Angela Davis
A few weeks ago, I sat in the Chapel at Vasser College, surrounded by a multitude of individuals with varying intersectional identities and causes, listening to feminist scholar Angela Davis speak. The talk — entitled “Our Feminisms: From #occupy to #sayhername” — touched upon a variety of relevant issues, ranging from the Israel-Palestine conflict to #SayHerName to #BlackLivesMatter. Davis used black feminist theory to string many social justice movements together, arguing that our feminisms, whether state-sanctioned or not, are interwoven and have the potential to be transnational.
While the talk touched on many important points, a few particularly stuck with me. The first was that in order to revolutionize state systems and achieve true liberation, we need to dismantle, redefine and ultimately reimagine the systems on which they are predicated. We are taught to think within certain parameters set by state institutions, Davis argued. Take, for example, the fact that the language we use to describe difference has not evolved with the ways in which oppressive transgressions have morphed over time. Society’s “vocabulary around race is very obsolete” and we must “deal in a more complicated matter with racism,” Davis said.
As a black woman from Brooklyn who has witnessed first hand the severe presence of the state in the form of gentrification, this call to re-imagine the organization and protection of our communities resonated with me. For me, this re-imagination was the crux of her talk. Activists have to remember to reach beyond immediate legislative goals, as doing so is what radicalizes the mind and emblazons hope in the heart of revolutionaries. It’s arguably this divide that delineated the Civil Rights Movement from the Black Power Movement, for example.
Ms. Davis’ also made an important point about self care that, as an individual who constantly battles the urge to pull back and explode, especially spoke to me. “Self care has become a very important part of activism today,” she said.
I found it refreshing to hear self care emphasized by someone widely regarded as a radical activist. Maybe it’s a response to the “lazy black people” trope that constantly lingers in my shadow or the capitalist spirit that surrounds all of us, but I know that I, as well as other activists, often feel guilty for not spending all of our time productively and undervalue taking time to slow down and take care of ourselves. It was comforting to hear that not only is my fear of wasted time not a foreshadow of failure, but that taking time to love, take care and enjoy life is also an activist endeavor itself.
And yet, Davis noted, rage shouldn’t be altogether avoided. We must learn “how to create places of rage,” whiles simultaneously learning “how not to be consumed by rage, how can we direct that rage productively…we have to learn how to take care of ourselves…emotionally, physically, mentally,” she said.
I agree: Rage can be the expression of frustration in the underbelly of the oppressed. We can willingly live within the discomfort that consumes how we think of knowledge, learn, interact and perceive ourselves and use this as a productive way to fight complacence.
While all of these points were thought-provoking, I walked out of the chapel somewhat disappointed. I think I hoped that I would leave the Chapel feeling that, as a radical black feminist, I had been personally anointed by Angela Davis. Instead, I left feeling engaged, but no significantly different than I had upon entering it.
I’ve thought about this a lot since I sat staring up at Angela Davis’ spectacles, and have ultimately concluded that this is okay. Davis is just one person, just as I am one person. Maybe it’s necessary to just be one person, in constant tumble with one’s own destiny, always trying to apply interesting points like these made by others to where I currently am in my life as an artist, scholar, activist and writer. Sometimes moments of understanding don’t come in long analyses or breakthrough moments. Sometimes the Angela Davis figures of the world just plant a seed.