M. K. Asante quotes

“The artivist (artist +activist) uses her artistic talents to fight and struggle against injustice and oppression – by any medium necessary. The artivist merges commitment to freedom and justice with the pen, the lens, the brush, the voice, the body, and the imagination. The artivist knows that to make an observation is to have an obligation.”
-- M. K. Asante

#Struggle Quotes #Commitment Quotes #Fighting Quotes

“Love is learning the song in someone's heart and singing it to them when they forget.”
-- M. K. Asante

Source : M.K. Asante (2013). “Buck: A Memoir”, p.140, Spiegel & Grau

#Song Quotes #Heart Quotes #Love Is Quotes

“Now I see why reading was illegal for black people during slavery. I discover that I think in words. The more words I know, the more things I can think about. My vocab and thoughts grow together like the stem and petals of a flower. Reading was illegal because if you limit someone's vocab, you limit their thoughts. They can't even think of freedom because they don't have the language to.”
-- M. K. Asante

#Flower Quotes #Reading Quotes #Thinking Quotes

“I write-down to speak-up.”
-- M. K. Asante

#Writing Quotes #Literature Quotes #Speak Quotes

“When you make an observation, you have an obligation.”
-- M. K. Asante

Source : M. K. Asante, Jr. (2008). “It's Bigger Than Hip Hop: The Rise of the Post-Hip-Hop Generation”, p.9, Macmillan

#Observation Quotes #Obligation Quotes

“They can’t even think of freedom because they don’t have the language to.”
-- M. K. Asante

#Thinking Quotes #Language Quotes

“Philly is a state of mind I’m always in. The city is truly a character in its own right, and it’s served me well because the people I was exposed to gave me that cultural rootedness.”
-- M. K. Asante

#Character Quotes #Cities Quotes #People Quotes

“They can’t even think of freedom because they don’t have the language to.”
-- M. K. Asante

#Thinking Quotes #Language Quotes

“Philly is a state of mind I’m always in. The city is truly a character in its own right, and it’s served me well because the people I was exposed to gave me that cultural rootedness.”
-- M. K. Asante

#Character Quotes #Cities Quotes #People Quotes

“Those who can bring themselves to renounce wealth, position and power accruing from a social system based on violence and putting a premium on acquisitiveness, and to identify themselves in some real fashion with the struggle of the masses toward the light, may help in a measure - more, doubtless, by life than by words - to devise a more excellent way, a technique of social progress less crude, brutal, costly and slow than mankind has yet evolved.”

Source : "American Power and the New Mandarins". Book by Noam Chomsky, 1969.

“A community is democratic only when the humblest and weakest person can enjoy the highest civil, economic, and social rights that the biggest and most powerful possess.”

Source : "Voter Suppression Is Treasonous" by Gov. Jennifer M. Granholm, www.huffingtonpost.com. May 22, 2012.

“I never lost my belief, in the midst of setbacks which were not spared me during my period of struggle. Providence has had the last word and brought me success.”

“When you do something with a lot of honesty, appetite and commitment, the input reflects the output.”

“It is the local community that needs to own the commitment to education.”

“Even prior to marriage and motherhood, it's always been about prioritising and focusing on what you can commit to. That's been my approach to every aspect of my life, be it my relationships or my professional commitments.”

“Is there a chance? A fragment of light at the end of the tunnel? A reason to fight? Is there a chance you may change your mind? Or are we ashes and wine?”

Source : Song: Ashes and Wine, Album: One Cell in the Sea, 2007

“What I would say to the young men and women who are beset by hopelessness and doubt is that they should go and see what is being done on the ground to fight poverty, not like going to the zoo but to take action, to open their hearts and their consciences.”

“Sawyer was always the Vincent boy worth fighting for. He's the special one.”

“I think the greatest legacy of the 1960s was the general feeling that not only can you fight the powers that be, but you can win.”