43 quotes
We take prisons for granted but are often afraid to face the realities they produce.
Are Prisons Obsolete? (2003)
It is both humiliating and humbling to discover that a single generation after the events that constructed me as a public personality, I am remembered as a hairdo.
Prisons do not disappear problems, they disappear human beings. And the practice of disappearing vast numbers of people from poor, immigrant and racially marginalized communities has literally become big business.
Masked Racism (1998)
Particularly in the United States, race has always played a central role in constructing presumptions of criminality.
Are Prisons Obsolete? (2003)
Palestine is a moral litmus test for the world
Birth control - individual choice, safe contraceptive methods, as well as abortions when necessary - is a fundamental prerequisite for the emancipation of women.
Women, Race and Class (1981)
It should be remembered that the ancestors of many of today's most ardent liberals could not have imagined life without slavery, life without lynching, life without segregation.
Are Prisons Obsolete? (2003)
Islamophobic violence is nurtured by histories of anti-black racist violence.
Freedom is a Constant Struggle: Closures and Continuities (2013)
The criminalization of black and Latina women includes persisting images of hypersexuality that serve to justify sexual assaults against them both in and outside of prison.
Are Prisons Obsolete? (2003)
Despite the important gains of antiracist social movements over the last half century, racism hides from view within institutional structures, and its most reliable refuge is the prison system.
Are Prisons Obsolete? (2003)
The American judicial system is bankrupt. In so far as black people are concerned, it has proven itself to be one more arm of a system carrying out the systematic oppression of our people. We are the victims, not the recipients of justice.
I am a Revolutionary Black Woman (1970)
Because we are so accustomed to talking about race in terms of black and white, we often fail to recognize and contest expressions of racism that target people of color who are not black.
Are Prisons Obsolete? (2003)
Although men constitute the vast majority of prisoners in the world, important aspects of the operation of state punishment are missed if it is assumed that women are marginal and thus undeserving of attention.
Are Prisons Obsolete? (2003)
The vicious circle linking poverty, police, courts and prison is an integral element of ghetto existence.
If They Come in The Morning (1971)
Progressive art can assist people to learn not only about the objective forces at work in the society in which they live, but also about the intensely social character of their interior lives. Ultimately, it can propel people toward social emancipation.
Where cultural representations do not reach out beyond themselves, there is the danger that they will function as the surrogates for activism, that they will constitute both the beginning and the end of political practice.
While jails and prisons have been dominant institutions for the control of men, mental institutions have served a similar purpose for women. That is, deviant men have been constructed as criminal, while deviant women have been constructed as insane.
Are Prisons Obsolete? (2003)
Most people don’t think about the fact that they’re eating animals. When they’re eating a steak or eating chicken, most people don’t think about the tremendous suffering that those animals endure simply to become food products to be consumed by human beings.
Top Five Black Celebrities Who Promote Veganism (2019)
I am not suggesting that the abolition of slavery and the lease system has produced an era of equality and justice. On the contrary, racism surreptitiously defines social and economic structures in ways that are difficult to identify and thus are much more damaging.
Are Prisons Obsolete? (2003)
Nat Turner and John Brown were political prisoners in their time. The acts for which they were charged and subsequently hanged, were the practical extensions of their profound commitment to the abolition of slavery.
If They Come in The Morning (1971)