Angela Davis on Prison Abolition, the War on Drugs and Why Social Movements Shouldn't Wait on Obama

Рет қаралды 43,238

10 жыл бұрын

www.democracynow.org - For more than four decades, the world-renowned author, activist and scholar Angela Davis has been one of most influential activists and intellectuals in the United States. An icon of the 1970s black liberation movement, Davis' work around issues of gender, race, class and prisons has influenced critical thought and social movements across several generations. She is a leading advocate for prison abolition, a position informed by her own experience as a fugitive on the FBI's top 10 most wanted list more than 40 years ago. Davis, a professor emerita at University of California, Santa Cruz and the subject of the recent documentary, "Free Angela and All Political Prisoners," joins us to discuss prison abolition, mass incarceration, the so-called war on drugs, International Women's Day, and why President Obama's second term should see a greater wave of activism than in his first.
Watch the full interview with Angela Davis on Democracy Now!: www.democracynow.org/2014/3/6/...
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Пікірлер: 62

@MichaelShulski 8 жыл бұрын

She's great. I keep telling people about what she taught me. (edit: she made this same comments as I was typing this). The decline of industrial jobs, and replacement with service sector, produced a good deal of unemployment in the "Rust Belt". The areas included in the Rust Belt consisted of old, middle American cities like Detroit and Chicago as well as eastern industrial areas. In part, many industrial workers either became prison guards or their children worked in the prison system. The modern prison industrial complex cannot be understood without understanding this transition. That's why, like she said, we need to reinvest in not just education, but ways to reform people with social programs. We need to retrain prison guards to be social workers. They don't even have to be government bureaucrats. We could have, small local either private or public run social services. It would be problematic. But, it's the best we could do.

@nailahc.8615 4 жыл бұрын

dang. she was really ahead of her time

@kponly 6 жыл бұрын

I'm sick of polite society. We have people dying in vain in prisons. They're losing their lives with no hope of change for the future. There own children are likely to have bad lives. We have to stop this. Now. Now. Now. America needs a priority change. What's it going to take?

@marxistloxistella-ist5179 3 жыл бұрын

YES!

@JoySpatz 10 жыл бұрын

WOW , Great Reporting !!!

@iloveutube921 10 жыл бұрын

Thank you Amy and Juan. It was a joy to see Angela Davis. I'm happy to see she still is rockin that afro, even if it's smaller these days. What better person as your guest on Women's Day than Ms. Davis. She's exemplifies brilliance and strength along with beauty, It was a joy to hear her. Thank you so much.. And YOU Amy make me proud to be a women. Thank you for all you do.

@RachelDerGolem 10 жыл бұрын

I think it's a great idea!!!! Let's take all those "innocent" people in prison and put them in Amy Goodman's house!!!!

@commonman80 10 жыл бұрын

Rachel Golem You and your snide remark don't seem to understand how easy it is to be innocent, and be convicted of a crime... Elaboration: If you spit on The Sidewalk? I can set you up to be convicted (Without any reasonable doubt) of Murder.. So get off your high horse...

@iloveutube921 10 жыл бұрын

@commonman, I find it best not to engage people who lack any true knowledge of the facts. I appreciate your effort in trying to educate the ill-informed, but my belief is this person has NO intention of either educating themselves or in altering their misguided opinion regardless, so best not waste your time. They see this as nothing more than an opportunity to rant about things they haven't a clue about. That remark screams, " I don't read". Because if they did read any quality material along these lines, they would KNOW that incarceration is largely a socio-economic problem fueled by the prison industrial complex. If it weren't, the bankers ie. Jamie Dimon who sunk this country and put it into economic ruin, costing ordinary. hard- working people who worked a lifetime,their pensions, would be in jail. Instead they walk free and in many cases and certainly in Jamie's case are given a raise. Plus, I don't understand why this person would attach their comment to mine. I wasn't speaking them. I was speaking to Amy and Juan. If they had an opinion, they are free to state it apart from comments that have nothing in the world to do with either them or the subject of the message. More evidence that this is this poor soul's sad excuse to extol their ignorance. I hope you will join me in praying for this person, commonman.

@Sylkie 10 жыл бұрын

Great interview

@kponly 5 жыл бұрын

Why don't we know what the viewpoints of our politicians on prison abolition. We should make it a cause that they have at address to get our votes.

@Warriorpend2 8 жыл бұрын

Angela Davis is absolutely fantastic.

@Warriorpend2 8 жыл бұрын

Cry some more. :)

@Warriorpend2 8 жыл бұрын

J Stevens If by toys you mean games, I think I will! Got a lot of games to play now that it's summer.

@VictrolaJazz 8 жыл бұрын

And a Marxist.

@Warriorpend2 8 жыл бұрын

VictrolaJazz You're only making her sound more awesome. A feminist and a marxist! :D

@VictrolaJazz 8 жыл бұрын

No, just third class like the people who support her.

@commonman80 10 жыл бұрын

The Dunn case is INCREDIBLE... The Verdict basically said. The Court in going to punish you for NOT KILLING ALL THREE OF THOSE TEENS.. Because, If he had killed all Three? (According to the Verdict.) He would have walked free...

@pipi917 10 жыл бұрын

This is very scary for African American women who fear for their kids lives. We need to stand up against these unjust laws immediately. We need to pull together as a people, stop fighting amongst ourselves but start supporting each other in every way

@commonman80 10 жыл бұрын

pipi917 "This is very scary for African American women who fear for their kids"? What the fuck are you trying to pull? Don't send me your BULL SHIT!!! Because Both of the Young Men who were Murdered had a mother AND AN AFRICAN AMERICAN FATHER... You run your BULL SHIT RHETORIC on The White Population in America... NOT ME... Because if you ask me? The reason These Good African American Children are being Murdered IN OUR FUCKING FACES is because of The Plague Of BASTARDS THUGS That The "Black Feminist" have been producing these past 30 years. Paid for by Federal and State Public Assistance, and Nurtured by Subversives of The African American Community like Oprah and Maxine Waters. Also, Just to let you know. Angels Davis IS NOT A "BLACK FEMINIST"... So if you're looking for This TRULY STRONG BLACK WOMAN to Stand for your FUCKED UP CAUSE? You need to look else where. You also need to know and understand WHO AND WHAT SHE IS in American History...

@schwarzblatt 9 жыл бұрын

If prisons are abolished, do we replace them with anything? That idea just seems like lunacy to me. We can try to reduce pathways to prison by increasing education and access to economic opportunity and still have prisons to house people who victimize others. Violence is inherent to the human condition and those who use coercive violence against others should be locked away.

@Ronniethesage 9 жыл бұрын

The point of the prison abolition movement isn't to immediately remove prisons from our society; that's not possible at the moment. Its purpose is to shift emphasis away from reform -- making prisons better -- and towards decarceration. To do this, we must address the laws and social problems that enable disgracefully high prison rates.

@schwarzblatt 9 жыл бұрын

Ronniethesage An emphasis on prevention is of course a fantastic idea. I feel like the term 'abolition' is sort of a misnomer, though, in that case. I immediately think of sadistic predators being sent to halfway houses instead of shielded society from them in prisons. It's asinine to think we can completely do away with the darkest of antisocial impulses. Abuse is part of the human genome and cannot just be socialized out, but certain criminal patterns can certainly be reduced.

@Ronniethesage 9 жыл бұрын

schwarzblatt That may be the case, but I don't think that the number of people for whom there is no solution at all under any circumstance is relatively high. Regardless of what we call the movement for strengthening the emphasis on addressing social problems, especially in poor minority neighborhoods -- you can call it "Prisons as a last resort" rather than "Prison Abolition" if you'd like -- having more of these discourses is essential.

@FeedOnTheWeak 6 жыл бұрын

Of course prison abolition is not realistic in the short term and discussibly desirable, but the idea is precisely to draw attention and get people to consider the idea. If you want to negotiate change you're better to start from the extreme to expand the possibility space in peoples' awareness, from which you can negotiate a middle way.

@poweredsoldier538 5 жыл бұрын

@Junius Johnson that's the main problem I have with prison abolitionists. Criminal justice reformists wants the same thing in the Scandinavian countries ,but prison abolitionists would rather NOT learn from those countries and instead take their ideology to the extreme. Learning from other countries is not a difficult thing to follow.

@sean2val 10 жыл бұрын

the problem is governments writing unlawful laws , the act of making every human activity subject to the permission of the state, ie your government telling u what u can put in your mouth etc . there is a lot of money in locking people up

@PetadeAztlan 10 жыл бұрын

▶ Angela Davis on Prison Abolition, the War on Drugs and Why Social Movements...: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/l6hdf9aK3rOqh30.html via @DemocracyNow ~Pub Mar 6, 2014 ++++

@Vierotchka 10 жыл бұрын

Angela Davis is still sporting her famous afro hair style which, in the sixties and seventies, many of us ruined our hair with perms to imitate!

@helsphoenix2623 10 жыл бұрын

I can not ah, watch this ah, with all of ah, her pauses ah. :( I wanted to hear about it too. I hope she works on fixing that.

@malithewildflower 7 жыл бұрын

Hels Phoenix is that the only thing you can focus on then you need help.

@helsphoenix2623 7 жыл бұрын

Nope, she needs to learn to speak or get someone else on that can get the message across in a less distracting manner. Presentation is important. Like I said, I wanted to hear what she had to say, and tried to look past it but...well...damn. Also way to resurrect a comment from 3 years ago! It LIVES!!! I do need help though...just not for seeing this as a problem...I have far, far more disturbing issues that need addressing. Like...whose blood is this caked under my fingernails... O_o And whose computer am I typing on right now? >_

@mialibbey2747 4 жыл бұрын

This woman has been a civil rights leader, political theorist, and public speaker for decades, i don't think she needs your notes

@helsphoenix2623 4 жыл бұрын

@@mialibbey2747 Wow...another three years have gone by since my comment on my comment. Six years total. I stand by what I said. Presentation is important and if her pauses caused someone like me, who WANTED to hear what she had to say, to have to stop watching then how is she supposed to get through to people on the margins of the ideas she is presenting?