When you go through all your life processing and abusing your hair so it will look like the hair of another race of people then you are making a statement and the statement is clear
Assata ShakurRead
Only the strong go crazy. The weak just go along.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that only those with strength and passion react intensely to societal pressures, while the weak remain complacent.
Assata Shakur's quote highlights the dichotomy between strength and weakness in facing societal norms and expectations. It implies that true strength often leads individuals to question and challenge the status quo, potentially leading to intense emotional turmoil, while those who lack such strength may choose to conform and follow the crowd, thereby avoiding confrontation with difficult truths or unjust realities.
In practice
In a speech about social justice, one might use this quote to inspire action.
When you go through all your life processing and abusing your hair so it will look like the hair of another race of people then you are making a statement and the statement is clear
Part of being a revolutionary is creating a vision that is more humane. That is more fun, too. That is more loving. It's really working to create something beautiful.
We had to learn that we're beautiful. We had to relearn something forcefully taken from us. We had to learn about Black power. People have power if we unite. We learned the importance of coming together and being active
I was sentenced to life plus 30 years by an all-White jury. What I saw in prison was wall-to-wall Black flesh in chains. Women caged in cells. But we're the terrorists. It just doesn't make sense.
My life wasn't beautiful and creative before I became politically active. My life was totally changed when I began to struggle.
Peace is a rare gift. Peace of mind, peaceful sleeps, and peaceful spirits are all luxuries that few rebels can ever afford.
A warrior is not a person that carries a gun. The biggest war you ever go through is right between your own ears. It's in your mind. We're all going through a war in our mind, and we have to callus our mind to fight that war and to win that war.
Have we the means of resisting disciplined armies, when our only defense, the militia, is put in the hands of Congress? Of what service would militia be to you when, most probably, you will not have a single musket in the state? For, as arms are to be provided by Congress, they may or may not provide them.
I like to think of Everest as a great mountaineering challenge, and when you've got people just streaming up the mountain - well, many of them are just climbing it to get their name in the paper, really.
I ran for the presidency, despite hopeless odds, to demonstrate the sheer will and refusal to accept the status quo.
Three hundred years of humiliation, abuse and deprivation cannot be expected to find voice in a whisper.
Braving obstacles and hardships is braver than retreat to tranquility.
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