Readings on Liberation

The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion. Camus

The role of the artist is to make revolution irresistible. Toni Cade Bambara

i am learning that getting well in community is liberation. we are interdependent. when one of us attains freedom it elicits/rekindles that longing in each of us. adrienne maree brown

There is something in you that waits and listens for the sound of the genuine in yourself. It is the only true guide you will ever have. And if you cannot hear it, you will spend your days on the ends of strings that somebody else pulls. Howard Thurman

The truth is, however, that the oppressed are not “marginals,” are not people living “outside” society. They have always been “inside”—inside the structure which made them “beings for others.” The solution is not to “integrate” them into the structure of oppression, but to transform that structure so that they can become “beings for themselves.” Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed

The [person] who proclaims devotion to the cause of liberation yet is unable to enter into communion with the people, whom he or she continues to regard as totally ignorant, is grievously self-deceived. The convert who approaches the people but feels alarm at each step they take, each doubt they express, and each suggestion they offer, and attempts to impose his “status,” remains nostalgic towards his origins. Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed

If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time, but if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together. Lila Watson

Your uprising against the forces of darkness has got to do more than say “no.” A fierce, primal yes should be at the heart of your crusade. rob brezny

We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have never yet engaged in a direct action movement that was “well timed,” according to the timetable of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the words “Wait!” It rings in the ear of every Negro with a piercing familiarity. This “Wait” has almost always meant “Never.” Martin Luther King, Jr.

Liberation that raises a cry against others is no true liberation. Liberation that means revolutions of hate and violence and takes away lives of others or abases the dignity of others cannot be true liberty. Oscar Romero

The small man/Builds cages for everyone/He Knows. While the sage,/ Who has to duck his head/ When the moon is low,/ Keeps dropping keys all night long/ For the Beautiful Rowdy Prisoners. Hafiz

It is only through disruptions and confusion that we grow and are set free, jarred out of ourselves by the collision of someone else’s private world with our own. Joyce Carol Oates

None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Liberation begins with an acceptance of a past we can’t change, an unrelenting conviction that the future can be different, and the stubborn wisdom to use the past to make the future what the past was not. Craig D. Lounsbrough

True wisdom comes in understanding that sometimes, you are both the prison and the key. Johnathan Jena

We are our stories, stories that can be both prison and the crowbar to break open the door of that prison; we make stories to save ourselves or to trap ourselves or others, stories that lift us up or smash us against the stone wall of our own limits and fears. Liberation is always in part a storytelling process: breaking stories, breaking silences, making new stories. A free person tells her own story. A valued person lives in a society in which her story has a place. Rebecca Solnit

For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Romans 7:15

Fear is the cheapest room in the house. I’d like to see you in better living conditions. Hafiz

Longer Texts

A short read from Awakin about engaging with your emotions as an act of liberation.

Poetry is an act of liberation for writers of colour in this article from Yes! Magazine.

From Brain Pickings, Rebecca Solnit explores speaking out as a necessary part of liberation.