I am not afraid of being sued by white businessmen. In fact, I should welcome such a law suit.
Carter G. WoodsonRead
The oppressor has always indoctrinated the weak with his interpretation of the crimes of the strong.
Interpretation
This quote highlights how those in power manipulate narratives to control the perceptions of the vulnerable.
Carter G. Woodson’s quote reflects the idea that oppressors often shape the beliefs and understandings of those they dominate, persuading the weaker individuals to accept a skewed perspective on the actions of the powerful. This manipulation serves to reinforce the oppressors' control, as the weak may internalize these interpretations and feel disempowered or misled about their own circumstances and the nature of their oppression.
In practice
A speech on social justice addressing how narratives shape societal perceptions.
I am not afraid of being sued by white businessmen. In fact, I should welcome such a law suit.
If Liberia has failed, then, it is no evidence of the failure of the Negro in government. It is merely evidence of the failure of slavery.
If the Negroes are to remain forever removed from the producing atmosphere, and the present discrimination continues, there will be nothing left for them to do.
Those who have no record of what their forebears have accomplished lose the inspiration which comes from the teaching of biography and history.
The different ness of races, moreover, is no evidence of superiority or of inferiority. This merely indicates that each race has certain gifts which the others do not possess.
This assumption of Negro leadership in the ghetto, then, must not be confined to matters of religion, education, and social uplift; it must deal with such fundamental forces in life as make these things possible.
Even an entire society, a nation, or all simultaneously existing societies taken together, are not owners of the earth. They are simply its possessors, its beneficiaries, and have to bequeath it in an improved state to succeeding generations.
Taking the kids from our districts, forcing them to kill one another while we watch – this is the Capitol’s way of reminding us how totally we are at their mercy. How little chance we would stand of surviving another rebellion. Whatever words they use, the real message is clear. “Look how we take your children and sacrifice them and there’s nothing you can do. If you lift a finger, we will destroy every last one of you. Just as we did in District Thirteen
They've got something they do it with, I think it's called a mocracy, and it means everyone in the whole country can say who the new Tyrant is. One man ... one vet. ... Everyone has ... the vet. Except for women, of course. And children. And criminals. And slaves. And stupid people. And people of foreign extraction. And people disapproved of for, er, various reasons. And lots of other people. But everyone apart from them. It's a very enlightened civilization.
Although our intellect always longs for clarity and certainty, our nature often finds uncertainty fascinating.
Many words and expressions which only a matter of decades ago were considered so distastefully explicit that, were they merely to be breathed in public, the perpetrator would be shunned, barred from polite society, and in extreme cases shot through the lungs, are now thought to be very healthy and proper, and their use in everyday speech and writing is evidence of a well-adjusted, relaxed and totally un****ed-up personality.
The color of his pallor, however, was a curiously basic white - unmixed, that is, with the greens and yellows of guilt or abject contrition. It was very like the standard bloodlessness in the face of a small boy who loves animals to distraction, all animals, and who has just seen his favourite, bunny-loving sister's expression as she opened the box containing his birthday present to her - a freshly caught young cobra, with a red ribbon tied in an awkward bow around its neck.
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