Jasmine > Jasmine's Quotes

“Here is the point about myself and my co-thinkers. Our belief is not a belief. Our principles are not a faith.
We do not hold our convictions dogmatically. We believe with certainty that an ethical life can be lived without religion. And we know for a fact that the corollary holds true - that religion has caused innumerate people not just to conduct themselves no better than others, but to award themselves permission to behave in ways that would make a brothel-keeper or an ethnic cleanser raise an eyebrow.”
― Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything

“There can be no progress without head-on confrontation.”
― Christopher Hitchens, Love, Poverty, and War: Journeys and Essays

“Everyone is in favor of free speech. Hardly a day passes without its being extolled, but some people's idea of it is that they are free to say what they like, but if anyone else says anything back, that is an outrage.”
― Winston Churchill

“Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.”
― Daniel Patrick Moynihan

“The censor's sword pierces deeply into the heart of free expression.”
― Earl Warren

“Do not make the mistake of thinking that you have to agree with people and their beliefs to defend them from injustice.”
― Bryant McGill, Voice of Reason

“Goebbels was in favor of free speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you’re really in favor of free speech, then you’re in favor of freedom of speech for precisely the views you despise. Otherwise, you’re not in favor of free speech.”
― Noam Chomsky

“It is perfectly natural for the future woman to feel indignant at the limitations posed upon her by her sex. The real question is not why she should reject them: the problem is rather to understand why she accepts them.”
― Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex

“It is not in giving life but in risking life that man is raised above the animal; that is why superiority has been accorded in humanity no to the sex that brings forth but to that which kills.”
― Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex

“...counselling man to treat her as a slave while persuading her that she is a queen.”
― Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex

“The category of Other is as original as consciousness itself. The duality between Self and Other can be found in the most primitive societies, in the most ancient mythologies; the division did not always fall into the category of the division of the sexes (...) No group ever defines itself as One without immediately setting up the Other opposite itself. It only takes three travelers brought together by chance in the same train compartment for the rest of the travellers to become vaguely hostile 'others'. Village people view anyone not belonging to the village as suspicious 'others'. For the native of a country, inhabitants of other countries are viewed as 'foreigners'; Jews are the 'others' for anti-Semites, blacks for racist Americans, indigenous people for colonists, proletarians for the propertied classes.”
― Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex

“...her wings are cut and then she is blamed for not knowing how to fly.”
― Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex

“The process begins with the individual woman’s acceptance that American women, without exception, are socialized to be racist, classist and sexist, in varying degrees, and that labeling ourselves feminists does not change the fact that we must consciously work to rid ourselves of the legacy of negative socialization.”
― bell hooks, Ain't I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism

“It is obvious that many women have appropriated feminism to serve their own ends, especially those white women who have been at the forefront of the movement; but rather than resigning myself to this appropriation I choose to re-appropriate the term “feminism,” to focus on the fact that to be “feminist” in any authentic sense of the term is to want for all people, female and male, liberation from sexist role patterns, domination, and oppression.”
― bell hooks, Ain't I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism

“Feminism expects a man to be ethical, emotionally present, and accountable to his values in his actions with women — as well as with other men. Feminism loves men enough to expect them to act more honorably and actually believes them capable of doing so.”
― Michael Kimmel

“To be white, or straight, or male, or middle class is to be simultaneously ubiquitious and invisible. You’re everywhere you look, you’re the standard against which everyone else is measured. You’re like water, like air. People will tell you they went to see a “woman doctor” or they will say they went to see “the doctor.” People will tell you they have a “gay colleague” or they’ll tell you about a colleague. A white person will be happy to tell you about a “Black friend,” but when that same person simply mentions a “friend,” everyone will assume the person is white. Any college course that doesn’t have the word “woman” or “gay” or “minority” in its title is a course about men, heterosexuals, and white people. But we call those courses “literature,” “history” or “political science.”

This invisibility is political.”
― Michael S. Kimmel, Privilege: A Reader

“Radical simply means "grasping things at the root.”
― Angela Davis

“The idea of freedom is inspiring. But what does it mean? If you are free in a political sense but have no food, what's that? The freedom to starve?”
― Angela Y. Davis

“We have to talk about liberating minds as well as liberating society.”
― Angela Davis

“If they come for me in the morning, they will come for you in the night.”
― Angela Davis

“Sometimes we have to do the work even though we don't yet see a glimmer on the horizon that it's actually going to be possible.”
― Angela Y. Davis

“I try never to take myself for granted as somebody who should be out there speaking. Rather, I'm doing it only because I feel there's something important that needs to be conveyed.”
― Angela Davis

“What can we learn from women like Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday that we may not be able to learn from Ida B. Wells, Anna Julia Cooper, and Mary Church Terrell? If we were beginning to appreciate the blasphemies of fictionalized blues women - especially their outrageous politics of sexuality - and the knowledge that might be gleaned from their lives about the possibilities of transforming gender relations within black communities, perhaps we also could benefit from a look at the artistic contributions of the original blues women.”
― Angela Y. Davis

“Since the notion that we should all forsake attachment to race and/or cultural identity and be “just humans” within the framework of white supremacy has usually meant that subordinate groups must surrender their identities, beliefs, values, and assimilate by adopting the values and beliefs of privileged-class whites, rather than promoting racial harmony this thinking has created a fierce cultural protectionism.”
― bell hooks, Killing Rage: Ending Racism

“A vision of cultural homogeneity that seeks to deflect attention away from or even excuse the oppressive, dehumanizing impact of white supremacy on the lives of black people by suggesting black people are racist too indicates that the culture remains ignorant of what racism really is and how it works. It shows that people are in denial. Why is it so difficult for many white folks to understand that racism is oppressive not because white folks have prejudicial feelings about blacks (they could have such feelings and leave us alone) but because it is a system that promotes domination and subjugation?”
― bell hooks, Killing Rage: Ending Racism

“Politically progressive black people on the Left who are not nationalist, like myself, share a perspective that promotes the eradication of white supremacy, the de-centering of the West, redressing of biases, and commitment to affirming black self-determination. Yet we add to the critique of white Western imperialism a repudiation of patriarchy, a critique of capitalism, and a concern for interracial coalition building.”
― bell hooks, Killing Rage: Ending Racism

“Black progressives suffered major disillusionment with white progressives when our experiences of working with them revealed that they could want to be with us (even to be our sexual partners) without divesting of white supremacist thinking about blackness. We saw that they were often unable to let go the idea that whites are somehow better, smarter, more likely to be intellectuals, and even that they were kinder than black folks.”
― bell hooks, Killing Rage: Ending Racism