Uninformed and yet open to appeals for justice as they are, Americans are capable of reacting as they did to the ANC campaign against apartheid, which finally changed the balance of forces inside South Africa.
Interpretation
Americans, despite their lack of information, can be moved to support justice campaigns, such as the one against apartheid.
In this quote, Edward Said highlights the potential for uninformed individuals, particularly Americans, to still engage deeply with and support social justice movements. He specifically references how the American public responded to the African National Congress's fight against apartheid, suggesting that such engagement can lead to significant change in oppressive regimes.
In practice
During a speech on human rights, one could use this quote to emphasize the power of public opinion in driving social change.
All knowledge that is about human society, and not about the natural world, is historical knowledge, and therefore rests upon judgment and interpretation. This is not to say that facts or data are nonexistent, but that facts get their importance from what is made of them in interpretation… for interpretations depend very much on who the interpreter is, who he or she is addressing, what his or her purpose is, at what historical moment the interpretation takes place.
Refuse to allow yourself to become a vegetable that simply absorbs information, pre-packaged, pre-ideologized , because no message.. is anything but an ideological package that has gone through a kind of processing.
Since the time of Homer every European, in what he could say about the Orient, was a racist, an imperialist, and almost totally ethnocentric.
Much as I have no wish to hurt anyone's feelings, my first obligation has not been to be nice but to be true to my perhaps peculiar memories, experiences and feelings.
It is quite common to hear high officials in Washington and elsewhere speak of changing the map of the Middle East, as if ancient societies and myriad peoples can be shaken up like so many peanuts in a jar.
Theory is taught so as to make the student believe that he or she can become a Marxist, a feminist, an Afrocentrist, or a deconstructionist with about the same effort and commitment required in choosing items from a menu.
Justice is not cheap. Justice is not quick. It is not ever finally achieved.
You white folks have long been eating the white meat of the chicken. We Negroes are now ready for some of the white meat instead of the dark meat.
Every American has the duty to obey the law and the right to expect that the law will be enforced.
Wrongful convictions happen every week in every state in this country. And they happen for all the same reasons. Sloppy police work. Eyewitness identification is the most - is the worst type almost. Because it's wrong about half the time. Think about that.
We ask for nothing that is not ours by right, and herein lies the great moral power of our demand.
The opposite of poverty is not wealth. I don't believe that. I actually think, in too many places, the opposite of poverty is justice.
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