I tell you, in this country, you don't get much of an education. Throughout high school, through junior college, which is all I went, I didn't know anything about the annihilation of all the Indian nations that were here.
Yuri KochiyamaRead
I didn't wake up and decide to become an activist. But you couldn't help notice the inequities, the injustices. It was all around you.
Interpretation
Awareness of injustice can inspire individuals to take action and become advocates for change.
Yuri Kochiyama emphasizes that becoming an activist is often not a deliberate choice but rather a response to the pervasive injustices and inequalities one observes in society. Her quote highlights the importance of awareness and the moral imperative to challenge these injustices when they are evident in one's surroundings.
In practice
During a speech about social justice, this quote can illustrate the importance of recognizing injustices.
I tell you, in this country, you don't get much of an education. Throughout high school, through junior college, which is all I went, I didn't know anything about the annihilation of all the Indian nations that were here.
Don't become too narrow. Live fully. Meet all kinds of people. You'll learn something from everyone. Follow what you feel in your heart.
Life is not what you alone make it. Life is the input of everyone who touched your life and every experience that entered it. We are all part of one another.
So, transform yourself first⦠Because you are young and have dreams and want to do something meaningful, that in itself, makes you our future and our hope. Keep expanding your horizon, decolonize your mind, and cross borders.
If not now, then when? If not you, then who? If we are able to answer these fundamental questions, then perhaps we can wipe away the blot of human slavery.
I know that after my letter there will be undoubtedly an 'opinion' about me, but I am not afraid of it. I openly say what I think. Talent, of which we are proud, must not be submitted to the assaults of the past.
I've struggled enough in my life to be appreciated and understood. I've had to go against all kinds of people through the years just to be myself. I think everybody should be allowed to be who they are, and to love who they love. I don't think we should be judgmental. Lord, I've got enough problems of my own to pass judgment on somebody else.
Real men despise battle, but will never run from it.
The Process of becoming unstuck requires tremendous bravery, because basically we are completely changing our way of perceiving reality.
Few are born bold. Even Napoleon had to cultivate the habit on the battlefield, where he knew it was a matter of life and death. In social settings he was awkward and timid, but he overcame this and practice boldness in every part of his life because he saw its tremendous power, how it could literally enlarge a man(even one who, like Napoleon, was in fact conspicuously small).
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