Life's Pleasures Quote by Shirley Chisholm

"Drugged and inert" lands like a diagnosis, not a metaphor. Chisholm isn’t politely critiquing Congress; she’s accusing it of functional sedation, a body designed to act that instead drifts, stalled by procedure and self-protection. The line works because it turns institutional sluggishness into something bodily and shameful: if Congress is drugged, then someone benefits from the stupor, and everyone who shrugs becomes complicit.

Her punch comes in the escalation from "hold hearings" to the supposedly dramatic step of appointing "a commission". She’s exposing a Washington ritual where motion substitutes for movement. Hearings create footage, commissions create cover, and both are perfect tools for diffusing urgency until the public’s attention decays. The subtext is brutal: these aren’t solutions, they’re time-management strategies for politicians who want the appearance of engagement without the cost of decision.

Context matters. Chisholm entered Congress in 1969 as the first Black woman elected to it, navigating a chamber that treated civil rights, poverty, war, and gender equity as issues to be studied rather than solved. Her broader political brand mixed reformist optimism with an unsentimental view of power: change required pressure, not patience. So this is less cynicism than a tactical warning. If the legislature’s default response is procedural theater, then reformers have to break the spell with accountability, coalition, and relentless insistence on outcomes.