My fantasy of Cuba was that everybody was going to be going around looking like Fidel, with green uniforms - and it was very different from my vision of how Cuba was going to be.
Assata ShakurWhile big corporations make huge, tax-free profits, taxes for the everyday working person skyrocket. While politicians take free trips around the world, those same politicians cut back food stamps for the poor. While politicians increase their salaries, millions of people are being laid off. I do not understand a government so willing to spend millions of dollars on arms, to explore outer space, even the planet Jupiter, and at the same time close down day care centers and fire stations.
Assata ShakurI've always been a student of different ways of looking at the world, different religions. That's been part of my survival mechanism, and also part of my curiosity as a person.
Assata ShakurI don't have to live up to that Superwoman myth. I can cry and be human and lean on people who take care of me. That can be very liberating.
Assata ShakurAny Black person in amerika [sic], if they are being honest with themselves, have got to come to the conclusion that they don't know what it feels like to be free. We aren't free politically, economically, or socially. We have very little power over what happens in our lives. In fact, a Black person isn't free to walk down the street. Walk down the wrong street, in the wrong neighborhood at night, and you know what happens.
Assata Shakur