Pedagogy of the Oppressed: 50th Anniversary Edition

by Paulo Freire

The almost total lack of public outcry in the United States regarding the censorship of books and the heisting of language that names reality in order to contest oppression “may prove to be the keystone of our undoing.”28

Thus, the pseudo-critical educators who proclaim the need to “give” people of color or women a voice, fail to realize that voice is not a gift. It is a democratic right. It is a human right.

Never in history has violence been initiated by the oppressed. How could they be the initiators, if they themselves are the result of violence?

They talk about the people, but they do not trust them; and trusting the people is the indispensable precondition for revolutionary change. A real humanist can be identified more by his trust in the people, which engages him in their struggle, than by a thousand actions in their favor without that trust.

Attempting to liberate the oppressed without their reflective participation in the act of liberation is to treat them as objects which must be saved from a burning building; it is to lead them into the populist pitfall and transform them into masses which can be manipulated.