Extra Quotes:
A curated collection of quotes from the George Floyd Uprising in Seattle,
Minneapolis, and Louisville + The Line 3 Fight + Civil Rights Leaders + Beyond…
“It is our duty to fight for our freedom.
It is our duty to win.
We must love each other and support each other.
We have nothing to lose but our chains.”
Assata Shakur, (July 16, 1947 - Present, Living in Cuba and wanted by the pigs) A chant I heard closing out almost every protest in Minneapolis.
"Get in good trouble, necessary trouble, and help redeem the soul of America."
"Daddy changed the world!"
June 2, 2020 - Gianna Floyd (December 16, 2013 - Present)
"[This is] not a unity party." + “There can be no black-white unity until there is first some black unity.”
"It is the rule in war, if ten times the enemy’s strength, surround them; if five times, attack them; if double, be able to divide them; if equal, engage them; if fewer, be able to evade them; if weaker, be able to avoid them"
“This thing is all about people…It has got to be people dealing with people.” + “Far more important to be respectful than to be liked.”
“I do not trust people who don't love themselves and yet tell me, 'I love you.' There is an African saying which is: Be careful when a naked person offers you a shirt.” + “Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try to understand each other, we may even become friends.”
“Where there’s People there’s Power!”
“The roles should be completely reversed. My son should be burying me”
“I think I’ve been quiet for too long… All this protesting shit… Y’all still…coming with your’all hands up saying y’all surrender beggin for your freedom.” + “...or a race war, I’m the ace card.”
“I don’t understand, but I stand.” + “You protested because it was trendy and ‘everyone was doing it’ I protest because people are out here dying!! I promise you we are NOT the same” + “IF WE DONT GET IT, SHUT IT DOWN!!!”
“Honor the Treaties” + “We are here to protect the water…” + “We are here to defend the sacred…” + “STOP LINE 3”
“Until the Lion tells his tale, the hunt will always glorify the hunter.”
"We say you don't fight racism with racism. We're gonna fight racism with solidarity.” + “We understood that politics is nothing but war without bloodshed and war is nothing but politics with bloodshed.”
“Be trans affirming, be queer affirming, be BIPOC affirming, and we gonna be alright.”
“If you have come to help me you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.”
“If you are silent about your pain, they’ll kill you and say you enjoyed it.”
Chief Seattle, Now we live in the street. Now the street is our home.
“Violence as a way of achieving racial justice is both impractical and immoral. It is impractical because it is a descending spiral ending in destruction for all. The old law of an eye for an eye leaves everybody blind. It is immoral because it seeks to humiliate the opponent rather than to convert. Violence is immoral because it thrives on hatred rather than love. It destroys community and makes brotherhood impossible. It leaves society in monologue rather than dialogue. Violence ends by defeating itself. It creates bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers.” + Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man, but you refuse to hate him. + “Those who love peace must learn to organize as effectively as those who love war.”
“I think white people get too much sleep.”
The barricades don’t make us safe or help us hold space. People do. (paraphrased)
“They have a brother [Leonard Peltier] in their for 47 years just because he wanted to do something for our people.” + “The cops here want you” + “The cop said, ‘We’ll get you we’re relentless’” + “It is always a gang mentality” + “I am ashamed of Seattle Police” + “It’s 2022, and I’m still getting racial things about John.” + “thousands and thousands of people like the drama of police shootings” (2017) + “Nightmares every night” + “This man murder John T. Williams today the 2nd time non native threaten my son with a gun again spd not care come help” (IG post) + Be nonviolent, because then there is hope. + They [Black organizers] wanted me to talk about them, so I left. I told people we are all native. (paraphrased)
Find ways to attack the money. That is what you do in capitalism. Attack the unions, the pensions, attack the insurance companies. (paraphrased)
A revolutionary is a professional, so you must be a professional revolutionary.
“...the kind of struggling I was exposed to…in the 60s was the kind of real revolutionaries: we must sacrifice, struggle, die if necessary, give our lives for the revolution. But, in terms of knowing each other, in terms of supportive relationships with each other, in terms of just talking about our families, talking about our backgrounds, talking about our personal problems, that was kind of shoved to the background.”
“The other side ain’t waiting, they are executing.”
“People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.”
“Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.”
“If we desire a society of peace, then we cannot achieve such a society through violence. If we desire a society without discrimination, then we must not discriminate against anyone in the process of building this society. If we desire a society that is democratic, then democracy must become a means as well as an end.”
“There is no life to be found in violence. Every act of violence brings us closer to death. Whether it's the mundane violence we do to our bodies by overeating toxic food or drink or the extreme violence of child abuse, domestic warfare, life-threatening poverty, addiction, or state terrorism.”
“Government is an association of men who do violence to the rest of us.”
“Keep in mind, when two enemies are talking, they're not fighting, they're talking. They might be yelling and screaming, but at least they're talking. It's when the talking ceases that the ground becomes fertile for violence.”
“Violence is one of the most fun things to watch.”
“We've never advocated violence; violence is inflicted upon us. But we do believe in self-defense for ourselves and for Black people.”
“Violence can only be concealed by a lie, and the lie can only be maintained by violence.”
“We fear violence less than our own feelings. Personal, private, solitary pain is more terrifying than what anyone else can inflict.”
“A fascist is one whose lust for money or power is combined with such an intensity of intolerance toward those of other races, parties, classes, religions, cultures, regions or nations as to make him ruthless in his use of deceit or violence to attain his ends.”
“There is no escape - we pay for the violence of our ancestors.”
“In addition to needed gun control reforms, America urgently needs a stronger protest movement dedicated to reducing the glorification of violence in our culture - in music, film, television, video games, and even the Internet.”
“Violence is a part of America. I don't want to single out rap music. Let's be honest. America's the most violent country in the history of the world, that's just the way it is. We're all affected by it.”
“You know we’re Oglalas… For some reason they are always wanting to punish us the worst, but like I said we’re the nations that beat them in battle there is never another nation to beat them in battle. So of course, they want to see the Oglala dead and gone, but here we are today. You know there is no way they can get rid of the fiercest warrior tribe of this continent. This is our continent. So when they say: we are dying off, we are extinct, to me that is BS. We’re flourishing, we’re growing, but see it is the outside society that’s the fat-taker mentality that wants the world to believe that we are a myth. One day they hope to say, ‘Oooooooh, the myth of the Indian.’ You know they probably already do say that. But For us we say the age of the drunken, bent-over Indian is over. Watch out. Join or get the hell out of the way.” + “As a kid, I always heard the stories from my mother because as I mentioned before she went, she went to Lebana. I think it was really important for my mom’s mentality. It was good for her because whatever she saw there she brought it back, and I think it was the fighting warrior spirit of those people. How she explained it. How she talked about it. How it was just,‘They don’t give a shit. They ain’t scared.’” + “The armed struggle of Lebana at that time for me it is like unthinkable. That would be like me standing at the Rez line using a bazooka to blow up the first [car]. Here we can’t imagine that. You know our generation don’t know it. Our parent’s generation with Wounded Knee, they know it, but our generation we’ve never experienced it. But, it won’t be too long before that happens. If the water war begins, lives will be taken.” + “For us as young Tokalas, we don’t want to be stuck in the waiting process, waiting for a handout, waiting for something to come our wait, waiting, waiting… That’s what fat-taker did. He trains us to wait. Trained us to stand in line. Train us to just be the drunken Indian, but not anymore.” + “I grew up hearing my mom say, ‘Fuck the feds. Don’t you ever trust one. Don’t you ever talk to one.’ You know I heard that over and over and over. Fuck the feds. Because I do it from my heart and I do it for my nation. No fear. No fear that anyone can shame me. Nobody can. You know I am a Lakota with roots so deep in this earth that they go to creation.”
“I call for a march from exploitation to education, from poverty to shared prosperity, a march from slavery to liberty, and a march from violence to peace.”
“Jim Crow laws stripped blacks of basic rights. Despite landmark civil rights laws, many public schools were still segregated, blacks still faced barriers to voting, and violence by white racists continued. Such open racism is mostly gone in America, but covert racism is alive and well.”
"The woman power of this nation can be the power which makes us whole and heals the rotten community, now so shattered by war and poverty and racism. I have great faith in the power of women who will dedicate themselves whole-heartedly to the task of remaking our society."
“...we can’t afford to leave any power on the table. We have to exercise every bit of power that we have at every opportunity.” + “Just you sitting there makes them perform in a different way.” + “But what is being required of us at this moment is more.” + “We have some real problems in this country that are deep and structural and that have to be confronted with the truth of who we are.”
“White people have to give up whiteness”
“I don’t want to be rich if that makes me more indifferent to my precious Jamal and Latisha suffering in the hood.”
“It’s my perspective Black people are in a trauma trance.”
“Black love is collective love.” + “...our ancestors were assisted by Indigenous people.” + “And the aesthetic is always so important” + “...singing created a dimension that transcended the violence and oppression”
“We are worth more than anything.”
“We have to live everyday for Liberation.” + “We are the people we are waiting for.” + “We need to make issues more complicated than we have.” + “We are not asking the other question.”
"Any show of defiance without getting captured or killed is great for the resistance."
"The ideal situation for a false democracy is to have frequent ineffective protests that give the illusion that dissent is tolerated while discouraging any tactics that might actually change the legal regime.”
“...the most dangerous place for Black people to live is in white people’s imagination.”
Settle things outside the group. Focus on the pipeline. (paraphrased) + We have to have publicity. (paraphrased)
“We all have gifts. We all have something to bring to the table.” + “They stripped our voices and plugged their ears.” + “We can’t necessarily slow down into our policies and politicians.…We need to keep hammering at them.” + “I don’t idle I just switch gears. I don’t think I will Idle no more.” + I was told as a child that the clean water act would help. (paraphrased) + “Those that were part of [the live protests] stayed there.” + “[What was most shocking was] the abuse by the people that are supposed to protect and serve us.” + “[We could feel that we were] pushing back on their energy with our energy.”
“Aquifers were damaged [horribly], but never reported.” + “You feel the responsibility of protecting your ceremonies in your soul.” + We were outmanned and out financed. They would tear us apart. Send people to intimidate us and wear people down. (paraphrase)
“This is for Global Peace.” + “And there were [line 93 MMIW] victims and we know this.” + They broke my finger and tased me. They tased another Indigenous Woman. Indigenous Women were treated much differently than white protesters. (paraphrased) + We need to prioritize our own healing and prioritize our communities. (paraphrase) + When Line 3 was being put in, water became trading on wall street. (paraphrase) + We never needed oil. The 1941 Ford was first produced to run on hemp fuel and made out of hemp plastic. (paraphrased)
I see [another protester] as someone who wants to participate, but doesn't want to do the dishes. This [work right here] is doing the dishes. (paraphrased)
- Protester
I had all the white bodies helping me, it was great! (paraphrased)
“Life without liberty is like a body without spirit.”
“Yet and yet again we find ourselves in the same exact situation. That’s largely due to the fact that a lot of actions and of the things that have been done are performative and only do lip service for our communities.” + “A charade has been put on a national stage…” + “[The officers] made the decision to kill, to murder, and to lynch Donnell Rochester that’s the fact; that’s what it is. Also what the opposition is counting on is we as Black people to not open up our mouths because Donnell was gay… and there is a certain amount of homophobia the Black community has been plagued with that is actually a direct result of slavery.”
“I give us all grace and mercy. I am not going to account that people are intentionally being performative.” + “...America, this country, the Supreme Court, the Senate, the House, the President of the United States, the bureaucracy, like all the branches of the security, every police force from the first state of Delaware to the 50th state of Hawaii is racist.” + “It is very easy for us to see upward mobility and say wow look at the progression.” + “I [firmly or fairly] believe that the spirit we are in now is war and these are tactical: every battle, every loss, every protest is a battle…”
“Mississippi is like a desert of racism” + “We have strong kkk group that’s all.” + “They don’t wear capes and suits anymore; maybe overalls.” + “We always take armed security…and that’s only for protection.” + “There are a lot of unsolved murders that have happened in Brookhaven [Mississippi]” + [The shooters] didn’t go to jail until 8 days later. That’s when we found out [about the shooting]. They took the victim back to the scene and asked the victim to pick up shells to contaminate evidence. (paraphrased) + [After protesting] they are coming out of their shell now. The Black Community is getting to speak their side of the story. (paraphrased)
“You mean to tell me we can’t lock him up for nothing?!” + “This punk tried to assassinate my character.” + “Ummmm ummm you not safe, no sir” + “They said I’d seen you on TV and threw me in the hole. They was mad” + If you don’t stand for something you’ll fall for anything. Don’t let it be too late to join the movement. (paraphrased) + “People are stuck in the politics and not the work.” + “We ain’t getting no unity because of personal accountability.” + “People don’t want to expose that money” + “They lying on me and shit.” + “These motherfuckers ain’t no joke.” + “As long as you within the constitution you’re good to do it. It’s been done.” + “You’all have no idea, we have a lot of work to do.” + “Don’t let it be too late y’all.” + “They wanted to hang me for real for real.” + “They were trying to silence me.” + “They said no social media when I was out for my son’s funeral.”
“We can’t quite get to the truth when we go into flight, flight, or freeze.” + “We are not motivated to look for the truth, especially if it is painful” + “As humans, we are not motivated to be honest. We are motivated by pleasure and pain.” + “because if the truth ever got out about [someones] narcissistic behavior…” + When the pain of a lie becomes more painful than the truth, that is when people are ready to change (paraphrase) + People must consent to change (paraphrase) + We are all narcissists (paraphrase) + we have never had a world without narcissism (paraphrase) + “We cannot stop the cycle of violence by performance.” + “[we can stop the cycle of violence] by confronting our narcissistic behavior” + If we follow a bunch of rules of contact to prevent mistakes, we are actually not learning we are performing (paraphrased) + “A Person of Color can’t hold space for you then they will call you white and fragile… You can’t hold space for them because you can’t hold space for your shame. They can’t hold space for you because they still fail to hold space for their pain. Neither you nor them have healed from your history of trauma.” + “The cycle of violence is the cycle of addiction”
“We are never really encouraged to be good to ourselves.”
“The outside world is scary, man. It’s really scary being in america just going outside now is an extreme sport in this motherfucker.” + “We all know it goes back to white supremacy and all that shit. But why? Why be a white supremacist?”
It is not appropriate for older men to be the advocate for younger women. Find a woman for them. It is optics. I have seen this too many times. (paraphrased) + I have always been about this. (paraphrased) + If you are media, I don’t think you have anonymity. (paraphrased)
"I think white people get too much sleep."
If oil flows through this pipeline, we are at war.
“[When] the embers get low, you send your strongest men or women into the forest with an ax to chop firewood to make that fire burn like that fire will heat this city of Louisville. But you, everyone of you out here today, have to reach inside. Find that light and that power that you possess, bring that back to the streets of Louisville. Don’t be apologetic. If you gotta stop traffic, you stop traffic. We need accountability. I stand here before you today because Breonna Taylor has become a niece to me. You understand, just because your name in the last part is not the same doesn’t mean you aren’t family…you all have to adopt each other because without unity we have no power. …you have to understand that you have to put your boots on one time: Left boot, right boot, and get your ass out there. It’s not easy work. There is no paycheck. There is no social security. You have to reach inside yourself and find that light and share that light with others. When you feel weak, you go to someone that’s strong. When you are strong and feel no weakness, you share that energy with everyone. …I can’t make you feel that sadness, but I can make you feel the power that we draw from that sadness and that we share. So we cannot forget those before Breonna, those after Breonna, and Breonna. I am asking you to be strong people, be strong Louisville. Come back! Don’t let it go. Keep that power and that strength rolling. I love you Louisville. Power to the people.”
“What they say is, ‘Well, that is in the 60s, the 70s, the 80s.’ …don’t tell me it was in the 60s, 70s, No. ..This was not 1960, 1970.”
Some people just took the money for their nonprofits. (paraphrased)
“Revolution the last time this happened, Not a pussyfied sponsored (fbi) raid, on a stolen election!”
Are you one of those protesters burning things down? (paraphrased)
“We have some real problems in this country that are deep and structural and that have to be confronted with the truth of who we are.”
“It was very clear from the beginning that the agencies were going to approve the permits” + “The whole regulator process is a racket”
“They almost never deny a project.” + “Even mobilizing a group of 10-25 people was hard.” + “The drilling mud is a propriety [mix so we don’t know the chemicals]” + “It [government and enbridge] is a very circular reasoning” + “[And of course they say] this is very common and expected which is the opposite of what their permits say.”
“It does take a strong warrior to sit there and watch” + “I did a really good job. That means my ego and pride never got in the way.” + Being Annishnabee is not a privilege, it is a responsibility.” + “I encourage my water protectors not to bail out. One, we are giving them money…” + “Now I can’t even watch the crows for 5 minutes. I have to get up and protect them.” + “The second walk was really done out of complete humility.” + “Indians are not the red part of the medicine wheel.” + “I believe most of us don’t even know what we are saying.” + “The humble walked every step…in prayer.”
“We sacrificed our land to make the City of Seattle a beautiful reality. We are still waiting for our justice.
“In Norway your income taxes are public.” + “We have this whole idea essentially, this expectation that corporations are going to make money at the expense of society and we have normalized that. We [have] this expectation that our government doesn’t function and we have normalized that.” + The vast majority want a change to how we deal with climate. The thing that is really frustrating and the problem is that we’re not talking to each other, and we’re not talking to our legislators. (paraphrased) + “The analogy I often use is that we are on a train hurdling at a wall and it matters if we hit that wall at 1000 miles per hour versus 30 miles per hour.” + “We shouldn’t be subsidizing people that are killing humans and the planet.” + “It is unfair to the rest of the world to extrapolate to all of humanity based on this country.”
“I think the oil companies are smart enough to manipulate that cycle” + “Trust in the government is really low And collective government action is considered tyranny.”
Africans were here tens of thousands of years before we were told we were brought here. Even before Native Americans (paraphrased)
“You plant your seeds in good ground.”
“They don’t help. They just stand and record, and in every city there is a George Floyd.”
I want to bring together both sides and have a conversation, but I don’t think they are ready yet. (paraphrased)
"The world doesn't need another ideology or doctrine, but the kind of awakening that can restore our spiritual strength."
I know him [a pig], he deals drugs in [the city of] tacoma. (paraphrased) + They do dirt outside their jurisdiction. (paraphrased) + My solution is give them 5 years at double pay to solve the situation and then bring in 18 - 25 year olds to serve for 2 years. Then they are too young to be corrupted. (paraphrased)
If the protest is only walking, it is not accessible. (paraphrased) + In other countries they plan protests more than a year out. (paraphrased)
“In the social justice movement, privilege is our original sin… shame and judgment are the twin flames of trauma, and we are trained to see ourselves and others through their eyes.”
"[It's about] Evolution not revolution” + “Don’t trust anyone that isn’t angry" + “[It is] Spirit, not knowledge”
"I feel as if, if everyone was to just come together, and everyone was allowed to be just people, I feel like the world would just work a lot better" + "That's what we should just work on, just being a community together, instead of trying to hurt each other…We should all build each other up and we should all just be one." + "People need to set aside their differences because guess what? There are no differences" + "You bleed the same color I do. If your blood type was mine or vice versa, and you had a car wreck, would you want my blood if that’s gonna save your life?"
"...we were very conscientious about how easy it can be to exploit Black pain as if that were the full story. But one of the wonderful things about writing about George Floyd is George Floyd himself, who never stopped trying, who remained persistent even though he acknowledged those barriers and acknowledged those mistakes. And that is a reason why I think so many people who knew him took up the cause for justice."
"Endless talk is a luxury of the privileged"
