Freedom Is a Constant Struggle : Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement

Product Information

So even if you're not someone who is inclined to pick up non-fiction or perhaps just not a reader of this type of non-fiction, I'd encourage you to check it out. framework shows that movements are more powerful when they begin to affect the vision and perspective of those who do not necessarily associate themselves with those movements. It is not a question of whether or not one should prioritize a movement, be it a feminist movement or a black freedom movement—there should be BOTH.

I borrowed this from the library when I realized that I had yet to read or see any of Angela Davis' work, and didn't really know anything about her at all. Under neoliberal capitalism, this condition is emerging less as an exception than as a modality of rule, everywhere. An important point here is that racism and colonialism are not only interwoven as constitutive dimensions within the international development of modern capitalist social formations, but have been reworked and updated under globalizing conditions. It has been so thoroughly commoditized that many people don't even know how to understand the very process of acquiring knowledge because it is subordinated to the future capacity to make money.Although the book cites and specifies many important things we should start considering, understanding, and realizing, the speeches provided were repetitive. The text, while concise and accessible, draws out critical arguments that must be engaged with and provides the reader with the ability to tease out broader ideas and concepts of equality. Many of my family members struggle to understand the changing social paradigms in this country and will often make very individualistic comments and criticisms about the deconstructing of things that have long been familiar to them.

This wide-ranging and brilliant set of essays includes a trenchant analysis of police violence against people of color, of the systematic incarceration of black people in America, the grounds of Palestinian solidarity for the Left, the affirmation of transgender inclusion, and the necessity of opposing the G4S corporation and its high-profit empire dedicated to the institutionalization of racism in the name of security. This book of interviews and essays clearly distills many complex current issues, highlighting how local struggles are also global ones.

Activist and organizer that she is, Davis frequently issues a demand to her readers and audiences: oppositional political thought and action needs to consciously attend to intersections of various kinds—between public and private violence, between struggles to change institutions and to transform the self, and to the tributaries that flow between domestic policing and overseas military violence. Her conversations/speeches around the legacy and influence of Assata Shakur and place she holds/what she means to the idea of resistance and how that's linked to black women is just — it's everything. Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine and the Foundations of a Movement carries a lot of important information that we should know.

While covering complex and urgent topics, the book also made me feel hopeful and optimistic for the future. Angela Davis has stood her ground on every issue important to the health of our people and the planet. I am dying to read anything she published post-November 2016, after the election of a POTUS that made Bush look like Jane Fonda.

This is my ultimate issue with framing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a similar situation to South Africa or the US. She focuses on the importance of Black Lives Matter and Black feminism, while emphasizing the importance of connecting white supremacy within the United States to other forms of state violence and oppression throughout the world. Angela Davis reconnects Black movements history in the US with other movements that previously started in other countries, such as Cuba, China, and South Africa. While what she was saying needed to be repeated I felt those pages could have been better served diving deeper into the history of certain Palestinian or Turkish political prisoners instead of glossing over names. A broad range of subjects are discussed in the pocket-sized powerhouse: Black Lives Matter, Palestine, the abolition of carceral systems, gender and liberation, and all are discussed with delicate – yet sophisticated – nuance, while encapsulating the meaning of freedom, equality and liberation.

She wants to show that feminism and social change has room for everyone of all genders, abilities and sexuality's to fight for freedom. These essays take us back in history to the founders of revolutionary and anti-racist struggle, but they also take us toward the possibility of ongoing intersectional solidarity and struggle. Davis illuminates the connections between struggles against state violence and oppression throughout history and around the world. Reflecting on the importance of Black feminism, intersectionality, and prison abolitionism for today’s struggles, Davis discusses the legacies of previous liberation struggles—from the Black freedom movement to the South African antiapartheid movement. Davis complains that people say the conflict is complicated in an attempt to shut down conversation.

And it would be fine, if you were in person, hearing it and experiencing it for the first time, perhaps, or maybe even several times, if you had been a longtime follower of her work and familiar with her. Communalism, or at least organising along shared interests, is the direct antithesis to the logic that is at the root of capitalism: individualism. For example, Davis mentions that Palestinians tweeted Ferguson activists advice about tear gas 4 times or that she was on the FBI wanted list 5 times. It's very accessible, told either in the form of conversations with Frank Barat or through various transcripts of speeches Davis gave around 2013-2015.