, develop a whole new ethos of human co-existence
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I'm going to be me as I am, and you can beat me or jail me or even kill me, but I'm not going to be what you want me to be.
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Being black is not a matter of pigmentation - being black is a reflection of a mental attitude.
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The logic behind white domination is to prepare the black man for the subservient role in this country.
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The system concedes nothing without demand, for it formulates its very method of operation on the basis that the ignorant will learn to know, the child will grow into an adult and therefore demands will begin to be made. It gears itself to resist demands in whatever way it sees fit.
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Black Consciousness is in essence the realization by the black man of the need to rally together with his brothers around the cause of their oppression.
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Tradition has it that whenever a group of people has tasted the lovely fruits of wealth, security and prestige it begins to find it more comfortable to believe in the obvious lie and accept that it alone is entitled to privilege.
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A people without a positive history is like a vehicle without an engine.
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The essence of politics is to direct oneself to the group which wields power
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We are experiencing new problems every day and whatever we do adds to the richness of our cultural heritage as long as it has man as its centre
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What Black Consciousness seeks to do is to produce real black people who do not regard themselves as appendages to white society. We do not need to apologise for this because it is true that the white systems have produced through the world a number of people who are not aware that they too are people.
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This is white man's integration, an integration based on exploitative values
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You are either alive and proud or you are dead, and when you are dead, you can't care anyway.
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In time, we shall be in a position to bestow on South Africa the greatest possible gift - a more human face.
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