Derrick Jensen Quotes

Whoever is content with the world, and who profits from its lack of justice, does not want to change it.

Every social injustice is not only cruel, but it is economic waste.

Riot is the voice of the unheard.

Oppression tries to defend itself by its utility.

If your white privilege and class privilege protects you, then you have an obligation to use that privilege to take stands that work to end the injustice that grants that privilege in the first place.

[As a child] I was very interested in books that detailed injustice and how people who are underdogs were mistreated throughout history.

Something happened during the 1980s - perhaps the political climate of that time - that caused me to ask how a people would become part of a system that oppresses their own people.

The margins don't get erased by simply insisting that the powers-that-be erase them.

I love living around black people. Home is home. We suffer under racism and the physical deprivations that come with that, but beneath that, we form cultures and traditions that are beautiful.

Social injustice is such a familiar phenomenon ... that it is readily regarded as something natural, even by its victims.

Our criminal justice system affirmatively depends on inequality.

Negro poverty is not white poverty. Many of its causes and many of its cures are the same. But there are differences—deep, corrosive, obstinate differences—radiating painful roots into the community and into the family, and the nature of the individual. These differences are not racial differences. They are solely and simply the consequence of ancient brutality, past injustice, and present prejudice.

How can you stand for the national anthem of a nation that preaches and propagates, 'freedom and justice for all,' that is so unjust to so many of the people living there?

Sometimes a law is just on its face and unjust in its application.

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

The character of Robin Hood stands for the deep anger of the dispossessed against the ruling classes.

I think that the people who come from communities like me as an African-American woman, as a member of the LGBT community, we haven't sat in the corners of power.

If we're saying there are incidents of oppression in this country, systematically or individually in this country, I don't think saying, 'Well, in country X, Y or Z it's 10 times worse' is making things any better. I think that may be true, but why can't we improve?

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

Intersectionality is an analytic sensibility, a way of thinking about identity and its relationship to power. Originally articulated on behalf of black women, the term brought to light the invisibility of many constituents within groups that claim them as members but often fail to represent them.

Awkwardness comes from the realization that, when you look around the world, it's difficult to identify anyone who isn't either the victim or the beneficiary of injustice.

Intersectionality draws attention to invisibilities that exist in feminism, in anti-racism, in class politics, so, obviously, it takes a lot of work to consistently challenge ourselves to be attentive to aspects of power that we don't ourselves experience.

Poverty, the racial divide and social injustice do not impact only those who suffer most visibly. Alleviating poverty and injustice is a responsibility we must never forget or abandon.

I don't have general views about anything, except social injustice.

America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked 'insufficient funds.'