Revolutionary Existence

“You will love the things that destroy you, and you will hate the things that advance your growth. Look at your behavior. Look at the behavior of your compatriots and watch if what I’m saying is not true.

‘I hate to read. I hate to study. I hate to learn. Oh, but I love to party. I love to smoke. I like to drink. I love to screw.’ And all the loves you will find will be loves that what? That don’t advance you one bit, and yet you can’t get over them. You’re addicted to them.

But things that lead to growth, to growth and wisdom, knowledge, you see, self-understanding and self-discovery, healthy relations, self-control; all those things are hateful.

But this is the only way a minority can rule over a majority of people, is by turning their minds backwards. So that they love the things that destroy them and hate the things that move them forward. In order for these people to rule over us, we must hate learning. This has to be built into us.

If we were into learning, if we were into research, and into thinking, and into real philosophical ideas and abstraction, we would defeat those people. They know it. So consequently, what they must do is rob you of all of these things so that they may stay in their place.”

This is how you listen to someone before you hit them with facts.

Afeni Shakur, January 10, 1947 / 2021

Lower East Side NYC