Prison relieves us of the responsibility of seriously engaging with the problems of our society, especially those produced by racism and, increasingly, global capitalism.
ANGELA DAVISPrison relieves us of the responsibility of seriously engaging with the problems of our society, especially those produced by racism and, increasingly, global capitalism.
ANGELA DAVISImprisonment has become the response of first resort to far too many of our social problems.
ANGELA DAVISNo 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 DAVISIt’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 DAVISHuman beings cannot be willed and molded into non-existence.
ANGELA DAVISWe should seek out all the doors which still remain ajar, however slight the opening might be.
ANGELA DAVISI 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 DAVISIt is essential to resist the depiction of history as the work of heroic individuals.
ANGELA DAVISI’m suggesting that we abolish the social function of prisons.
ANGELA DAVISRacism, in the first place, is a weapon used by the wealthy to increase the profits they bring in by paying Black workers less for their work.
ANGELA DAVISWe live in a society of an imposed forgetfulness, a society that depends on public amnesia
ANGELA DAVISJails 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 DAVISRacism 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 DAVISIt is in collectivities that we find reservoirs of hope and optimism.
ANGELA DAVISRadical simply means “grasping things at the root.
ANGELA DAVISI decided to teach because I think that any person who studies philosophy has to be involved actively.
ANGELA DAVIS