notes and quotes pt. 2

Hi everyone! Thinking of making notes and quotes a regular segment, I think it gives ya'll a way to see how my brain works when it's not formulated to sound intellectual. These are quotes I collect throughout my life, whether from books, watching documentaries, or reading articles, the things that confound me, I save, and now I want to share those with you. Quick note for reading: each section has a title, a little blurb from me, and then the quotes. The italicized ones are my own thoughts; the ones in quotations have the name of the person who wrote it, if I wrote it down/could find it on the internet; otherwise, it sits alone without a citation.

Silence, Propaganda, and Complicity:

Pretending something doesn't exist doesn't make it go away, speaking up doesn't mean you care too much, and not speaking up doesn't make the world better. When people teach you not to believe anything, learn to read for bias, talk to all kinds of people, and read all kinds of stories. Re-read the history books, watch for the patterns.

"The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command." - George Orwell

Silence isn’t the absence of opinion; it’s an opinion that favors the status quo.

"Tyranny doesn't need your support, just your silence."

"propaganda relies on disbelief, not that you believe the lie"

you can’t separate what’s being said from why it’s being said 

maybe others can be passive, but I can no longer

"We are not a nation that guns down our citizens in the street. We are not a nation that allows our citizens to be brutalized for exercising their constitutional rights. We are not a nation that tramples the 4th Amendment and tolerates our neighbors being terrorized," - former President Biden. I would argue that we do not want to be that country, but to deny that that is where our country is heading, and in some ways already is, does nothing to restore our country.

AIDS, Public Health, and who gets to live:

Reading about AIDS, I have gained so much knowledge and not just about AIDS but about health departments, politics, and the power we place in politicians to choose who lives. No one should get to decide who lives and who dies. No death penalty, no ignoring public health crisis, no killing people on the street, we deserve to live no matter what. Your prejudice should not determine our livelihood.

people talked about AIDS in the beginning, like microbes had the same prejudice they did

"Health threats do not respect borders, and weakening global cooperation makes Americans less safe.”-former CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden

HIPAA didn’t exist until 1996

The government should not have the right to decide who lives and who dies, and yet, as we see in the AIDS epidemic and beyond that, that’s exactly what is happening. Everyone deserves to live, and prejudices should not have a seat at the table when it comes to policy 

“My God is not a vengeful God. When those children died of polio in the fifties, they were not punished by God. One of the most perverted uses of religion is to use religion to justify hatred for your fellow man” (in reference to the AIDS epidemic, but still SO relatable)

Justice, Poverty, and Human Dignity:

You're privileged if you can look away. If someone asks you to buy a chocolate bar in front of Target, or sits homeless in the shadow of a building, you turn your face. When you see racism, you sit in a pool of white comfort and ignore it because what's one voice? If you have a home to go back to and you don't lie in bed worried someone might kill you. That is a privilege.

“Hopelessness is the enemy of justice,” Bryan Stevenson 

“Our criminal justice system treats you better if you're rich and guilty than if you're poor and innocent,” Bryan Stevenson 

“The opposite of poverty is not wealth but justice”-Bryan Stevenson

“In short, myths reveal who gives the orders and why” -“you just need to get a job” by Mary Broshnahan

“I believe there’s a huge difference between housing as a commodity and gold as a commodity. Gold is not a human right, housing is.”- Mary Broshnahan

how are we choosing to look at our homeless neighbors? Do we even see them?

our humanity relies on others' recognition of humanity 

“joy is a form of resistance.”

Government vs. People:

Governments continue to hide in the shadows, lurk in the dark, make backroom deals, and collect money like they collect the hair of their victims. There is no justification; there should only be condemnation. We must grapple as a community, as a world, as a country, with the atrocities committed by people. I stand for the people; if a government is against that, it says all you need to know about them.

“Iranians are not asking for foreign tanks to roll down the streets of Tehran. They are asking for the world to stop acting as if the only options are occupation or indifference.”- Masih Alinejad

the democratic party cannot just stand against Trump; they must stand for something

Why did I never learn about the 80,000 CIVILLIANS we killed in May 1945 in Japan? Wars should never be fought against civilians but rather governments. I don’t oppose Jews, I

oppose Netanyahu, I don’t oppose Palestinians I oppose Hamas, I don't oppose Russians I oppose Putin, I don't oppose Chinese I oppose Xi Jingping, I don't oppose North Koreans, I oppose Kim Jong Un, I do not oppose Americans I oppose Donald J. Trump, no government is truly for the people I support the people I do not support corrupt governments.

Gender, Love, and Cultural Power:

Everything is inherently political. To deny that is to be blind.

“... and you write poetry?” “I have been known to fence with a quill”- A Gentleman in Moscow

all poetry is a call to action 

“gender is a performance, whether you believe it or not” -Judith Butler

“the opposite of love is not hate but separation” -John Berger

Belief, Evidence, and Voice:

Who do we believe? Who do we write off? Who does what is expected of them? Who has things expected of them? Who carries the weight of the world? Should they?

"The fact that people need a dead man's files to believe a thousand living women... tells you everything about whose voices they don't."

"when you believe that failure is purely about merit, when you fail, it feels like personal inadequacy."

“We need the law to be the court and the battlefield,” Jacob Frey, mayor of Minneapolis 

“Consequently, the modern poor are not pitied... but written off as trash. The twentieth-century consumer economy has produced the first culture for which a beggar is a reminder of nothing.” -Mary Broshnahan

“remembrance is not a violation,” referring to Vladyslav Heraskevych's helmet at the Olympic Games.

You don't have to be the most articulate person; other people have already done that. Raise your voices, think critically, and learn. As things crumble, look and pay attention, how can we fix something we never realized was broken?