N.K. Jemisin on the secret of oppression

Tell them they can be great someday, like us. Tell them they belong among us, no matter how we treat them. Tell them they must earn the respect which everyone else receives by default. Tell them there is a standard for acceptance; that standard is simply perfection. Kill those who scoff at these contradictions, and tell the rest that the dead deserved annihilation for their weakness and doubt. Then they’ll break themselves trying for what they’ll never achieve.

— N.K. Jemisin, The Fifth Season

If this doesn’t hit you as uncomfortably close to what is said in our own society, you haven’t been paying close enough attention.