QuoteProject
Slavery is something that is all too often swept under the carpet. The shame doesn't even belong to us, but we still experience it because we're a part of the African race. If it happened to one, it happened to all. We carry that burden.
Lupita Nyong'O
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

The quote emphasizes the collective burden of slavery and its lasting impact on the African race.

Lupita Nyong'o highlights the ongoing effects of slavery that extend beyond the historical context, affecting the identity and collective consciousness of individuals within the African race. She asserts that the shame associated with it is not theirs to bear alone, yet it still influences their lives, fostering a sense of shared responsibility and resilience in confronting this legacy.

Themes

SlaveryBurdenShameRaceIdentity

In practice

Example use cases

This quote can be used in discussions during educational seminars about the history of slavery.

More from Lupita Nyong'O

My immediate family was always very supportive. It was my own fear of the rest of the world not accepting me, the rest of our society not accepting my wish to be an actor.
Lupita Nyong'ORead
[My mother] always said I was beautiful and I finally believed her at some point.
Lupita Nyong'ORead
What is fundamentally beautiful is compassion: for yourself and for those around you.
Lupita Nyong'ORead
That you will feel the validation of your external beauty but also get to the deeper business of being beautiful inside. There is no shade in that beauty.
Lupita Nyong'ORead
As human beings, we aren't as individual as we'd like to believe we are. And I think that's what makes acting possible. Despite the fact that I have not experienced something, I have it in my human capacity to imagine it and to put myself in someone else's shoes, and to take someone else's circumstances personally.
Lupita Nyong'ORead
I've loved the opportunity to learn about the fashion world and appreciate it as an art form, and I look forward to my continued education, but I never want it to take over my acting.
Lupita Nyong'ORead

Similar quotes

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.
Eartha KittRead
I am certainly not a martyr kind of a person. I love my life. But if one has to, then there is nothing more nobler a cause that I can think of.
Asma JahangirRead
If you are lucky enough to never experience any sort of adversity, we won't know how resilient you are. It's only when you're faced with obstacles, stress, and other environmental threats that resilience, or the lack of it, emerges: Do you succumb or do you surmount?
Maria KonnikovaRead
But to the fighting soldier that phase of the war is behind. It was left behind after his first battle. His blood is up. He is fighting for his life, and killing now for him is as much a profession as writing is for me.
Ernie PyleRead
Difficulties are made to be overcome ~ Miss Felicity Lemon, Agatha Christie's Poirot: The Plymouth Express
Agatha ChristieRead
Come you masters of war You that build all the guns You that build the death planes You that build the big bombs You that hide behind walls You that hide behind desks I just want you to know I can see through your masks.
Bob DylanRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.