Animals can communicate quite well. And they do. And generally speaking, they are ignored
Alice WalkerRead
If you deny people their own voice, you'll have no idea of who they were.
Interpretation
Denying individuals the opportunity to express themselves leads to a loss of understanding their true identities.
Alice Walker's quote emphasizes the importance of listening to others and recognizing their individuality. When we suppress or ignore peopleβs voices, we not only diminish their worth but also lose the chance to understand their experiences, thoughts, and emotions that shape their identities.
In practice
In a discussion about social justice, one could use this quote to emphasize the importance of allowing marginalized voices to be heard.
Animals can communicate quite well. And they do. And generally speaking, they are ignored
June Jordan, who died of cancer in 2002, was a brilliant, fierce, radical, and frequently furious poet. We were friends for thirty years. Not once in that time did she step back from what was transpiring politically and morally in the world. She spoke up, and led her students, whom she adored, to do the same.
On a spiritual level, it's as though with my sighted eye I see what's before me, and with my unsighted eye I see what's hidden. It's illuminated life more than darkened it.
I think 'The Color Purple' is so bursting with love, the need for connection, the showing of the need for connection around the globe.
How long will it take the citizens of the United States, one wonders, to recognize that the house their country bombed in Iraq is the same one they were living in until it was foreclosed?
One white man on the platform in South Carolina asked us where we were going--we had got off the train to get some fresh air and to dust the grit and dust out of our clothes. When we said Africa he looked offended and tickled too. Niggers going to Africa, he said to his wife. Now I have seen everything.
Almost every man wastes part of his life attempting to display qualities which he does not possess.
The lack of wealth is easily repaired but the poverty of the soul is irreplaceable.
I don't argue with my enemies; I explain to their children.
'Think simple' as my old master used to say - meaning reduce the whole of its parts into the simplest terms, getting back to first principles.
Do not overlook tiny good actions, thinking they are of no benefit; even tiny drops of water in the end will fill a huge vessel. Do not overlook negative actions merely because they are small; however small a spark may be, it can burn down a haystack as big as a mountain.
Our business in life is not to succeed, but to continue to fail in good spirits.
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