Branden Jacobs-Jenkins Quotes

Oppression doesn't disappear just because you decided not to teach us that chapter.

I am from the class that has, in a sense, benefited from the status quo, but everyone still gets victimized.

Oppression thrives on distance - on not actually meeting or seeing the oppressed.

I've written 18 books, mostly dealing with issues of social justice, ending racism, feminism, and cultural criticism.

People would write me hate letters. How dare I try to represent Hispanics when I was so white? I tried to make them see it was racism.

I'm not a fan of identity politics.

Most men today cannot conceive of a freedom that does not involve somebody's slavery.

In one sense, Obama's point couldn't be clearer: race is a distraction from class-based inequities. And if we dismiss working-class resentment as camouflaged racism, we will continue to be distracted by the spectre of race.

Terrorism is not new to black people.

I've never doubted that apartheid - because it was of itself fundamentally, intrinsically evil - was going to bite the dust eventually.

The organizers and perpetuators of segregation are as much the enemy of America as any foreign invader.

Baby, black promoters oppressed me before white promoters ever got hold of me. Don't talk skin to me.

While everyone's experience of oppression is different and complicated and often overlapping, I really believe that if you have privilege, you need to learn as much as you can about the world beyond yourself.

Education in this country is about how to maintain the status quo and to perpetuate racism.

Food might be more immediately important than history but if you don't understand what's been done to you - by your own people and the so-called 'they' - you can never get around it.

Too often a story is examined through biased eyes, without a sensitivity for everyone who forged it. It's seen from the point of view of the great white savior, and rarely is the perspective of the slave a part.

If blacks are oppressed in America, why isn't there a black exodus?

It is not right that a servile race should inhabit the same locality which their ancestors inhabited in power and glory.

If you’re talking about American history, you’re talking about race.

The history handed down to us is what white men did in the daytime.

Slavery was gone but its inequalities remained.

Racism and sexism, misogyny and homophobia, they're so visible. They're out in the open. When they're visible, it's a lot easier to deal with them.

We have a lot of people that are oppressed. We have a lot of people that aren't treated equally, aren't given equal opportunities. Police brutality is a huge thing that needs to be addressed. There are a lot of issues that need to be talked about, need to be brought to life, and we need to fix those.

The problem in the world is the oppression of man by man; it this which threatens existence.

Each one of my movies is going to be about one of these different social demons. The first one, being 'Get Out,' is about race and neglect and marginalization.