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 DEMINGOf 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 DEMINGSurely all of us are nerved by one another, catch courage from one another.
BARBARA DEMINGLet me be really here, here in this place and this time where I am.
BARBARA DEMINGthere is clearly a kind of anger that is healthy. It is the concentration of one’s whole being in the determination: this must change.
BARBARA DEMINGWe believe, in fact, that the one act of respect has little force unless matched by the other – in balance with it… The acting out of that dual respect I would name as precisely the source of our power.
BARBARA DEMINGTo resort to power one need not be violent, and to speak to conscience one need not be meek.
BARBARA DEMINGPunishment cannot heal spirits, can only break them.
BARBARA DEMINGI 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 DEMINGIt is one thing to be able to state the price the antagonist paid, another to be able to count you own real gains.
BARBARA DEMINGPeople may find it more comfortable to listen to us if we equivocate, but in the long run only words that discomfort them are going to change our situation.
BARBARA DEMINGThe injunction that we should love our neighbors as ourselves means to us equally that we should love ourselves as we love our neighbors.
BARBARA DEMINGAll prisons that have existed in our society to date put people away as no human being should ever be put away.
BARBARA DEMINGVengeance is not the point: change is.
BARBARA DEMINGWe cannot live without our lives
BARBARA DEMINGThe point is to change one’s life. The point is not to give some vent to the emotions that have been destroying one; the point is so to act that one can master them now.
BARBARA DEMINGOur own pulse beats in every stranger’s throat.
BARBARA DEMING