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If we do not know how to meaningfully talk about racism, our actions will move in misleading directions.

Angela Davis

Prisons do not disappear problems, they disappear human beings.
ANGELA DAVIS

Disappear Human Being Jail Prison Problem
We live in a society of an imposed forgetfulness, a society that depends on public amnesia
ANGELA DAVIS

Depend Live Public Society
Jails and prisons are designed to break human beings, to convert the population into specimens in a zoo – obedient to our keepers, but dangerous to each other.
ANGELA DAVIS

Convert Danger Design Each Other Human Jail Obedient Population Prison Zoo
It is essential to resist the depiction of history as the work of heroic individuals.
ANGELA DAVIS

Essential History Individual Work
Human beings cannot be willed and molded into non-existence.
ANGELA DAVIS

Existence Human Being Wisdom
You can’t criticize people for wanting to have a decent life or wanting to live decently.
ANGELA DAVIS

Criticism Decent Life Live People Want
Sometimes we have to do the work even though we don’t yet see a glimmer on the horizon that it’s actually going to be possible.
ANGELA DAVIS

Actual Hope Justice Struggle Work
I don’t think we have any alternative other than remaining optimistic. Optimism is an absolute necessity, even if it’s only optimism of the will, as Gramsci said, and pessimism of the intellect.
ANGELA DAVIS

Absolute Alternative Intellectual Necessity Optimistic Thinking
I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change. I am changing the things I cannot accept.
ANGELA DAVIS

Acceptance Change Entrepreneur Hustle Inspirational
In a racist society it is not enough to be non-racist, we must be anti-racist.
ANGELA DAVIS

Enough Feminism Racism Society
We should seek out all the doors which still remain ajar, however slight the opening might be.
ANGELA DAVIS

Door Hope Jail Open Seek
Well for one, the 13th amendment to the constitution of the US which abolished slavery – did not abolish slavery for those convicted of a crime.
ANGELA DAVIS

Abolish Amendment Constitution Convinction Country Crime Slave
If we do not know how to meaningfully talk about racism, our actions will move in misleading directions.
ANGELA DAVIS

Action Black Lives Matter Direction Mislead Racism
The process of empowerment cannot be simplistically defined in accordance with our own particular class interests. We must learn to lift as we climb.
ANGELA DAVIS

Climb Interest Learning Particular Process Women Empowerment
It’s my body and I have the right to do whatever I want to do with it. So does every other female on this planet.
ANGELA DAVIS

Body Female Planet Women Rights
No march, movement, or agenda that defines manhood in the narrowest terms and seeks to make women lesser partners in this quest for equality can be considered a positive step.
ANGELA DAVIS

Agenda Consideration Equality Movement Seek Women
Revolution is a serious thing, the most serious thing about a revolutionary’s life. When one commits oneself to the struggle, it must be for a lifetime.
ANGELA DAVIS

Commitment Life Lifetime Onself Revolution Serious Struggle
When children attend schools that place a greater value on discipline and security than on knowledge and intellectual development, they are attending prep schools for prison.
ANGELA DAVIS

Children Development Discipline Intellectual Knowledge Prison School Security Value
The campaign against the death penalty has been – while a powerful campaign, its participants have been those who attend all of the vigils, a relatively small number of people.
ANGELA DAVIS

Attempt Campaign Death Participation Penalty Powerful
Equal pay for women has always been an issue, eventhough we all know women work 10x harder than most men do.
ANGELA DAVIS

Equality Issue Men Pay Wages Women Women Empowerment Work
As a black woman, my politics and political affiliation are bound up with and flow from participation in my people’s struggle for liberation, and with the fight of oppressed people all over the world against American imperialism.
ANGELA DAVIS

Country Participation People Politics Racism Struggle World
We have to talk about liberating minds as well as liberating society.
ANGELA DAVIS

Feminism Liberty Mind Society Talk
You have to act as if it were possible to radically transform the world. And you have to do it all the time.
ANGELA DAVIS

Act Radical Time Transformation World
To understand how any society functions you must understand the relationship between the men and the women.
ANGELA DAVIS

Function Men Relationship Society Understand Women
Racism is a much more clandestine, much more hidden kind of phenomenon, but at the same time it’s perhaps far more terrible than it’s ever been.
ANGELA DAVIS

Hide Perhaps Phenomena Racism Terrible
The idea of freedom is inspiring. But what does it mean? If you are free in a political sense but have no food, what’s that? The freedom to starve?
ANGELA DAVIS

Food Freedom Ideas Politics Sense Starve
I never saw myself as an individual who had any particular leadership powers.
ANGELA DAVIS

Individual Leadership Myself Particular Power

If we do not know how to meaningfully talk about racism, our actions will move in misleading directions.

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If we do not know how to meaningfully talk about racism, our actions will move in misleading directions.

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