Michele Zephier

“Under the skin, there is no true biological race.”
― Robin DiAngelo, White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism

“I’m just going to say, there’s an obverse meaning to take away from the common sense understanding of how our society operates. That obverse meaning is this: In America, if you don’t succeed, you are either not working hard enough, or you are not playing by the rules, or both. So if you don’t succeed, and this is the obverse of thinking about the American dream as it’s laid out, essentially, your failure is your own fault. This is another corollary of the individualized notion of how society works. All the opportunities are there. If you fail, it is your fault. There is nothing structural or systemic or unfair getting in your way, either historically, contemporaneously, or into the future.”
― Noam Chomsky, Consequences of Capitalism: Manufacturing Discontent and Resistance

“It’s all quite predictable, as study after study shows. A brutal tyrant crosses the line from admirable friend to “villain” and “scum” when he commits the crime of independence. One common mistake is to go beyond robbing the poor—which is just fine—and to start interfering with the privileged, eliciting opposition from business leaders.”
― Noam Chomsky, How the World Works

“DO NOT ASK ME Some people ask me that human affairs with names, surnames, and laments not be dealt with in the pages of my books, not to give them space in my verses: they say poetry died here, some say I should not do it: the truth is I do not want to please them. I greet them, I tip my hat to them, and I leave them voyaging in Parnassus like happy rats in cheese. I belong to another category, I am only a man of flesh and bones, therefore if they beat my brother I defend him with what I have in hand and each one of my lines carries the threat of gunpowder or steel, that will fall over the inhuman, over the cruel and over the arrogant. But the punishment of my furious peace”
― Pablo Neruda, The Poetry of Pablo Neruda