Angela Y. Davis On What's Radical in The 21st Century: Column

10/5/2014 Angela Y.
Davis on what' s radical in the 21st century - Los Angeles Times

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/commentary/la-oe-morrison-davis-20140507-column.html#page=2 1/16
Column Angela Y. Davis on what's radical in
the 21st century
MAY 6, 2014, 5:45 PM
Patt Morrison
LOS ANGELES TIMES
patt.morrison @latimes.com
UCLA professor Angela Y. Davis. (Katie Falkenberg / Los Angeles Times)
F
orty-five years after her first UCLA teaching gig attracted the wrath of Gov. Ronald
Reagan, Angela Y. Davis is back on campus this semester, as regents' lecturer in the
gender studies department. Her Thursday address in Royce Hall, about feminism
and prison abolition, sums up some but not all of her work a long academic career paralleled
by radical activism. President Nixon called her a "dangerous terrorist" when she was charged
with murder and conspiracy after a deadly 1970 courthouse shootout. She was acquitted, and
since then, the woman born in the Jim Crow minefield of Birmingham, Ala., has written,
taught and lectured around the world. Her iconic Afro has morphed from its 1970s silhouette;
her intensity has not.
Congress is working on prison-sentence reform. Many states have banned capital
punishment. Isn't this encouraging?
I've associated myself with the prison abolition movement; that does not mean I refuse to
endorse reforms. There is a very important campaign against solitary confinement, a reform
that is absolutely necessary. The difference resides in whether the reforms help to make life
10/5/2014 Angela Y. Davis on what' s radical in the 21st century - Los Angeles Times
more habitable for people in prison, or whether they further entrench the prison-industrial
complex itself. So it's not an either-or situation.
What would a just prison system look like to you?
It's complicated. Most of us in the 21st century abolitionist movement look to W.E.B. Du Bois'
critique about the abolition of slavery that it was not enough simply to throw away the
chains. The real goal was to re-create a democratic society that would allow for the
incorporation of former slaves. [Prison abolition] would be about building a new democracy:
substantive rights to economic sustenance, to healthcare; more emphasis on education than
incarceration; creating new institutions that would tend to make prisons obsolete.
You think prisons won't be necessary one day?
It is possible, but even [if it doesn't happen], we can move to a very different kind of justice that
does not require a retributive impulse when someone does something terrible.
Do you watch the prison-themed comedy-drama "Orange Is the New Black"?
I not only saw the series but I read [Piper Kerman's] memoir. She has a much deeper analysis
than one sees in the series, but as a person who has looked at the role of women's prisons in
visual culture, primarily films, I think [the series] isn't bad. There are so many aspects that
often don't [appear in] depictions of people in those oppressive circumstances. "12 Years a
Slave," for example one thing I missed in that film was some sense of joy, some sense of
pleasure, some sense of humanity.
You are back this semester at UCLA, the campus from which Gov. Ronald Reagan
had you fired.
This was an offer I could not refuse. The students are very different from the students of 1969,
1970. They're so much more sophisticated, in the sense of having more complicated questions.
When you consider feminism today, do you think women have retreated, except
maybe when it comes to boardroom feminism?
One can talk about multiple feminisms; it is not a unitary phenomenon. There are those who
assume feminism is about moving up the hierarchy into positions of power, and that's OK, but
that's not what feminism does best. If the women at the bottom move up, the whole structure
moves up.
The kind of feminism I identify with is a method for research but also for activism.
Stokely Carmichael sort of joked that the position for women in the civil rights
movement's Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee was "prone." Are women
full partners in politics today?
Perhaps not completely, but we have made a lot of progress. In the way we think about past
movements, I encourage people to look beyond heroic male figures. While Martin Luther King
is someone I revere, I don't like to allow his representation to erase the contributions of
ordinary people. The 1955 Montgomery bus boycott was successful because black women,
domestic workers, refused to ride the bus. Had they not, where would we be today?
You support free birth control and abortion, which is denounced in some quarters
as genocidal.
Sometimes [in] what might appear to be outlandish statements, we discover there may be a
kernel of truth. While I would never argue that birth control or abortion rights constitute
genocide, I have to take into consideration how sterilization has been imposed on poor people,
especially people of color, and that someone like Margaret Sanger argued [birth control] was a
privilege for affluent women but a duty for poorer women.
What do you think of the nation's first black president?
There are moments of enormous possibility, and the election was such a moment. People all
over the world felt as if we were moving toward a new world. However brief that sense of
euphoria was, we should not forget that. That allows us to understand what possibilities might
reside in the future. [But] many people tended to deposit so many aspirations in this single
individual that they failed we failed to do the work [to take] better advantage of that
moment. People went to the polls and said, "We've done our job," and left it up to Obama.
Is democracy a good chassis on which to build a political system?
I believe profoundly in the possibilities of democracy, but democracy needs to be emancipated
from capitalism. As long as we inhabit a capitalist democracy, a future of racial equality,
gender equality, economic equality will elude us.
You ran for vice president on the Communist Party ticket in 1980 and 1984; was
that about faith in the democratic process?
It was about suggesting that there are alternatives. No one believed it was possible to win, but
the '80s [saw] the rise of the globalization of capital, the prison-industrial complex, and it was
important to provide some alternative political analyses.
What's your thinking on communism now?
I still have a relationship, [but] I'm not a member. I left the party because I didn't feel it was
open to the kind of democratization that we needed. I still believe that capitalism is the most
dangerous kind of future we can imagine.
Why did communism fail where it did?
That would require a long conversation. There may have been economic democracy, which we
lack in the West, but without political and social democracy, it just doesn't work. I don't think
we should throw the baby out with the bathwater; it would be important to look at what really
worked and what didn't.
Like no free speech?
Yes.
2016 will be the 50th anniversary of the Black Panther Party; you were a member
for a time.
The civil rights movement tended to be focused on integration, but there were those who said,
"We don't want to assimilate into a sinking ship, so let's change the ship altogether." The
emergence of the Black Panther Party marked a moment of rupture, and we are still in that
moment.
The party had two different kinds of activism: grass-roots activism that helped to create
institutions that are still working for example, the Agriculture Department now runs free
breakfast programs. On the other hand, the posture of self-defense and monitoring the police.
If one looks at the party 10-point program, every single point is as relevant or more relevant 50
years later. The 10th point includes community control of technology. That was very prescient.
It's about using technologies rather than allowing them to use us.
Some people must still see in you the young woman who endorsed violence against
police, violence in political movements.
It's important to understand the differences between that era and this era. Our relationship
with guns was very different, largely revolving around self-defense. Today, when there's
something like 300 million guns in the country, and we've experienced these horrendous
shootings, we can't take the same position. I am totally in favor of gun control, of removing
guns not only from civilians but also from police.
Guns you owned were used in the 1970 kidnapping and shootout at the Marin
County Civic Center. You were acquitted of all charges. I read you purchased the
guns for self-defense.
Yes, and I talked about the fact that my father had guns when I was growing up; our families
needed to protect themselves from the Ku Klux Klan. We have laws against hate crimes [now];
I am ambivalent about [them] because oftentimes they end up being used against people who
were initially the victims. Anti-lynching legislation is issued more against black kids and so-
called gangs. Oftentimes the tools against racism are being used in the service of a kind of
structural racism.
Copyright 2014, Los Angeles Times
The documentary "Free Angela and All Political Prisoners" makes much of your
relationship with George Jackson, the prison activist killed in Soledad Prison. Too
much?
I would have placed the emphasis elsewhere. If you talk to [director Shola Lynch], you'll see
she was working with conventional genres; she sees the film as a political drama, a crime
thriller and a love story. Even so, the research she did was quite amazing. She found archival
material I had never seen before. She interviewed one of the FBI agents who arrested me, and
in that interview, I discovered how they caught me. I'm impressed by the way the film has
affected young people. It can help intergenerational conversations that teach me something
and teach younger people something.
What became of the radical, personal, confrontational writing of the 1960s and
'70s?
It's an interesting question. In many ways we were on our own. We were experimenting.
Those experiments are important because without moving into realms about which one knows
nothing, there will never be any change.
I expect people say to you, "If you don't like it in America, why are you here?"
I have lived in other places but this is my home, and I feel committed to transforming this
country. I have felt that way since I was a child. My mother was an activist believing in the
possibilities of transforming the world. I still have not given that up.
This interview was edited and excerpted from a transcription.
Top of the Ticket
Political commentary from David Horsey
MAY 9, 2014, 12: 00 PM
'Bring back our girls' is a cry heard far beyond Nigeria
Bring back our girls is the international rallying cry of those demanding the return of more
than 200 Nigerian schoolgirls abducted by Islamic extremists. It should also be a constant
imperative for all civilized people who seek the release of females, both young and not so
young, from the chains of ideology, tradition and exploitation.
On April 14, a small army invaded a girls school in northern Nigeria. The contingent was part
of the Islamic guerrilla faction called Boko Haram, a name that translates as Western
education is forbidden. The soldiers kidnapped 276 female students and burned down the
school. In the days since, the terrorist groups leader, Abubakar Shekau, has threatened to sell
the girls into slavery or marry them off to Boko Haram members, which would be just
another form of slavery.
Boko Harams brazen, evil act has been met with outrage around the world. President Obama
condemned the abductions and has sent a military and law enforcement team to Nigeria to
help... READ MORE >
MAY 8, 2014, 5: 00 AM
Republicans abandon Americans to the calamities of climate
change
Of all the ways the strident wackiness of the Republican Party is harming our country, the
absolute worst is the obstinate, willfully ignorant refusal of GOP leaders to deal with the
biggest existential threat facing the United States: climate change.
Tuesday was the release date of a congressionally mandated status report on the effects of
climate change written by more than 240 scientists, businesspeople and a range of other
experts. It details for every region of the country the negative effects already being
experienced due to global warming.
Climate change, once considered an issue for the distant future, has moved firmly into the
present, states the report, officially known as the National Climate Assessment. Corn
producers in Iowa, oyster growers in Washington state and maple syrup producers in
Vermont are all observing climate-related changes that are outside of our recent experience.
The report goes further than ever before in asserting that more frequent floods, huge...
READ MORE >
MAY 7, 2014, 5: 00 AM
Clintons are poised to steal the national spotlight from Obama
Monica Lewinsky is back in the news, a clear harbinger of the countrys imminent return to a
political world dominated by the Clintons.
In the upcoming issue of Vanity Fair, Lewinsky declares that she wants to take control of
her own narrative. Its time to burn the beret and bury the blue dress, she says. I, myself,
deeply regret what happened between me and President Clinton. Let me say it again: I.
Myself. Deeply. Regret. What. Happened.
Lewinsky affirms that the affair that led to Clintons impeachment was consensual. Any
abuse came in the aftermath, she says, when I was made a scapegoat in order to protect his
powerful position. ... The Clinton administration, the special prosecutors minions, the
political operatives on both sides of the aisle, and the media were able to brand me. And that
brand stuck, in part because it was imbued with power.
Whether Lewinsky can now, or ever, regain control of her own story is questionable. She
continues to dwell on the weak side... READ MORE >
MAY 6, 2014, 5: 00 AM
Obama's White House Correspondents Dinner joke could have
been mine
Did President Obama steal a political gag from me for his routine at the White House
Correspondents Dinner?
I know quite a few conservatives think Im a fanboy for the president (thats not true -- Im a
fanboy for his amazing wife), but if he has stooped to ripping off my cartoons, I may have to
open my own investigation into Benghazi and demand that he give back his premature Nobel
Peace Prize.
The possible cartoon theft happened Saturday night at the White House Correspondents'
Assn. annual banquet in the nations capital. When the reporters first hosted a president --
Calvin Coolidge in 1924 -- the dinner was a private, all-white, all-male soiree. Now, it has
become a celebrity roast that draws nearly as many attendees from Hollywoodas from inside
the Beltway. This year, everyone from Zooey Deschanel and Jessica Simpson to Julianna
Marguiles and Sofia Vergara showed up to pose for a phalanx of photographers, just as if it
were the Emmys. Actors from the trio of alternative-... READ MORE >
MAY 2, 2014, 11: 30 AM
Koch brothers face an unexpected new foe: tea party conservatives
In their quest to cripple solar power and protect the profits of their fossil fuels-based
businesses, the Koch brothers have run into an unexpected and potent adversary: tea party
conservatives.
Recently, I wrote about how the billionaire Koch boys, conservative state legislators and big
utilities are leading the charge in several states to force private citizens with solar panels on
their homes to pay extra fees to be connected to the power grid. At the time it looked as if
they had won a big victory in Oklahoma, where the Republican-dominated Legislature passed
a bill authorizing just such a fee scheme.
It turns out all the hard work of the anti-solar forces was immediately blunted by an executive
order issued by Gov. Mary Fallin. The order directs the state energy commission to impose
solar fees only as a last resort and to continue making expansion of solar power a priority.
The question is how a Republican governor in a deep red state can go against the Kochs, the
most notable... READ MORE >
MAY 1, 2014, 5: 00 AM
Toyota exit from Torrance inflames Texas/California rivalry
After six decades of doing business in California, Toyota is moving its North American
headquarters to Texas. That means 3,000 of the carmakers jobs will be leaving Torrance and
going to Plano, perhaps convincing California officials they should stop Texas Gov. Rick
Perry at the border the next time he attempts to come to the Golden State for another raid on
businesses.
Toyotas surprise relocation will throw more gasoline on the burning argument about which
state is a better economic model for the nation. California and Texas, two giant, powerhouse
states that could stand on their own among the worlds biggest economies, are seen as the
perfect contrast between a high-regulation blue state and a low-regulation red state. And it is
no surprise that people arguing the superiority of one state or the other tend to choose their
facts based on their political biases.
Fans of Texas say the states lower taxes, lower cost of living and light-handed regulatory
system have created a booming... READ MORE >
APRI L 30, 2014, 5: 00 AM
Donald Sterling and Cliven Bundy share weird, antique racial
bias
Donald Sterling, owner of the Los Angeles Clippers, should give Cliven Bundy a call. After
Sterling loses his NBA franchise and the deadbeat Nevada rancher loses his cattle to the
Bureau of Land Management, the two old racists will both need a buddy. Maybe they can
team up together and open an all-white rodeo.
As most of the country has learned in the last couple of days, Sterling wrecked his three-
decade tenure as the unsuccessful and unliked boss of L.A.s No. 2 professional basketball
team by making racially charged comments to his girlfriend -- comments that the girlfriend
recorded and that, mysteriously, ended up on the TMZ website.
Actually, girlfriend does not quite capture the disputed nature of the relationship between
Sterling and the former Maria Vanessa Perez, who now goes by the name V. Stiviano. In the
lawsuit that has been brought against the 31-year-old Stiviano by the 80-year-old Sterlings
80-year-old estranged wife, Rochelle, Stiviano is accused of engaging "in... READ MORE >
APRI L 25, 2014, 5: 00 AM
Putin's Ukraine incursion brings back the bad old bear
Besides sending a chill up the spine of the international community, Vladimir Putin has
accomplished one other thing by seizing Crimea and threatening the rest of Ukraine: Putin
has brought back the bear.
Like Uncle Sam, the Republican elephant and the Democratic donkey, the Russian bear was a
stock character in decades of political cartoons drawn by pretty much every caricaturist in
the business, including me. The dissertation I wrote for my master's degree in international
relations was titled Visions of the Bear and surveyed British and American political
cartoons to track Western perceptions of the Soviets during the Cold War. In those cartoons,
bears abounded. The animal seemed a perfect personification of the USSR -- big, brutish,
shambling and dangerous.
One day not long after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991, I drew a
cartoon that retired the bear as the symbol of the new Russia in my commentary. The beast
had become toothless and it was time to find a... READ MORE >
APRI L 24, 2014, 5: 00 AM
Crackpot Cliven Bundy waves the flag and flouts the law
The right-wing insurrection at the Bundy ranch in Bunkerville, Nev., has taken another weird
turn with new revelations about the family history of Cliven Bundy.
Bundy justifies his two-decade-long refusal to pay the Bureau of Land Management for
grazing rights on the public land where he runs his cattle by claiming his ancestors gained
livestock water rights in the 1870s, long before the federal government horned in on the deal.
Now, it turns out, that is not exactly true.
KLAS, the CBS affiliate in Las Vegas, checked out the Bundy familys history with the land
and found Bundys grandmother was born in 1901 to parents who had moved a few years
earlier from Utah and farmed, not in Bunkerville, but in neighboring Mesquite County. All his
other relatives came to the area years later from Arizona and other states. Although Bundy
says water rights were somehow handed down to him, records show Bundys ranch bordering
the BLM land was not purchased by his family until 1948.
In 1998, a... READ MORE >
APRI L 23, 2014, 5: 00 AM
Koch brothers and big utilities campaign to unplug solar power
The Koch brothers have a new ploy to protect the traditional energy business that helped
make them the planets fifth- and sixth-richest humans. They are funding a campaign to
shackle solar energy consumers who have escaped the grip of big electric utilities.
Of all the pro-business, anti-government causes they have funded with their billions, this may
be the most cynical and self-serving. On Sunday, a Los Angeles Times story by Evan Halper
outlined the Kochs latest scheme. Along with anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist, several
major power companies and a national association representing conservative state
legislators, the brothers are aiming to kill preferences for the burgeoning solar power
industry that have been put into law in dozens of states. Kansas, North Carolina and Arizona
are their first targets, with more to come.
They already have their first victory. On Monday, Oklahomas Republican Gov. Mary Fallin
signed a bill passed by the GOP-controlled Legislature that authorizes... READ MORE >
APRI L 22, 2014, 5: 00 AM
Cliven Bundy's militiamen are neither terrorists nor patriots
Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy is a scofflaw with screwy ideas about the Constitution, and the
armed oddballs who have joined his skirmish with the Bureau of Land Management are a
nutty vanguard of the deluded conspiracy-mongers who dominate the far right wing in
American politics. Given their actions, they do not deserve to be called patriots, but neither
are they terrorists.
They have been characterized as both. Appearing together on a TV news show, Nevadas two
U.S. senators disagreed about the nature of the armed men who scared off federal agents as
they attempted to confiscate Bundys cattle. Democratic Sen. Harry Reid, the majority
leader, called them domestic terrorists. In response, Republican Sen. Dean Heller said,
What Sen. Reid may call domestic terrorists, I call patriots.
Reid went too far. The two brothers who bombed the Boston Marathon were terrorists. The
anti-government militants who blew up the federal building in Oklahoma City were terrorists.
The neo-Confederates... READ MORE >
APRI L 18, 2014, 5: 00 AM
Corporate success should be shared with workers, not just CEOs
Of the many statistics that expose Americas increasingly wide wealth gap, there is one that
has stuck with me this week: The top 10% of wage earners in the U.S. receive half the
income of all wage earners combined.
It is a function of simple math that people at the top of a wage scale will grab a bigger share
of the money, but that share is not constant. According to Thomas Piketty of the Paris School
of Economics, the highest 10% took in just a third of all income in 1960. In a New York
Times interview, Piketty said a large proportion of the current rise to nearly 50% is due to
the recent sharp increase in supersalaries being paid to senior executives.
Now, this may be simplistic math, but it strikes me that if supersalaries are taking a larger
share, that means there is less left to pay workers and managers well down the corporate
ladder. In other words, one cause of middle-class income stagnation might just be the greed
at the top.
At many American corporations, the stark... READ MORE >

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