Riz Ahmed Quotes

Not only are whites kicking us; they are telling us how to react to being kicked.

When you use the term minority or minorities in reference to people, you're telling them that they're less than somebody else.

I mean, the unfair treatment of women and black people and Indians and other groups, that's real. Mistreatment of other people because 'I'm better than you are' is such a sad part of the world.

I am from the class that has, in a sense, benefited from the status quo, but everyone still gets victimized.

I think the world of 'District 9' has a lot of race and oppression-based ideas that I would still like to explore in that world.

To pass this law and then hope that South Carolina … would do justice to the negro is absurd. She has 291,000 whites and 412,000 blacks. To pass such a law would be for the governing power to divest itself of the government and hand it over to a subject and despised caste ... The same is true, more or less, of all the South

Oppression thrives on distance - on not actually meeting or seeing the oppressed.

At the moment we have a ruling class that has one law and the people the other.

Our family were outsiders, and I've always had a sense of the outsider, the underdog, and a strong sense of justice towards people who are excluded.

When an individual is kept in a situation of inferiority, the fact is that he does become inferior.

In poor countries, the rich and powerful crush the poor and powerless.

I think that children are acutely sensitive to injustice because they live in a world that is absolutely filled with injustice. They have very, very little power, and they are extremely aware of power relations.

Discrimination is a hellhound that gnaws at Negroes in every waking moment of their lives to remind them that the lie of their inferiority is accepted as truth in the society dominating them.

Twenty years on, the books are still fun to write and I've still got lots of stories I want to tell, mainly about social injustice and people chewed up by the system.

The structure of apartheid is still rooted in the Haitian society. When you have apartheid, you don't see those behind the walls. That is the reality of Haiti.

Vietnamese must be made to feel that they are racial inferiors with no right to national identity.

All oppression creates a state of war.

I'm tired of being treated like a second-class citizen.

Why do you all push us around?

Poor men's reasons are not heard.

I lived in a country where I couldn't live where I wanted to live. I lived in a country where I couldn't go where I wanted to eat. I lived in a country where I couldn't get a job, except for those put aside for people of my colour or caste.

Segregation is that which is forced upon an inferior by a superior. Separation is done voluntarily by two equals.

Black people have always been used as a buffer in this country between powers to prevent class war.

Baby, black promoters oppressed me before white promoters ever got hold of me. Don't talk skin to me.

It's easier to blame the person with less power.