The free man must be born before freedom can be won, and the brotherly man must be born before full brotherhood can be won. It will come into being only if we build it out of our very muscle and bone – by trying to act it out. Barbara Deming Read Quote
Our task, of course, is to transmute the anger that is affliction into the anger that is determination to bring about change. I think, in fact, that one could give that as a definition of revolution. Barbara Deming Read Quote
Vengeance is not the point; change is. But the trouble is that in most people’s minds the thought of victory and the thought of punishing the enemy coincide. Barbara Deming Read Quote
Nonviolent tactics can move into action on our behalf men not naturally inclined to act for us. Barbara Deming Read Quote
I think the only choice that will enable us to hold to our vision… is one that abandons the concept of naming enemies and adopts a concept familiar to the nonviolent tradition: naming behavior that is oppressive. Barbara Deming Read Quote
All prisons that have existed in our society to date put people away as no human being should ever be put away. Barbara Deming Read Quote
After the revolution, it might very well remain necessary to place people where they could not do harm to others. But the one under restraint should be cut off from the rest of society as little as possible. Barbara Deming Read Quote
Of course it can be said of jails, too, that they try – by punishing the troublesome – to deter others. No doubt, in certain instances this deterrence actually works. But generally speaking it fails conspicuously. Barbara Deming Read Quote
After the revolution, let us hope, prisons simply would not exist – if by prisons we mean places that could be experienced by the men and women in them at all as every place that goes by that name now is bound to be experienced. Barbara Deming Read Quote