“Part of what I focus on is the pervasive presence of oppression, violence and hierarchies and the dominant roles they play in social life,

The root of oppression is the loss of memory.

The danger lies in attempting to deal with oppression from a theoretical base. Without an emotional, heartfelt grappling with the source of our own oppression, without naming the enemy within ourselves and outside of us, no authentic, non-hierarchical connection among oppressed groups can take place.

an emotional, psychological, and behavioral condition that develops as a result of an individual’s prolonged exposure to, and practice of, a set of oppressive rules — rules which prevent the open expression of feeling as well as the direct discussion of personal and interpersonal problems.”2

I think what happens is as with any form of oppression the people most concerned with or think about it the most deeply are the people most negatively affected by it.

The structures of unequal power are many-layered and complex in the ways they function in the world. But at its root, oppression is really quite simple. It's about looting. The rest is made up of the rules and institutions, rituals and agreements, mythologies, rationales and overt bullying by means of which small groups of people keep a firm grasp on way more than their share of the world's resources.

I spent ten years comparing the Old and New Testaments with the Koran – they are very similar; the differences are minimal. So we can say that the root of the oppression of women lies in the global post-modern capitalist system, which is supported by religious fundamentalism. This is because they need a god to justify oppression, their political hypocrisy, colonialism and the killing of people. How can the invasion of Palestine or Iraq be justified?! How can it be that today, 50 per cent of Egyptian people live below the poverty line while two percent have billions of dollars? How can we justify this? You need God in order to justify it. (2014)

Oppressive social hierarchies exist and replicate themselves in the behavior of all subjects and must be overcome internally as well as externally.

I've always been drawn to violence, control and issues of subjugation...I found that in times of overwhelming oppression, a metaphoric language evolves as a survival mechanism to communicate truth…

It was imperative to make common cause with the oppressed, in order to secure a new system opposed to the ambitions and governing habits of the oppressors.

We have to do something about this hate, and you have to get to the root of hate. The roots are poverty and disease and illiteracy.

Can we reverse these deeply rooted sources sources of inequality? Or are they just endemic to a capitalist economy?

My research allows me to work against representations on violence and marginalised people, representations that include me, as a black woman from a working-class background.

Unfortunately, oppression does not automatically produce only meaningful struggle. It has the ability to call into being a wide range of responses between partial acceptance and violent rebellion. In between you can have, for instance, a vague, unfocused dissatisfaction; or, worst of all, savage infighting among the oppressed, a fierce love-hate entanglement with one another like crabs inside the fisherman's bucket, which ensures that no crab gets away. This is a serious issue for African-American deliberation.

To answer oppression with appropriate resistance requires knowledge of two kinds: in the first place, self-knowledge by the victim, which means awareness that oppression exists, an awareness that the victim has fallen from a great height of glory or promise into the present depths; secondly, the victim must know who the enemy is. He must know his oppressor's real name, not an alias, a pseudonym, or a nom de plume!