Angela Y. Davis

Activist, teacher, author and icon of the Black Power movement Angela Davis talks Ferguson, Palestine, and prison abolition.

Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement

Freedom Is a Constant Struggle

Sophia 

It is easy to feel discouraged and simply let go. There is no shame in that. We are, after all, engaged in a struggle that seems, if we look at it using a mainstream political framework and through a mass media prism, unwinnable. On the other hand, if we take a step back, look at things from a broader angle, reflecting on what is happening all over the world and the history of struggle, the history of solidarity movements, it becomes clear, sometimes even obvious, that seemingly indestructible forces can be, thanks to people's willpower, sacrifices, and actions, easily broken.

We are still faced with the challenge of understanding the complex ways race, class, gender, sexuality, nation, and ability are intertwined but also how we move beyond these categories to understand the interrelationships of ideas and processes that seem to be separate and unrelated. Insisting on the connections between struggles and racism in the US and struggles against the Israeli repression of Palestinians, in this sense, is a feminist process.

imprisonment is increasingly used as a strategy of deflection of the underlying social problems racism, poverty, unemployment, lack of education, and so on. These issues are never seriously addressed. It is only a matter of time before people begin to realize that the prison is a false solution. Abolitionist advocacy can and should occur in relation to demands for quality education, for antiracist job strategies, for free health care, and within other progressive movements. It can help promote an anticapitalist critique and movements toward socialism.

Kiara

If you seek collective liberation, then you will be collectively punished

Placing the question of violence at the forefront almost inevitably serves to obscure the issues that are at the center of struggles for justice

Francesca 

We will have to go to great lenghts. We cannot go on as usual. We cannot pivot the center. We cannot be moderate. We will have to be willing to stand up and say no with our combined spirits, our collective intellects, and our many bodies.

Freedom Is a Constant Struggle quotes

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