Boots Riley Quotes

When a system of oppression has become institutionalized it is unnecessary for individuals to be oppressive.

America is a fundamentally good country. We have good people with good values who want to do the right thing. But the structures of power that exist are working to their own ends to extend their capability at the expense of the freedom of all publics.

The fight still isn't people of colour versus white. It's the people versus the system built to keep us down. That's the first line of the Constitution. And the system is manmade but is made of no man. Everyone, regardless of class, creed, culture and ethnicity can fight the system and help to break it down.

Some on the Left can be very selective about the kinds of violence they oppose. For some of them, gun violence is a crime to be decried - unless it is committed by an 'aggrieved' victim against what they consider a corrupt institution.

I think people have to recognise that the traditional modes of authority weren't that great.

… the unjust institutions which work so much misery and suffering to the masses have their root in governments, and owe their whole existence to the power derived from government.

I don't think Luke Cage as a superhero is something that has changed dramatically from the '70s to now. He's a black man going through the same thing as other people of colour - it's just that he has superpowers.

The elite denizens of Washington and Wall Street scorn and mock the good and decent people of this country for wanting their laws enforced and their communities protected.

Power, privilege, and violence are not, and never were, strictly Southern issues in America.

I've always thought that there are many things still left in society that are detached from the sense of ordinary people. I won't overlook them and I will determine what is right before taking bold action.

In my life, I've been able to really examine society in a way most people who aren't outsiders don't get a chance to do.

Intersectionality is not easy. It's not as though the existing frameworks that we have - from our culture, our politics, or our law - automatically lead people to being conversant and literate in intersectionality.

The real problem is testosterone. In New York City stops and frisks became ceremonies of dominance.

There are .. two choices: obedience to institutional authority or radical dissent from it.

How long are we going to abdicate law and order—the backbone of civilization—in favor of a soft social theory that the man who heaves a brick through your window or tosses a fire bomb into your car is simply the misunderstood and underprivileged product of a broken home?

Why aren’t Black people this outraged over Black-on-Black killings?.

Sadly, the pernicious ironies of privilege talk are generally lost on those who claim to be most aware of privilege.

If any group wants to not be disenfranchised, then understanding that there's going to be a learning curve for people who have disenfranchised them is important.

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.

As far as I knew white women were never lonely, except in books. White men adored them, Black men desired them and Black women worked for them.

There's this false notion that you have to separate and choose between issues of class and issues of race. What people do when they say that you need to separate class from race is that they are really just saying that people of color should come second.

It's not easy, especially in our politically polarized world, to recognize both the structural and the cultural barriers that so many poor kids face. But I think that if you don't recognize both, you risk being heartless or condescending, and often both.

I think the people who believe that works can and always should be divorced from the context are people who have the privilege to do so.

When rooted, you observe how systems actually affect people.

Authority is supposedly grounded in wisdom, but I could see from a very early age that authority was only a system of control. And it didn't have any inherent wisdom. I quickly realized that you either became a power or you were crushed.