Last evening, after a surreal day of trying to process the US presidential election, I went to listen to Angela Davis at East High School. Sometimes timing is everything. I’ve been familiar with Dr Davis’s work for a long time but hearing her speak, here in Rochester, on such a difficult day, was awe-inspiring. What she said was radical but it didn’t come across as an abrasive rant. It was a vision expressed with such truth, eloquence and lucidity that it became healing.
She started with a quote from Frederick Douglass, as a tribute to our city: “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.”
She had to frame her presentation in view of the US presidential election. She said she wished she had had more time to think about it. But she was being humble, of course. This election, she said, is about race and history – about the inability to address racism and colonialism in an age of capitalism. This is what allowed Trump to draw from a reservoir of racist resentment by using the usual scapegoats: Blacks, Latinos, immigrants, Muslims, women and poor people. The entire idea of turning back the clock and making America great again was a wish for white supremacy.
Why do we assume, she asked us, that we can change society through electoral politics rather than long-term movements?
Dr Davis mentioned Ava DuVernay’s “13th” and read the 13th amendment: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” Only 32 words to abolish slavery – slavery, which was the warp and woof of social order. Only 32 words, 27 words out of which spell out an exception. This is how Black people entered the constitution, if one doesn’t count the “Three-Fifths” compromise. Blacks were granted justice and citizenship so that they could be justly incarcerated. What a strange way of being a citizen in a democracy.
The question then becomes, what is the meaning of democracy? Dr Davis reminded us that American democracy is not the oldest in the world, and neither is the French system of government. Haiti was the world’s first democracy and it was not founded on race. US democracy is elitist – for men but not all men, for white men but only those who are propertied, etc. Perhaps we need a feminist articulation of democracy that would benefit all of us. Dr Davis clarified that feminism doesn’t just imply a particular gender but rather a radical methodology. It’s not about incorporating POCs into a racist system or women into a misogynist society, rather it’s about transforming democracy itself.
Black people become central in this process of transformation. Black movements have been synonymous with the struggle for justice. Who can better imagine new worlds and new futures then slaves, then those who are oppressed? There is no such thing as freedom for a single individual. That kind of bourgeois democracy is built on limiting freedoms – on the basis of race, class, gender, sexual orientation, etc.
Abolition of the prison system and policing would be the final uprooting of the vestiges of slavery. This is why the Back Lives Matter movement (BLM) is so invested in demilitarizing police. Rather than focus on punishing individual perpetrators, they are trying to imagine security without violence.
Policing has become transnationalized and deeply connected to the state of Israel and how they use it to control and oppress Palestinians.
The Black Panthers understood that, hence the idea of patrolling the police, of policing the police so to speak.
BLM also understands these complexities: the connection to Palestine and other global struggles, the foregrounding of feminist and queer theories, the understanding that multiplicities exist within the movement.
Nations are not the most essential form of human community. Dr Davis confessed how tired she was of hearing about America’s greatness. Such pronouncements have become a patriotic necessity. But community crosses borders. There were no borders in Africa prior to colonization. There were no nation states amongst indigenous peoples. We must support the Standing Rock Sioux and learn from them. They always refused to assimilate into the structures that were offered to them.
Should we assimilate into what Malcolm X called a sinking ship or should we resist? Palestine plays a pivotal role here because Israel is so much like the US. June Jordan was the first powerful witness for Palestine:
I was born a Black woman
and now
I am become a Palestinian
Against the relentless laughter of evil
There is less and less living room
And where are my loved ones?
It is time to make our way home.
We must understand the carcerality of occupation, the gendering structures of the prison system and how it treats people with disabilities.
Why must we be limited to two political parties? We must create a new party inspired by Black liberation and by anti-racist, anti-capitalist feminism, a party that transcends borders, a party for Muslims, Blacks, Latinos, Asians, LGBTQI, people with disabilities, for the conservation of the planet, and the end of industrial cruelty against animals. And now, in the wake of the US election, we must redouble our efforts.
The East High School’s auditorium was packed with 1,200 people. Throughout the evening there was thunderous applause and frequent standing ovations. That’s what community feels like – it’s joyful, plugged in, energized, and powerful. We got this.
