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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
Going
Jail
Beat
Beats
Kill
Even

More quotes by Steven Biko

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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.
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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In all fields black consciousness seeks to talk to the black man in a language that is his own
Steven Biko
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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
Steven Biko
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I would like to remind the black ministry and indeed all black people that God is not in the habit of coming down from heaven to solve people's problems on earth.
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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The great powers of the world may have done wonders in giving the world an industrial and military look but the great gift still has to come from Africa - giving the world a more human face.
Steven Biko
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The most potent weapon of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.
Steven Biko
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This is white man's integration, an integration based on exploitative values
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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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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The logic behind white domination is to prepare the black man for the subservient role in this country.
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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A community is easily divide when their perception of the same thing is different
Steven Biko
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Part of the approach envisaged in bringing about Black Consciousness has to be directed to the past, to seek to rewrite the history of the black man and to produce in it the heroes who form the core of the African background
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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Black Consciousness therefore takes cognizance of the deliberateness of God's plan in creating Black people black.
Steven Biko
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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.
Steven Biko
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Change the way people think and things will never be the same
Steven Biko
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Being black is not a matter of pigmentation - being black is a reflection of a mental attitude.
Steven Biko