Quotes on Oppressors

Freedom has nothing to do with having the right to vote for your oppressor; freedom is not having any form of oppression.

We have a common enemy. We have this in common: We have a common oppressor, a common exploiter, and a common discriminator. But once we all realize that we have this common enemy, then we unite on the basis of what we have in common. And what we have foremost in common is that enemy - the white man. He's an enemy to all of us. I know some of you all think that some of them aren't enemies. Time will tell.

Who Rebels? Who rises in arms? Rarely the slave, but almost always the oppressor turned slave.

Oppressors can tyrannize only when they achieve a standing army, an enslaved press, and a disarmed populace.

Dehumanization, although a concrete historical fact, is not a given destiny but the result of an unjust order that engenders violence in the oppressors, which in turn dehumanizes the oppressed

A freedom fighter learns the hard way that it is the oppressor who defines the nature of the struggle,and the oppressed is often left no recourse but to use methods that mirror those of the oppressor.At a point, one can only fight fire with fire

The oppressed, having internalized the image of the oppressor and adopted his guidelines, are fearful of freedom.

Every revolutionary ends up either by becoming an oppressor or a heretic.

Power in the hands of the reformer is no less potentially corrupting than in the hands of the oppressor.

It is necessary to remember, as we think critically about domination, that we all have the capacity to act in ways that oppress, dominate, wound (whether or not that power is institutionalized). It is necessary to remember that it is first the potential oppressor within that we must resist – the potential victim within that we must rescue – otherwise we cannot hope for an end to domination, for liberation.

Very few men imprisoned for economic crimes or even crimes of passion against the oppressor feel that they are really guilty.

In the long run, the oppressor is also a victim. In the short run (and so far, human history has consisted only of short runs), the victims, themselves desperate and tainted with the culture that oppresses them, turn on other victims.

Even revolution, which transforms a concrete situation of oppression by establishing the process of liberation, must confront this phenomenon. Many of the oppressed who directly or indirectly participate in revolution intend - conditioned by the myths of the old order - to make it their private revolution. The shadow of their former oppressor is still cast over them.

Beware of the words "internal security," for they are the eternal cry of the oppressor.