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

I like too many things and get all confused and hung-up running from one falling star to another till i drop. This is the night, what it does to you. I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion.
Jack KerouacRead
The goal of life is not to possess power but to radiate it.
Henry MillerRead
What was Aristotle’s life?’ Well, the answer lay in a single sentence: ‘He was born, he thought, he died.’ And all the rest is pure anecdote.
Martin HeideggerRead
The chief reason warfare is still with us is neither a secret death-wish of the human species, nor an irrepressible instinct of aggression, nor, finally and more plausibly, the serious economic and social dangers inherent in disarmament, but the simple fact that no substitute for this final arbiter in international affairs has yet appeared on the political scene.
Hannah ArendtRead
And if one of our instruments breaks, it doesn't matter. _x000D_ We have fallen into the place where everything is music.
RumiRead
I don't want to be labeled as either a pansy or a heterosexual. Labeling is so self-limiting. We are what we do - not what we say we are.
Montgomery CliftRead

A little wisdom, now and then

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