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When the government looks at the Zapatistas and says they're rebels it's really not true. What the people really want is to live without injustice. [Saúl shows a canvas, painted with words and stars beside each word.] These are the Zapatista demands: the earth, education, health, food, life, work, liberty, justice, democracy, independence, culture, information, peace. These basic things are very natural. It's what we need to live. They're the same things that the Black Panthers were asking for. These are what the stars are. If the communities had all of these things, then there would be no reason to protest. There would be no reason to rebel. If the people of Central America already had these basic rights there would not be people trying to emigrate, going on the trains and falling off of the trains, risking their lives joining criminal gangs. If the Black Panthers at that time had these basic rights as well they would not have risen up.

This is what art comes from. It comes from the need to create change. This is what creates Zapantera Negra as well.

— Zapantera Negra by David Tomas, Emory Douglas, Marc James Léger

"... if we had not loved each other none of us would have survived."

"Do you think that's how we've survived?" I asked.

He put the book down, thought for a moment, and looked at me. "I don't see how anyone can survive colonialism. Understanding our own condition, I think in saying 'loved each other,' Baldwin doesn't just mean the living. To survive by loving each other means to love our ancestors too. To know their pain, struggles, and joys. It means to love our collective memory, who we are, where we come from," he said, and after a silence for both of us to soak up that thought, he continued reading.

"There is no reason for you to try to become like white people and there is no basis whatever for their impertinent assumption that they must accept you. The really terrible thing, old buddy, is that you must accept them. And I mean that very seriously. You must accept them and accept them with love. For these innocent people have no other hope. They are, in effect, still trapped in a history which they do not understand; and until they understand it, they cannot be released from it. They have had to believe for many years, and for innumerable reasons, that black men are inferior to white men. Many of them, indeed, know better, but as you will discover, people find it very difficult to act on what they know. To act is to be committed, and to be committed is to be in danger."

— Against the Loveless World by Susan Abulhawa