Skip to content
quotesby

About this quote

What does it mean?
The speaker expresses exhaustion with poverty and the added burden of racial discrimination, leading to desperate survival actions.
In plain terms
Being poor and black is hard, so desperation drives him to steal.
What can you take from it?
Desperation born of systemic neglect can lead to crime.

Where it applies

  • discussions on systemic poverty
  • analyzing crime roots
  • social justice debates

Putting it to work

  • advocating for economic aid
  • examining racial disparities

Questions to consider

  • What drives people to desperate choices?
  • How does race compound economic hardship?

Another view

It generalizes individual actions as inevitable responses to conditions.

More from Tupac Shakur

  1. I see no changes. Wake up in the morning and I ask myself/'Is life worth living? Should I blast myself?'

    Permalink to quote #36
  2. Cops give a damn about a negro/pull the trigger kill a nigga, he's a hero

    Permalink to quote #38
  3. I was born not to make it but I did.

    Permalink to quote #35

Related quotes

  1. Hunger makes a thief of any man.

    Pearl BuckPearl Buck quote #59
  2. First we couldn't afford shit now everything's free/so we loot, please don't shoot when you see

    Tupac ShakurTupac Shakur quote #263
  3. The NAACP should have riot rehearsal. They should get a liquor store and practice robberies.

    Rush LimbaughRush Limbaugh quote #2