[Bobby Seale:] “We don’t hate nobody because of their color.” —
“We don’t hate nobody because of their color.” —
“We don’t hate nobody because of their color. — We hate oppression!”^[1]

The history of oppression.

You know we can’t erase it in a pop song
but the facts we gotta face it.
Men rape women and man rapes the environment.
And people with opposed religious views are violent.
How can we advance with a memory so short.
We live in a society that kills animals for sport.
And how can we discuss gender, class, or race
when we can’t respect the rights of lesbians and gays.

[Harvey Milk:] “Racism, homophobia, xenophobia…”
“We must destroy the myths once and for all and shatter them. We must continue to speak out”^[2]

In our efforts to make a difference we specialize
but the contradiction arise. We fail to realize
the damages done to the Native American.
These singular issues —
I just can’t understand
how you can love one
and have hatred for another.
You torture your sisters while saying peace to your brothers.
As long as we insist on being so aggressive,
we will continue to play the role of the oppressor.
When men and women, straight and gay, whites and non-whites begin to unite;
when humans can treat non-human species with fairness and dignity,
then only then is there Unity.

Gotta understand the concept of Unity… of Oppression
Make a sacrifice for the price of Unity.

Gotta understand the concept of Unity… of Oppression
Make a sacrifice for the price of Unity.

To all the white liberals and non-white militants
that over-simplify the impact of prejudice.
Blame it on the whites and you’re right but it keeps us divided;
that agenda becomes short-sighted.
I hear you condemning all racist sentiments
and then I hear you making antisemitic comments.
Instead of only allowing one type of equality,
[we] place the blame on each other.
Yet we should be expanding our scope of understanding and hope.
Just posing some questions and make some suggestions.
We don’t claim to speak from a position of authority,
we only want one thing and that’s Unity.

“We don’t hate nobody because of their color” — Gotta understand the concept of Unity… of Oppression
“We are all brothers and sisters no matter what species and what genes.”
Make a sacrifice for the price of Unity. “Animal Rights Now!”

“We don’t hate nobody because of their color” — Gotta understand the concept of Unity… of Oppression
“We are all brothers and sisters no matter what species and what genes.”
Make a sacrifice for the price of Unity. “Don’t kill any animals!”

Gotta understand the concept of Unity…
Make a sacrifice for the price of Unity.

“We don’t hate nobody because of their color” — Gotta understand the concept of Unity… of Oppression
“We are all brothers and sisters no matter what species and what genes.”
Make a sacrifice for the price of Unity “Animal Rights Now!”

“We don’t hate nobody because of their color” — Gotta understand the concept of Unity… of Oppression
“We are all brothers and sisters no matter what species and what genes.”
Make a sacrifice for the price of Unity. “Don’t kill any animals!”

“We are all brothers and sisters no matter what species and what genes. Don’t kill any animals! Everything has the right to live and everything has a purpose.”^[3]

“One day we’ll be able to do away with this whole disgusting system that promotes, breeds, and thrives on the oppression of women.”^[4]

Unity

Unity

Unity

Unity

Unity

1. Bobby Seale, May 10, 1967[↩]
2. Harvey Milk against California Proposition 6, 1978[↩]
3. Animal rights protest marcher, likely at the March for the Animals, 10 June 1990 in Washington DC.[↩]
4. source unknown[↩]

About Aharon N. Varady

Aharon's Omphalos is the hobbit hole of Aharon Varady, founding director of the Open Siddur Project. He is a community planner and environmental educator working to improve stewardship of the Public Domain, be it the physical and natural commons of urban park systems or the creative and cultural commons of libraries and museums. His advocacy for open-source strategies in the Jewish community has been written about in the Atlantic Magazine, the Yiddish Forverts, Tablet, and Haaretz. He is particularly interested in pedagogies for advancing ecological wisdom, developing creative and emotional intelligence, and realizing effective theurgical praxes. He welcomes your comments, personal messages, and kind words. If you find his work helpful to your own or you'd simply like to support him, please consider donating via his Patreon account.

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“Full lyrics and video for “Unity of Oppression” by CONSOLIDATED” is shared by Aharon N. Varady under the contributor's Fair Use Right (17 U.S. Code §107 - Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use), in respect to the copyrighted material included. Any additional work that is not already in the Public Domain is shared under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported license.