We are concerned with that curious bunch of nonconformists who explain their participation in negative terms: that bunch of do-gooders that goes under all sorts of names - liberals, leftists, etc. These are the people who argue that they are not responsible for white racism and the country's 'inhumanity to the black man.'
Interpretation
This quote critiques individuals who distance themselves from societal issues while labeling themselves as do-gooders.
In this quote, Steven Biko addresses a group of individuals who label themselves as do-gooders or liberals, suggesting that their inability to take responsibility for societal issues like racism reflects a deeper unwillingness to engage with real problems. Biko criticizes these nonconformists for their tendency to participate in social justice discussions without acknowledging their own roles in perpetuating systemic issues, instead framing themselves as detached observers of societal failings rather than active agents of change.
In practice
In a speech about social justice, one might cite this quote to highlight the importance of active engagement in racial issues.
It becomes more necessary to see the truth as it is if you realise that the only vehicle for change are these people who have lost their personality. The first step therefore is to make the black man come to himself; to pump back life into his empty shell; to infuse him with pride and dignity, to remind him of his complicity in the crime of allowing himself to be misused and therefore letting evil reign supreme in the country of his birth.
We do not want to be reminded that it is we, the indigenous people, who are poor and exploited in the land of our birth. These are concepts which the Black Consciousness approach wishes to eradicate from the black man's mind before our society is driven to chaos by irresponsible people from Coca-cola and hamburger cultural backgrounds.
When you say 'Black is beautiful' you are saying, 'Man you are okay as you are, begin to look upon yourself as a human being'.
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.
Black Consciousness is an attitude of the mind and a way of life, the most positive call to emanate from the black world for a long time. Its essence is the realisation by the black man of the need to rally together with his brothers around the cause of their oppression - the blackness of their skin - and to operate as a group to rid themselves of the shackles that bind them to perpetual servitude.
The most potent weapon of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.
Miracles occur all around us, signs from God show us the way, angels plead to be heard, but we pay little attention to them.
The protection of the masses has in all times been the pretense of tyranny - the plea of monarchy, of aristocracy, of special privilege of every kind. The slave owners justified slavery as protecting the slaves.
The soul is the perceiver and revealer of truth. We know truth when we see it, let skeptic and scoffer say what they choose. Foolish people ask you, when you have spoken what they do not wish to hear, 'How do you know it is truth, and not an error of your own?' We know truth when we see it, from opinion, as we know when we are awake that we are awake.
Christianity even when watered down is hot enough to boil all modern society to rags.
A purely mental life may be destructive if it leads us to substitute thought for life and ideas for actions. The activity proper to man is purely mental because man is not just a disembodied mind. Our destiny is to live out what we think, because unless we live what we know, we do not even know it. It is only by making our knowledge part of ourselves, through action, that we enter into the reality that is signified by our concepts.
Your state is not at all to be measured by the opposition that sin makes to you, but by the opposition you make to it.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.