#oppressed

I am willing to admit that if the agriculturists are oppressed by peculiar burdens, they ought to be relieved from them, or be allowed a fair and just protection equivalent to all such peculiar burdens. ↗

— Joseph Hume

#allowed #am #burdens #equivalent #fair

Humour is the weapon of unarmed people: it helps people who are oppressed to smile at the situation that pains them. ↗

— Simon Wiesenthal

#helps #humour #oppressed #pains #people

Underlying the attack on psychotherapy, I believe, is a recognition of the potential power of any relationship of witnessing. The consulting room is a privileged space dedicated to memory. Within that space, survivors gain the freedom to know and tell their stories. Even the most private and confidential disclosure of past abuses increases the likelihood of eventual public disclosure. And public disclosure is something that perpetrators are determined to prevent. As in the case of more overtly political crimes, perpetrators will fight tenaciously to ensure that their abuses remain unseen, unacknowledged, and consigned to oblivion. The dialectic of trauma is playing itself out once again. It is worth remembering that this is not the first time in history that those who have listened closely to trauma survivors have been subject to challenge. Nor will it be the last. In the past few years, many clinicians have had to learn to deal with the same tactics of harassment and intimidation that grassroots advocates for women, children and other oppressed groups have long endured. We, the bystanders, have had to look within ourselves to find some small portion of the courage that victims of violence must muster every day. Some attacks have been downright silly; many have been quite ugly. Though frightening, these attacks are an implicit tribute to the power of the healing relationship. They remind us that creating a protected space where survivors can speak their truth is an act of liberation. They remind us that bearing witness, even within the confines of that sanctuary, is an act of solidarity. They remind us also that moral neutrality in the conflict between victim and perpetrator is not an option. Like all other bystanders, therapists are sometimes forced to take sides. Those who stand with the victim will inevitably have to face the perpetrator's unmasked fury. For many of us, there can be no greater honor. p.246 - 247 Judith Lewis Herman, M.D. February, 1997 ↗

— Judith Lewis Herman

#abuse-of-power #abused-women #attacks #bravery #courage

Let's put one lie to rest for all time: the lie that men are oppressed, too, by sexism-the lie that there can be such a thing as men's liberation groups. ↗

— Robin Morgan

#liberation #lie #men #oppressed #put

The Bible has been the Magna Carta of the poor and of the oppressed. ↗

— Thomas Huxley

#bible #magna #oppressed #poor

A major problem for Black women, and all people of color, when we are challenged to oppose anti-Semitism, is our profound scepticism that white people can actually be oppressed. ↗

— Barbara Smith

#anti-semitism #black #challenged #color #major

The most potent weapon of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed. ↗

— Steven Biko

#most #oppressed #oppressor #potent #weapon

Hundreds of thousands of American servicemen and women are deployed across the world in the war on terror. By bringing hope to the oppressed, and delivering justice to the violent, they are making America more secure. ↗

— George W. Bush

#america #american #bringing #delivering #deployed

For centuries, the world has heard the oppressed, the downtrodden and the vulnerable cry out for their freedoms, for their rights and for a chance to emerge from the shadows of the tyranny and bloodshed that they had lived with. ↗

— Ginny B. Waite

#centuries #chance #cry #emerge #freedoms

Truth is on the side of the oppressed. ↗

— Malcolm X

#side #truth #truth is