#slavery

We have inherited a fear of memories of slavery. It is as if to remember and acknowledge slavery would amount to our being consumed by it. As a matter of fact, in the popular black imagination, it is easier for us to construct ourselves as children of Africa, as the sons and daughters of kings and queens, and thereby ignore the Middle Passage and centuries of enforced servitude in the Americas. Although some of us might indeed be the descendants of African royalty, most of us are probably descendants of their subjects, the daughters and sons of African peasants or workers. ↗

— Angela Y. Davis

#denial #history #memory #slavery #imagination

All people are enslaved by something. ↗

— Dejan Stojanovic

#literature #literature-quotes #people #poetry #poetry-quotes

To be given dominion over another is a hard thing; to wrest dominion over another is a wrong thing; to give dominion of yourself to another is a wicked thing. ↗

— Toni Morrison

#slavery #freedom

If you believe in GOD you should never fear death. If human fears death then hill be easily enslaved. ↗

— Nadair Desmar

#death

Reaching too deep into something not meant for you is full of pain. Figure out what you can have and work on that ↗

— Lalita Tademy

#hardness #lalita-tademy #life #slavery #life

I’ll let you see the door is open, so you know I’m open to the idea that you can leave anytime you want. So long as you are able to pick the lock on your handcuffs while you are blindfolded.
 ↗

— Jarod Kintz

#captive #choice #decision #door #freedom

In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. ↗

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

#freedom #slavery #food

In modern states, the citizen is politically impotent. A citizen, it is true, may complain, make suggestions, or cause disruptions, but in the ancient world these were privileges that belonged to any slave. ↗

— Mark Mirabello

#freedom #slavery #freedom

She didn't tell him white folks couldn't love the same as coloreds. She couldn't love the same neither though, cuz more than half of her was white. ↗

— Shannon Celebi

#colored #race #race-america #race-relations #racism

Debt Chauffeur, that's my name for him now, wants to marry me. He asked me down on bended knee, and I would have been honored - except he wants us to live in London, and he wants me to live white. I crowed at that. I laughed so hard and not a tear came. He couldn't understand it. I don't often think on how white I look; it's always been a question of how colored I feel, and I feel plenty colored. He said that no one in London will know that I'm supposed to be colored. And I said I am colored, colored black, the way I talk, the way I cook, the way I do most everything, and he said but you don't have to be. ↗

— Alice Randall

#born-into-slavery #marriage-proposal #mulatto #the-wind-done-gone #marriage