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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.

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
Beat
Beats
Kill
Even
Going
Jail

More quotes by Steven Biko

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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
Steven Biko
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Change the way people think and things will never be the same
Steven Biko
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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.
Steven Biko
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This is white man's integration, an integration based on exploitative values
Steven Biko
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It is better to die for an idea that will live, than to live for an idea that will die.
Steven Biko
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You are either alive and proud or you are dead, and when you are dead, you can't care anyway.
Steven Biko
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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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In time, we shall be in a position to bestow on South Africa the greatest possible gift - a more human face.
Steven Biko
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A people without a positive history is like a vehicle without an engine.
Steven Biko
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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.
Steven Biko
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Black Consciousness therefore takes cognizance of the deliberateness of God's plan in creating Black people black.
Steven Biko
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It becomes more necessary to see the truth as it is if you realize that the only vehicle for change are these people who have lost their personality.
Steven Biko
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I am against the fact that a settler minority should impose an entire system of values on an indigenous people.
Steven Biko
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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.
Steven Biko
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Any warning normally implies, even if it is tacit, that there should be changes
Steven Biko
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The oneness of community for instance is at the heart of our culture.
Steven Biko
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The essence of politics is to direct oneself to the group which wields power
Steven Biko
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The logic behind white domination is to prepare the black man for the subservient role in this country.
Steven Biko
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Merely by describing yourself as black you have started on a road towards emancipation, you have committed yourself to fight against all forces that seek to use your blackness as a stamp that marks you out as a subservient being.
Steven Biko
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In all fields black consciousness seeks to talk to the black man in a language that is his own
Steven Biko