We Are Not Here to Be Bystanders Quotes

“What are the tyrannies you swallow day by day and attempt to make your own, until you will sicken and die of them, still in silence? … The fact that we are here and that I speak these words is an attempt to break that silence and bridge some of those differences between us, for it is not difference which immobilizes us, but silence. And there are so many silences to be broken. —Audre Lorde, author and revolutionary feminist”
― Linda Sarsour, We Are Not Here to Be Bystanders: A Memoir of Love and Resistance

“At thirteen years old, I knew our whole story, but how do you take someone, especially a middle school kid, down a path of military occupation to explain why he's never heard of your country? How do you tell an eighth grader that the reason he never read about your homeland in the school's history books is because your people's land was stolen in a war in 1948, the year your father was born, the same year Israel declared independence and expelled 750,000 Palestinians from their homes, barring them from returning?”
― Linda Sarsour, We Are Not Here to Be Bystanders: A Memoir of Love and Resistance

“Among them were Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, the first Muslim women ever elected to the House. Rashida’s and Ilhan’s victories were more than symbolic for me, as I counted both women as dear friends. Not only had I witnessed their trials and watched them triumph, but the fact that Ilhan wore a hijab while Rashida did not was, for me, a beautiful expression of the independence and diversity of Muslim women. African American women, Latina women, and Native American women also won big on election night, most of them running on progressive platforms calling for health care for all, tuition-free college education, environmental protections, gun law reforms, and a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants and refugees.”
― Linda Sarsour, We Are Not Here to Be Bystanders: A Memoir of Love and Resistance

“a historic political upset in the Michigan Democratic primary in March 2016. Even though Sanders had been down twenty points in the polls, he eked out a victory over Clinton in the state that was home to the largest population of Arab Americans in the country.2 Without a doubt, Muslims gave him the edge. I had predicted before the primary that Sanders would”
― Linda Sarsour, We Are Not Here to Be Bystanders: A Memoir of Love and Resistance

“Of course you know the answer. You Muslims are good at math because you need to know how to make bombs.” Reading this, and the rest of my son’s essay, tore my heart. Even at thirteen years old in a math classroom in one of the most diverse cities on earth, my son faced hostility simply because of the family into which he was born. So much of my life was spent working to combat Islamophobia and raise awareness about its impact on”
― Linda Sarsour, We Are Not Here to Be Bystanders: A Memoir of Love and Resistance

“Years later, I would understand that the very presence of police officers in schools escalates the criminalization of students, and in particular students of color, with Black students three times more likely to be suspended or expelled for the same behaviors as white students.”
― Linda Sarsour, We Are Not Here to Be Bystanders: A Memoir of Love and Resistance