Attack those concepts such as 'third world.' Think about it. If we look at it in terms of numbers, then people of color are the majority in this world. We should be the 'first world.'
Interpretation
This quote challenges binary classifications of society, urging a reevaluation of how we categorize people based on race and economic status.
H. Rap Brown highlights the flawed nature of categorizing societies into 'first' and 'third' worlds based on socioeconomic status and race. By pointing out that people of color constitute the majority globally, he argues for a shift in perspective that uplifts marginalized voices, suggesting that such classifications perpetuate inequality and disregard the reality of demographic distributions.
In practice
In a discussion about global development and social justice, this quote can help emphasize the need to rethink outdated classifications.
I say violence is necessary. Violence is a part of America's culture. It is as American as cherry pie. Americans taught the black people to be violent. We will use that violence to rid ourselves of oppression if necessary. We will be free, by any means necessary.
But black people fall for that same argument, and they go around talking about law breakers. We did not make the laws in this country. We are neither morally nor legally confined to those laws. Those laws that keep them up, keep us down.
Sometimes negative news does come out, but it is often exaggerated and manipulated to spread scandal. Journalists sometimes risk becoming ill from coprophilia and thus fomenting coprophagia: which is a sin that taints all men and women, that is, the tendency to focus on the negative rather than the positive aspects.
For 12 long years I lived within the narrow-minded confines of the 'straightjacket world' created by my strong belief that Elijah Muhammad was a messenger direct from God Himself, and my faith in what I now see to be a pseudo-religious philosophy that he preaches.... I shall never rest until I have undone the harm I did to so many well-meaning, innocent Negroes who through my own evangelistic zeal now believe in him even more fanatically and more blindly than I did.
The special virtue of freedom is not that it makes you richer and more powerful but that it gives you more time to understand what it means to be alive.
Those who are acquainted with the literature of India will remember a beautiful old story about this extreme charity, how a whole family, as related in the Mahâbhârata, starved themselves to death and gave their last meal to a beggar. This is not an exaggeration, for such things still happen.
At a certain point, what people mean when they use a word becomes its meaning.
Whatever satisfies the soul is truth.
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