The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.

Stephen Bantu Biko (18 December 1946 – 12 September 1977) was a noted anti-apartheid activist in South Africa in the 1960s and 1970s.

Quotes

  • The basic tenet of black consciousness is that the black man must reject all value systems that seek to make him a foreigner in the country of his birth and reduce his basic human dignity.
    • Statement as witness (3 May 1976)
  • Even today, we are still accused of racism. This is a mistake. We know that all interracial groups in South Africa are relationships in which whites are superior, blacks inferior. So as a prelude whites must be made to realize that they are only human, not superior. Same with blacks. They must be made to realize that they are also human, not inferior.
    • Statement quoted in the Boston Globe (25 October 1977)
  • You are either alive and proud or you are dead, and when you are dead, you can't care anyway.
    • On Death
  • It is better to die for an idea that will live, than to live for an idea that will die.

I Write What I Like (1978)

Apartheid — both petty and grand — is obviously evil.
  • The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.
    • White Racism and Black Consciousness
  • Apartheid — both petty and grand — is obviously evil. Nothing can justify the arrogant assumption that a clique of foreigners has the right to decide on the lives of a majority.
    • We Blacks
  • The logic behind white domination is to prepare the black man for the subservient role in this country. Not so long ago this used to be freely said in parliament, even about the educational system of the black people. It is still said even today, although in a much more sophisticated language. To a large extent the evil-doers have succeeded in producing at the output end of their machine a kind of black man who is man only in form. This is the extent to which the process of dehumanization has advanced.
    • We Blacks
  • The system concedes nothing without demand, for it formulates its very method of operation on the basis that the ignorant will learn to know, the child will grow into an adult and therefore demands will begin to be made. It gears itself to resist demands in whatever way it sees fit.
    • The Quest for a True Humanity
  • In time, we shall be in a position to bestow on South Africa the greatest possible gift—a more human face.
    • White Racism and Black Consciousness
  • We must realise that prophetic cry of black students: "Black man you are on your own!"
    • The Quest for a True Humanity

Quotes about Steve Biko

  • Much of Biko's energy is devoted to criticizing the liberal in both the condescending white and the idiotic black forms. The black liberal is idiotic because black people lack power in a white-controlled system. The white liberal, on the other hand, operates from the vantage point of having something—perhaps a great deal—to lose in the event of progressive social change. The white liberal's offer to help has an air of condescension because it masks a profound existential investment in the continuation of the racist system. Thus, the white liberal always insists on offering the theoretical or interpretive strategies against antiblack racism, but such strategies often act to preserve the need for white liberals as the most cherished members or overseers of values in their society. In Biko's words: "I am against the superior-inferior white-black stratification that makes the white man a perpetual teacher and the black a perpetual pupil (and a poor one at that.)"

See also

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