Barbara Amiel Quotes
... this is a grievance society and that if you want to get into its leading edge you pretty well have to be a victim.
Barbara Amiel, Canadian Columnist, Column, Maclean's Magazine, October 31, 1994
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Alexie, an American Indian, studied wrote about the phenomenon whereby the Indians who were brutalized and attacked by whites with modern weapons and other technological advantages, in the process of defending themselves and their way of life became oppressors to whites in many situations where they could dominate a local scene. Likewise, the Israelis, who were totally oppressed in the Middle East for years and dominated by the more numerous Arabs with over a dozen established national armies attacking the Jewish civilian population when Israel first became a state. However the Jews survived and each time the Arabs attacked and further oppressed the Israelis, the Jews became stronger until at some point the became oppressors of many of the Arabs. The oppressors became the oppressed and vica versa.
Lame was not opposed to civil rights as some who read this quotation sometimes conclude. He did think that much of the lack of success of minorities in America could be ameliorated by many self-improvement and individual efforts. His reference to destroying America, was an interesting rhetorical technique of assuming that what you advocate is not implemented and showing that it leads to disaster. Phrased this way, it gets and focuses the attention of an audience.
Barbara Joan Estelle Amiel, Baroness Black of Crossharbour, DSS, is a British-Canadian conservative journalist, writer, and socialite. She is married to former media proprietor Conrad Black.
