Michele Zephier

“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

“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

“Rather than use what you see as unique about yourself as an exemption from further examination, a more fruitful approach would be to ask yourself, “I am white and I have had X experience. How did X shape me as a result of also being white?” Setting aside your sense of uniqueness is a critical skill that will allow you to see the big picture of the society in which we live; individualism will not. For now, try to let go of your individual narrative and grapple with the collective messages we all receive as members of a larger shared culture. Work to see how these messages have shaped your life, rather than use some aspect of your story to excuse yourself from their impact.”
― Robin DiAngelo, White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism

“In the early eighties, the atrocities amounted to virtual genocide in the Mayan highlands of Guatemala under a killer later sentenced for genocide. While it was underway, he was lauded by Reagan as a fine man, “totally dedicated to democracy” and given a “bum rap” by human rights organizations. People are still fleeing from that bitter legacy. The decade of the eighties began with the assassination of the archbishop and closed in 1989, symbolically, with the assassination of six leading Latin American intellectuals, Jesuit priests, in their rooms at the Jesuit university of San Salvador. The assassins also murdered their housekeeper and her daughter to make sure there would be no witnesses. This was right at the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the celebration of the liberation of Soviet satellites. The murderers were from a US-trained brigade, the Atlacatl Brigade, known as El Salvador’s finest, which had already compiled a horrible record of murders and atrocities.”
― Noam Chomsky, Consequences of Capitalism: Manufacturing Discontent and Resistance