At times I think the truest image of God today is a black inner-city grandmother in the United States or a mother of the disappeared in Argentina or the women who wake up early to make tortillas in refugee camps. They all weep for their children, and in their compassionate tears arises the political action that changes the world. The mothers show us that it is the experience of touching the pain of others that is the key to change.

We used to watch my father, who was a civil-rights activist, get arrested on TV sometimes, and we never knew if he was going to be home for dinner.

It was times like these when I thought my father, who hated guns and had never been to any wars, was the bravest man who ever lived.

The thing that hurts, that became anger, was when I realized that if you tell the truth, in a country that says you’re entitled to tell the truth, you get your face slapped and you get put out of work.

Every woman who has come to consciousness can recall an almost endless series of oppressive, violating, insulting, assaulting acts against her Self. Every woman is battered by such assaults - is on a psychic level, a battered woman.

There is so much history of this racist violence that simply to bring one person to justice is not going to disturb the whole racist edifice.