QuoteProject
The oppressor has always indoctrinated the weak with his interpretation of the crimes of the strong.
Carter G. Woodson
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

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.

Themes

OppressionIndoctrinationPowerNarrativePerception

In practice

Example use cases

A speech on social justice addressing how narratives shape societal perceptions.

More from Carter G. Woodson

I am not afraid of being sued by white businessmen. In fact, I should welcome such a law suit.
Carter G. WoodsonRead
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.
Carter G. WoodsonRead
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.
Carter G. WoodsonRead
Those who have no record of what their forebears have accomplished lose the inspiration which comes from the teaching of biography and history.
Carter G. WoodsonRead
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.
Carter G. WoodsonRead
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.
Carter G. WoodsonRead

Similar quotes

A man may have to die for our country: but no man must, in any exclusive sense, live for his country. He who surrenders himself without reservation to the temporal claims of a nation, or a party, or a class is rendering to Caesar that which, of all things, most emphatically belongs to God: himself.
C. S. LewisRead
Wrath, unlike love, is not one of the intrinsic perfections of God. Rather, it is a function of God's holiness against sin. Where there is no sin, there is no wrath-but there will always be love in God. Where God in His holiness confronts His image-bearers in their rebellion, there must be wrath, or God is not the jealous God He claims to be, and His holiness is impugned. The price of diluting God's wrath is diminishing God's holiness.
D. A. CarsonRead
All occasions invite His mercies, and all times are His seasons.
John DonneRead
Down to Gehenna, or up to the Throne, He travels the fastest who travels alone.
Rudyard KiplingRead
The workman of today works every day in his life at the same tasks, and this fate is no less absurd. But it is tragic only at the rare moments when it becomes conscious.
Albert CamusRead
There are two lives to each of us, the life of our actions, and the life of our minds and hearts. History reveals men's deeds and their outward characters, but not themselves. There is a secret self that has its own life, unpenetrated and unguessed.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1St Baron LyttonRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.