Mathieu Kassovitz Quotes

It's a struggle for every young Black man. You know how it is, only God can judge us.

Not only are whites kicking us; they are telling us how to react to being kicked.

We Blacks have a long history of serving as cannon fodder for interests that are not our own.

We need not wait for further, well-placed home video cameras to see that low-intensity warfare is being waged against low-income minorities. We need only listen to the voices of the poor; they can testify that they are dehumanized, disparaged, and despised by the police.

We deserve to live in a world where there's no impunity, but beyond this question of impunity, there are all these structures that are actually doing a disservice to our people.

What people don't know about oppression is that the oppressor works much harder. You always grew up being told you were not smart enough or not fast enough, but we all lived from the time we were children to beat the system.

Discrimination is a hellhound that gnaws at Negroes in every waking moment of their lives to remind them that the lie of their inferiority is accepted as truth in the society dominating them.

Large numbers of people are broken from the notion that the system is working for people, that the system is just or humane or peaceful.

I mean, the unfair treatment of women and black people and Indians and other groups, that's real. Mistreatment of other people because 'I'm better than you are' is such a sad part of the world.

I do not like to get the news, because there has never been an era when so many things were going so right for so many of the wrong persons.

The policemen or soldiers are only a gun in the establishments hand. They make the racist secure in his racism.

We are very fortunate to live in this country, but at the same time, the reason the forces are so much more destructive here is because they are faceless.

Black people have always been used as a buffer in this country between powers to prevent class war.

Race is not particularly interesting to me. Power is. Who has power and who doesn't. Slavery interests me because it's an incredible violation that has not stopped. It's necessary to talk about that. Race is a diversion.

Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob, and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart, I am the Negro bearing slaver's scars, I am the Red man driven from the land, I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek— And finding only the same ole stupid plan Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

If you are black the only roads into the mainland of American life are through subservience, cowardice, and loss of manhood.

A riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it that America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice, equality and humanity. And so in a real sense our nation’s summers of riots are caused by our nation’s winters of delay. And as long as America postpones justice, we stand in the position of having these recurrences of violence and riots over and over again. Social justice and progress are the absolute guarantors of riot prevention.

The Negro has the simplest of alternatives: live a life of constant humility or ever-threatening danger.

For the middle class, the police protect property, give directions, and help old ladies. For the urban poor, the police are those who arrest you.

As a minority, no sooner do you learn to polish and cherish one chip on your shoulder than it's taken off you and swapped for another. The jewellery of your struggles is forever on loan, like the Koh-i-Noor diamond in the crown jewels.

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 black man has become a shell, a shadow of man, completely defeated, drowning in his own misery, a slave, an ox bearing the yoke of oppression with sheepish timidity.

You can't segregate and humiliate people decade after decade without creating long-lasting injuries.

I think that because human difference for so long, in all its various forms, has been the root of so much oppression, sometimes there's the impulse to say let's deny the difference, as though by wishing away the difference we can then wish away the oppression.