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Angela Davis
102 quotes
“It is both humiliating and humbling to discover that a single generation after the events that constructed me as a public personality, I am remembered as a hairdo.”
Angela Davis (born 1944) first seen 1994 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Afro Images: Politics, Fashion, and Nostalgia" Critical Inquiry. Vol. 21, No. 1 (Autumn, 1994), pp. 37-39, 41-43 and 45.
“Where cultural representations do not reach out beyond themselves, there is the danger that they will function as the surrogates for activism, that they will constitute both the beginning and the end of political practice.”
Angela Davis (born 1944) first seen 1992 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Black Nationalism: The Sixties and the Nineties." Black Popular Culture, ed. Gina Dent (Seattle, Wash: Bay Press, 1992), 324.
“Progressive art can assist people to learn not only about the objective forces at work in the society in which they live, but also about the intensely social character of their interior lives. Ultimately, it can propel people toward social emancipation.”
Angela Davis (born 1944) first seen 1995 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: For a People's Culture." Political Affairs, March 1995.
“Prisons do not disappear problems, they disappear human beings. And the practice of disappearing vast numbers of people from poor, immigrant and racially marginalized communities has literally become big business.”
Angela Davis (born 1944) first seen 1998 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Masked Racism" (1998)
“The challenge of the twenty-first century is not to demand equal opportunity to participate in the machinery of oppression. Rather, it is to identify and dismantle those structures in which racism continues to be embedded. This is the only way the promise of freedom can be extended to masses of people.”
Angela Davis (born 1944) first seen 2005 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From Abolition Democracy: Beyond Empire, Prisons, and Torture (2005), p. 29.
“The reason I am a communist is because I believe in a total revolution which is going to overthrow the capitalist control of the economy, which will seize the wealth from all of the giant corporations that exploit and control the lives of all working people.”
Angela Davis (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When you talk about a revolution, most people think violence; without realizing that the real content of any kind of revolutionary thrust lies in the principles and the goals that you're striving for - not in the way that you reach them. On the other hand, because of the way this society is organized; because of the violence that exists on the surface everywhere - you'd have to expect that there are going to be such explosions. You have to expect things like that as reactions.”
Angela Davis (born 1944) first seen 1967 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975.
“Palestine is a moral litmus test for the world”
Angela Davis (born 1944) first seen 2023 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Angela Davis: 'Palestine is a moral litmus test for the world' (27 Oct 2023)
“My decision to join the Communist party emanated from my belief that the only true path of liberation for black people is the one that leads toward a complete and total overthrow of the capitalist class in this country and all its manifold institutional appendages which insure its ability to exploit the masses and enslave black people.”
Angela Davis (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The American judicial system is bankrupt. In so far as black people are concerned, it has proven itself to be one more arm of a system carrying out the systematic oppression of our people. We are the victims, not the recipients of justice.”
Angela Davis (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Repression is the response of an increasingly desperate imperialist ruling clique to contain an otherwise uncontrollable and growing popular disaffection leading ultimately, we think, to the revolutionary transformation of society.”
Angela Davis (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We believe that the most pressing political necessity is the consolidation of a United Front joining together all sections of the revolutionary, radical and democratic movements. Only a united front—led in the first place by the national liberation movements and the working people—can decisively counter, theoretically, ideologically and practically, the increasingly fascistic and genocidal posture of the present ruling clique”
Angela Davis (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In the heat of our pursuit for fundamental human rights, Black people have been continually cautioned to be patient. We are advised that as long as we remain faithful to the existing democratic order, the glorious moment will eventually arrive when we will come into our own as full-fledged human beings.”
Angela Davis (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The political prisoner’s words or deeds have in one form or another embodied political protests against the established order and have consequently brought him into acute conflict with the state. In light of the political content of his act, the “crime” (which may or may not have been committed) assumes a minor importance. In this country, however, where the special category of political prisoners is not officially acknowledged, the political prisoner inevitably stands trial for a specific criminal offense, not for a political act.”
Angela Davis (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Nat Turner and John Brown were political prisoners in their time. The acts for which they were charged and subsequently hanged, were the practical extensions of their profound commitment to the abolition of slavery.”
Angela Davis (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It goes without saying that the police would be unable to set into motion their racist machinery were they not sanctioned and supported by the judicial system. The courts not only consistently abstain from prosecuting criminal behavior on the part of the police, but they convict, on the basis of biased police testimony, countless Black men and women.”
Angela Davis (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The vicious circle linking poverty, police, courts and prison is an integral element of ghetto existence.”
Angela Davis (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Birth control - individual choice, safe contraceptive methods, as well as abortions when necessary - is a fundamental prerequisite for the emancipation of women.”
Angela Davis (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Woman” was the test, but not every woman seemed to qualify. Black women, of course, were virtually invisible within the protracted campaign for woman suffrage. As for white working-class women, the suffrage leaders were probably impressed at first by the organizing efforts and militancy of their working-class sisters. But as it turned out, the working women themselves did not enthusiastically embrace the cause of woman suffrage.”
Angela Davis (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It was assumed within birth control circles that poor women, Black and immigrant alike, had a 'moral obligation to restrict the size of their families.' What was demanded as a 'right' for the privileged came to be interpreted as a 'duty' for the poor.”
Angela Davis (born 1944) first seen 2011 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Page 210 of 2011 edition of the book.
“If Black people had simply accepted a status of economic and political inferiority, the mob murders would probably have subsided. But because vast numbers of ex-slaves refused to discard their dreams of progress, more than ten thousand lynchings occurred during the three decades following the war.”
Angela Davis (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Whoever challenged the racial hierarchy was marked a potential victim of the mob. The endless roster of the dead came to include every sort of insurgent—from the owners of successful Black businesses and workers pressing for higher wages to those who refused to be called “boy” and the defiant women who resisted white men’s sexual abuses. Yet public opinion had been captured, and it was taken for granted that lynching was a just response to the barbarous sexual crimes against white womanhood.”
Angela Davis (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Judged by the evolving nineteenth-century ideology of femininity, which emphasized women’s roles as nurturing mothers and gentle companions and housekeepers for their husbands, Black women were practically anomalies.”
Angela Davis (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Insofar as the military contest between the North and the South was a war to overthrow the Southern slaveholding class, it was a war which had been basically conducted in the interests of the Northern bourgeoisie, i.e., the young and enthusiastic industrial capitalists who found their political voice in the Republican party. The Northern capitalists sought economic control over the entire nation. Their struggle against the Southern slaveocracy did not therefore mean that they supported the liberation of Black men or women as human beings.”
Angela Davis (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What is problematic is the degree to which nationalism has become a paradigm for our community-building processes. We need to move away from such arguments as “Well, she’s not really Black.” “She comes from such-and-such a place.” “Her hair is…” “She doesn’t listen to ‘our’ music,” and so forth. What counts as Black is not so important as our political coalition building commitment to engage in anti-racist, anti-sexist, and anti-homophobic work.”
Angela Davis (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I want to emphasize the importance of historical memory in our contemporary efforts to work together across differences. I raise the importance of historical memory not for the purpose of presenting immutable paradigms for coalition-building, but rather in order to understand historical trajectories and precisely to move beyond older conceptions of cross-racial organizing.”
Angela Davis (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Racism is still a factor both within the gay movement and in the way the gay movement is publicly perceived.”
Angela Davis (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As we approach the millennium, we need to demystify the notion that this country is monolingual.”
Angela Davis (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is a way in which the movements of the sixties and early seventies are set up as models of activism for young people today. Incredibly dramatic movements from that era remain etched in our national memory, whether we experienced them or not, the student movement, the Black Power Movement, movements of Chicanos, Native Americans, Asian Americans. Many young people are led to romanticize the participants and the strategies and styles of those movements. You don’t necessarily consider how hard it was to organize.”
Angela Davis (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Many people are familiar with the campaign to abolish the death penalty. In fact, it has already been abolished in most countries. Even the staunchest advocates of capital punishment acknowledge the fact that the death penalty faces serious challenges. Few people find life without the death penalty difficult to imagine.”
Angela Davis (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There are now thirty-three prisons, thirty eight camps, sixteen community correctional facilities, and five tiny prisoner mother facilities in California. In 2002, there were 157,979 people incarcerated in these institutions, including approximately twenty thousand people whom the state holds for immigration violations.”
Angela Davis (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“On the whole, people tend to take prisons for granted. It is difficult to imagine life without them At the same time, there is reluctance to face the realities hidden within them, a fear of thinking about what happens inside them. Thus, the prison is present in our lives and, at the same time, it is absent from our lives. To think about this simultaneous presence and absence is to begin to acknowledge the part played by ideology in shaping the way we interact with our social surroundings. We take prisons for granted but are often afraid to face the realities they produce.”
Angela Davis (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The prison therefore functions ideologically as an abstract site into which undesirables are deposited, relieving us of the responsibility of thinking about the real issues afflicting those communities from which prisoners are drawn in such disproportionate numbers. This is the ideological work that the prison performs—it relieves us of the responsibility of seriously engaging with the problems of our society, especially those produced by racism and, increasingly, global capitalism.”
Angela Davis (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The prison has become a black hole inti which the detritus of contemporary capitalism is deposited. Mass imprisonment generates profits as it devours social wealth, and thus it tends to reproduce the very conditions that lead people to prison”
Angela Davis (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It should be remembered that the ancestors of many of today's most ardent liberals could not have imagined life without slavery, life without lynching, life without segregation.”
Angela Davis (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Because we are so accustomed to talking about race in terms of black and white, we often fail to recognize and contest expressions of racism that target people of color who are not black.”
Angela Davis (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Particularly in the United States, race has always played a central role in constructing presumptions of criminality.”
Angela Davis (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I am not suggesting that the abolition of slavery and the lease system has produced an era of equality and justice. On the contrary, racism surreptitiously defines social and economic structures in ways that are difficult to identify and thus are much more damaging.”
Angela Davis (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Although men constitute the vast majority of prisoners in the world, important aspects of the operation of state punishment are missed if it is assumed that women are marginal and thus undeserving of attention.”
Angela Davis (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“While jails and prisons have been dominant institutions for the control of men, mental institutions have served a similar purpose for women. That is, deviant men have been constructed as criminal, while deviant women have been constructed as insane.”
Angela Davis (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Paradoxically, demands for parity with men's prisons, instead of creating greater educational, vocational, and health opportunities for women prisoners, often have led to more repressive conditions for women. This is not only a consequence of deploying liberal - that is, formalistic - notions of equality, but of, more dangerous, allowing male prisons to function as the punishment norm.”
Angela Davis (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Although guard-on-prisoner sexual abuse is not sanctioned as such, the widespread leniency with which offending officers are treated suggests that for women, prison is a space in which the threat of sexualized violence that looms in the larger society is effectively sanctioned as a routine aspect of the landscape of punishment behind prison walls.”
Angela Davis (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The criminalization of black and Latina women includes persisting images of hypersexuality that serve to justify sexual assaults against them both in and outside of prison.”
Angela Davis (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The call to abolish the prison as the dominant form of punishment cannot ignore the extent to which the institution of the prison has stockpiled ideas and practices that are hopefully approaching obsolescence in the larger society, but that retain their ghastly vitality behind prison walls.”
Angela Davis (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The notion of a prison industrial complex insists on understandings of the punishment process that take into account economic and political structures and ideologies, rather than focusing myopically on the individual criminal conduct and efforts to "curb crime.”
Angela Davis (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Critiques of the prison industrial complex undertaken by abolitionist activists and scholars are very much linked to critiques of the global persistence of racism. Antiracist and other social justice movements are incomplete with attention to the politics of imprisonment.”
Angela Davis (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Both [the military industrial complex and the prison industrial complex] generate huge profits from processes of social destruction. Precisely that which is advantageous to those corporations, elected officials, and government agents who have obvious stakes in the expansion of these systems begets grief and devastation for poor and racially dominated communities in the United States and throughout the world.”
Angela Davis (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The transformation of imprisoned bodies - and they are in their majority bodies of color - into sources of profit who consume and also often produce all kinds of commodities, devours public funds, which might otherwise be available for social programs such as education, housing, childcare, recreation, and drug programs.”
Angela Davis (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Private prisons are direct sources of profit for the companies that run them, but public prisons have become so thoroughly saturated with the profit-producing products and services of private corporations that the distinction is not as meaningful as one might suspect.”
Angela Davis (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Despite the important gains of antiracist social movements over the last half century, racism hides from view within institutional structures, and its most reliable refuge is the prison system.”
Angela Davis (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source