The Power of African American Women, Pt 3

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1. <v Speaker 0>Copies of the following program and other public radio programs are available through the Pacifica Radio Archives.
2. <v Speaker 1>Just as it was important then, it is important now to find ways of developing
3. <v Speaker 1>popular consciousness
4. <v Speaker 1>regarding the connections
5. <v Speaker 1>between
6. <v Speaker 1>the role that prisons play in relation to social problems like poverty and racism
7. <v Speaker 1>and and violence,
8. <v Speaker 1>and corporate capitalism,
9. <v Speaker 1>the rise of a military
10. <v Speaker 1>industry that absorbed
11. <v Speaker 1>and continues to absorb
12. <v Speaker 1>the resources we desperately
13. <v Speaker 1>need to combat
14. <v Speaker 1>poverty
15. <v Speaker 1>and homelessness,
16. <v Speaker 1>a deteriorated
17. <v Speaker 1>educational system,
18. <v Speaker 1>a privatized
19. <v Speaker 1>and increasingly
20. <v Speaker 1>inaccessible
21. <v Speaker 1>health care system, and racism and domestic violence, and we could go on and on.
22. <v Speaker 2>Welcome to Voices of Pacifica, where we explore the opinions and ideas of some of America's most intriguing public figures. I'm Verna Avery Brown.
23. <v Speaker 2>This program features Angela Davis, the civil rights activist and educator whose ongoing efforts combat all forms of oppression in The US and abroad.
24. <v Speaker 2>Davis was born in Montgomery, Alabama in 1944.
25. <v Speaker 2>An astute scholar, she began her career teaching philosophy at the University of California in Los Angeles in 1969.
26. <v Speaker 2>In 1970,
27. <v Speaker 2>Davis was removed from her job based on her membership in the communist party and her social and political activism.
28. <v Speaker 2>The same year, she was besieged with false charges of murder, kidnapping, and conspiracy
29. <v Speaker 2>and placed on the FBI's most wanted list.
30. <v Speaker 2>Davis was victimized by repeated police searches and sought refuge underground.
31. <v Speaker 2>Her situation culminated into one of the most famous trials in US history.
32. <v Speaker 2>Davis was incarcerated for sixteen months before the momentous free Angela Davis campaign led to her acquittal in 1972.
33. <v Speaker 2>Once released, Davis harnessed the political energy of the time and became a force behind the organization,
34. <v Speaker 2>the National Alliance Against Racial and Political Repression.
35. <v Speaker 2>Although once governor Ronald Reagan denounced Davis and avowed she would never teach in the UC system,
36. <v Speaker 2>she went on to become the first African American woman in her department at UC Santa Cruz to earn full tenure.
37. <v Speaker 2>She also received the distinguished honor of being appointed to the presidential chair of the African American and feminist studies departments.
38. <v Speaker 2>Outside of academia,
39. <v Speaker 2>Davis continues her work as a political activist. Her long standing commitment to prisoners' rights predates her own arrest with her involvement in the free the Soledad brothers campaign.
40. <v Speaker 2>For decades, Davis has traveled internationally
41. <v Speaker 2>to Africa,
42. <v Speaker 2>Europe, and the Former Soviet Union to lecture for civil rights and against political oppression.
43. <v Speaker 2>This speech was delivered by Davis at the Frontline Feminism's Conference,
44. <v Speaker 2>Women, War, and Resistance.
45. <v Speaker 1>For those of us who live here in The United States and
46. <v Speaker 1>perhaps especially
47. <v Speaker 1>in the state of California,
48. <v Speaker 1>this conference can help to
49. <v Speaker 1>provide us with the knowledge and vision we need to cultivate
50. <v Speaker 1>and strengthen our resistance to the cascading
51. <v Speaker 1>conservatism
52. <v Speaker 1>in this state, in this country,
53. <v Speaker 1>conservatism
54. <v Speaker 1>that unfortunately
55. <v Speaker 1>has already
56. <v Speaker 1>caused
57. <v Speaker 1>many of us to despair.
58. <v Speaker 1>There's a great deal of
59. <v Speaker 1>despair
60. <v Speaker 1>these days,
61. <v Speaker 1>and people tend to look
62. <v Speaker 1>back to
63. <v Speaker 1>other eras
64. <v Speaker 1>and
65. <v Speaker 1>sort of muse about what used to be possible,
66. <v Speaker 1>what we used to be able to
67. <v Speaker 1>accomplish as
68. <v Speaker 1>progressive movements,
69. <v Speaker 1>the presence that the Left
70. <v Speaker 1>used to have.
71. <v Speaker 1>So I guess I want to begin by raising
72. <v Speaker 1>the question, how
73. <v Speaker 1>dare we
74. <v Speaker 1>succumb to this
75. <v Speaker 1>defeatism
76. <v Speaker 1>when it is
77. <v Speaker 1>precisely
78. <v Speaker 1>what
79. <v Speaker 1>these campaigns against the rights of immigrants,
80. <v Speaker 1>against affirmative action,
81. <v Speaker 1>campaigns against workers' rights, human rights, it's exactly what they are designed
82. <v Speaker 1>to encourage.
83. <v Speaker 1>So how dare we
84. <v Speaker 1>allow our
85. <v Speaker 1>frustrations
86. <v Speaker 1>and disappointments
87. <v Speaker 1>to immobilize
88. <v Speaker 1>us when women all over the world
89. <v Speaker 1>are resisting,
90. <v Speaker 1>when
91. <v Speaker 1>women in
92. <v Speaker 1>the Balkans and
93. <v Speaker 1>Rwanda are resisting
94. <v Speaker 1>rape and genocide,
95. <v Speaker 1>terror, when women in Korea are fighting for their rights as workers and as women and
96. <v Speaker 1>are are are demanding to be heard
97. <v Speaker 1>around,
98. <v Speaker 1>the
99. <v Speaker 1>involuntary
100. <v Speaker 1>sexual
101. <v Speaker 1>services
102. <v Speaker 1>many women were,
103. <v Speaker 1>have been forced
104. <v Speaker 1>to, offer.
105. <v Speaker 1>How dare we
106. <v Speaker 1>succumb to a sense of defeat when women in Northern Ireland are
107. <v Speaker 1>fighting, continuing
108. <v Speaker 1>to challenge
109. <v Speaker 1>British military
110. <v Speaker 1>occupation, when women in Iran and Algeria are
111. <v Speaker 1>courageously
112. <v Speaker 1>challenging
113. <v Speaker 1>fundamentalism,
114. <v Speaker 1>when women in the Pacific Islands are continuing their decades
115. <v Speaker 1>long
116. <v Speaker 1>struggle against
117. <v Speaker 1>nuclear,
118. <v Speaker 1>tests, when women in South Africa
119. <v Speaker 1>are trying
120. <v Speaker 1>to guarantee
121. <v Speaker 1>the building of
122. <v Speaker 1>a society that is no longer
123. <v Speaker 1>that is no longer racist, that is not only
124. <v Speaker 1>free of racism, but free of
125. <v Speaker 1>gender
126. <v Speaker 1>discrimination
127. <v Speaker 1>and violence and free of homophobia
128. <v Speaker 1>as well.
129. <v Speaker 1>And of course, I could go on and on. I could I could,
130. <v Speaker 1>use the entire
131. <v Speaker 1>forty five minutes that has been given me to
132. <v Speaker 1>enumerate
133. <v Speaker 1>the kinds of struggles that are going on
134. <v Speaker 1>all around the world,
135. <v Speaker 1>where women indeed
136. <v Speaker 1>or women's issues are now on the front line.
137. <v Speaker 1>But the question I want to come back to is,
138. <v Speaker 1>how dare we think about resigning ourselves to
139. <v Speaker 1>the inevitability
140. <v Speaker 1>of
141. <v Speaker 1>the Pete Wilsons,
142. <v Speaker 1>the Ward Connelly's,
143. <v Speaker 1>the Newt Gingrich's,
144. <v Speaker 1>and their democratic
145. <v Speaker 1>fellow travelers.
146. <v Speaker 1>Gatherings like this put things in perspective, don't they?
147. <v Speaker 1>And in this era, when we've witnessed the increased
148. <v Speaker 1>globalization
149. <v Speaker 1>of capitalism
150. <v Speaker 1>and the intrusion
151. <v Speaker 1>of
152. <v Speaker 1>unrestrained
153. <v Speaker 1>capital into people's innermost
154. <v Speaker 1>lives on a global
155. <v Speaker 1>scale. And I want to suggest we forge
156. <v Speaker 1>memories
157. <v Speaker 1>of what it feels like to link our
158. <v Speaker 1>struggles
159. <v Speaker 1>across
160. <v Speaker 1>borders and
161. <v Speaker 1>oceans because these memories can be later on a palpable
162. <v Speaker 1>source of collective empowerment
163. <v Speaker 1>as we work in the various
164. <v Speaker 1>communities,
165. <v Speaker 1>and on the various
166. <v Speaker 1>levels where we have chosen to focus our energies.
167. <v Speaker 1>The global
168. <v Speaker 1>framework within which this conference takes place yields
169. <v Speaker 1>new possibilities
170. <v Speaker 1>of radical
171. <v Speaker 1>consciousness and
172. <v Speaker 1>activism.
173. <v Speaker 1>And
174. <v Speaker 1>in this context, I want to make a brief
175. <v Speaker 1>excursion
176. <v Speaker 1>back into our recent history. I know I just
177. <v Speaker 1>talked about not
178. <v Speaker 1>romanticizing,
179. <v Speaker 1>the '60s.
180. <v Speaker 1>And I often shy away from focusing on that era, the late '60s and the early '70s,
181. <v Speaker 1>because there's the tendency to represent
182. <v Speaker 1>many of us who were active during that period
183. <v Speaker 1>as only relevant to that period.
184. <v Speaker 1>And somehow or another,
185. <v Speaker 1>when those movements,
186. <v Speaker 1>sort of began to
187. <v Speaker 1>lose
188. <v Speaker 1>their power and force or even wither away,
189. <v Speaker 1>those of us who were participants in those
190. <v Speaker 1>movements,
191. <v Speaker 1>lost our ability
192. <v Speaker 1>to participate in ongoing
193. <v Speaker 1>struggles. I guess what I want to do is take the opportunity to say that almost twenty five years after
194. <v Speaker 1>I was acquitted of,
195. <v Speaker 1>very serious charges
196. <v Speaker 1>murder, kidnapping,
197. <v Speaker 1>and conspiracy,
198. <v Speaker 1>three capital
199. <v Speaker 1>charges.
200. <v Speaker 1>I want to honor that global
201. <v Speaker 1>movement that was responsible for
202. <v Speaker 1>extricating
203. <v Speaker 1>me from
204. <v Speaker 1>the repressive
205. <v Speaker 1>grip of the state,
206. <v Speaker 1>the state of
207. <v Speaker 1>Richard Nixon, for example.
208. <v Speaker 1>Nixon was president.
209. <v Speaker 1>Reagan was governor.
210. <v Speaker 1>So I want to honor that movement. And I know there there are some people here
211. <v Speaker 1>today who are old enough,
212. <v Speaker 1>to have
213. <v Speaker 1>participated,
214. <v Speaker 1>in some of those movements here in this country and in other parts of the world as well.
215. <v Speaker 1>So I wanna honor that movement,
216. <v Speaker 1>of course, for having
217. <v Speaker 1>saved my life, because I wouldn't be here today if it hadn't been for the force of that movement. But I think, more importantly, for having
218. <v Speaker 1>dramatically
219. <v Speaker 1>demonstrated
220. <v Speaker 1>the power that global movements promise.
221. <v Speaker 1>And that is, I think, the relevance to today. You know, there's another reason to briefly
222. <v Speaker 1>evoke that historical
223. <v Speaker 1>period. It's true, as I said before, that we need to warn against the tendency to idealize
224. <v Speaker 1>and utopianize
225. <v Speaker 1>the '60s, because this kind of nostalgia
226. <v Speaker 1>can be
227. <v Speaker 1>extremely
228. <v Speaker 1>unproductive.
229. <v Speaker 1>It can have
230. <v Speaker 1>devastating
231. <v Speaker 1>effects on our ability
232. <v Speaker 1>to engage in
233. <v Speaker 1>new and
234. <v Speaker 1>more
235. <v Speaker 1>radical
236. <v Speaker 1>ways
237. <v Speaker 1>of addressing the issues
238. <v Speaker 1>that confront us today.
239. <v Speaker 1>As one who was there, whatever that means,
240. <v Speaker 1>I definitely don't want to return
241. <v Speaker 1>to
242. <v Speaker 1>the backward politics of gender and sexuality
243. <v Speaker 1>characteristic of that era,
244. <v Speaker 1>which rendered antiracist
245. <v Speaker 1>movements and anticolonialist
246. <v Speaker 1>movements incapable
247. <v Speaker 1>of
248. <v Speaker 1>accomplishing their goals.
249. <v Speaker 1>But I do want to point out, particularly
250. <v Speaker 1>for those of you, for the benefit of those of you who may have been born in succeeding generations,
251. <v Speaker 1>there are not too many generations
252. <v Speaker 1>that separate us. And by the way, that's another really wonderful thing about this conference. It's intergenerational
253. <v Speaker 1>character,
254. <v Speaker 1>isn't it?
255. <v Speaker 1>But I do, you know, want to point out that the radical
256. <v Speaker 1>activism of the late sixties and early seventies
257. <v Speaker 1>in black and Latino, Native American,
258. <v Speaker 1>Asian American communities, among
259. <v Speaker 1>students, among
260. <v Speaker 1>emergent
261. <v Speaker 1>feminists, emergent gay and lesbian activists,
262. <v Speaker 1>emergent environmentalists.
263. <v Speaker 1>The radical activism of that era would have been absolutely
264. <v Speaker 1>inconceivable
265. <v Speaker 1>outside of the international
266. <v Speaker 1>revolutionary
267. <v Speaker 1>context within which it occurred,
268. <v Speaker 1>the decolonization
269. <v Speaker 1>of the continent of Africa,
270. <v Speaker 1>the Cuban
271. <v Speaker 1>revolution,
272. <v Speaker 1>the courageous struggle
273. <v Speaker 1>waged by the Vietnamese people against U. S. Imperialist
274. <v Speaker 1>aggression.
275. <v Speaker 1>And, of course, women across
276. <v Speaker 1>racial and ethnic lines here in this country
277. <v Speaker 1>were especially
278. <v Speaker 1>inspired by the women who participated in those global
279. <v Speaker 1>revolutionary
280. <v Speaker 1>challenges.
281. <v Speaker 1>I remember the way in which Algerian women were depicted as the fearless
282. <v Speaker 1>champions of the Algerian
283. <v Speaker 1>revolution.
284. <v Speaker 1>We watched Battle of Algiers over and over and over again,
285. <v Speaker 1>and, of course, we know now,
286. <v Speaker 1>that the situation
287. <v Speaker 1>in Algeria
288. <v Speaker 1>does not reflect what many of us felt
289. <v Speaker 1>was a revolutionary
290. <v Speaker 1>gender approach as well.
291. <v Speaker 1>South African women like Dorothy
292. <v Speaker 1>Niebbe, who risked their lives to challenge
293. <v Speaker 1>apartheid's
294. <v Speaker 1>past laws. Cuban women,
295. <v Speaker 1>were evoked. Women like Aide Santa Maria,
296. <v Speaker 1>who was involved in
297. <v Speaker 1>the launching of the Cuban revolution, Vietnamese women like Madame Ben,
298. <v Speaker 1>who fought bravely against the U. S. Military,
299. <v Speaker 1>the
300. <v Speaker 1>attachments
301. <v Speaker 1>many women,
302. <v Speaker 1>felt with
303. <v Speaker 1>international
304. <v Speaker 1>male
305. <v Speaker 1>revolutionary
306. <v Speaker 1>figures like,
307. <v Speaker 1>Che or
308. <v Speaker 1>Cibele.
309. <v Speaker 1>But I'm going to leave it at that.
310. <v Speaker 1>I won't do an analysis of that right now.
311. <v Speaker 2>You're listening to a speech by Angela Davis recorded last December at the Frontline Feminism's Conference, Women, War, and Resistance.
312. <v Speaker 1>But I guess I I would say that however complicated
313. <v Speaker 1>that era may have been, the
314. <v Speaker 1>radical
315. <v Speaker 1>will to bring about
316. <v Speaker 1>structural
317. <v Speaker 1>social, economic, political transformation
318. <v Speaker 1>was inextricably
319. <v Speaker 1>linked to a sense of international
320. <v Speaker 1>community.
321. <v Speaker 1>Now,
322. <v Speaker 1>today, transnational
323. <v Speaker 1>linkages among progressive
324. <v Speaker 1>and radical movements
325. <v Speaker 1>are much more than a question of inspiration,
326. <v Speaker 1>much more than a question of identification,
327. <v Speaker 1>much more than a question
328. <v Speaker 1>of
329. <v Speaker 1>style. They are these transnational
330. <v Speaker 1>linkages
331. <v Speaker 1>are a question of necessity.
332. <v Speaker 1>There is no other way
333. <v Speaker 1>to confront
334. <v Speaker 1>exploitation,
335. <v Speaker 1>violence,
336. <v Speaker 1>war. The issues of this conference
337. <v Speaker 1>revolves around
338. <v Speaker 1>how to create those
339. <v Speaker 1>transnational
340. <v Speaker 1>linkages
341. <v Speaker 1>in feminist context
342. <v Speaker 1>in ways that
343. <v Speaker 1>are respectful
344. <v Speaker 1>of all
345. <v Speaker 1>participants.
346. <v Speaker 1>As
347. <v Speaker 1>many
348. <v Speaker 1>activists and scholars,
349. <v Speaker 1>Chandra Mohanty, for one, have pointed out,
350. <v Speaker 1>sisterhood
351. <v Speaker 1>is not a given.
352. <v Speaker 1>Sisterhood is not a given.
353. <v Speaker 1>If such a possibility
354. <v Speaker 1>exists, it is certainly
355. <v Speaker 1>not grounded in some universal
356. <v Speaker 1>notion
357. <v Speaker 1>of femaleness,
358. <v Speaker 1>of womanness.
359. <v Speaker 1>When gender alone becomes the ticket for membership,
360. <v Speaker 1>Now, first of all, we end up with some very strange bedfellows, or should I say, bed sisters,
361. <v Speaker 1>and second of all, this sisterhood
362. <v Speaker 1>will more than likely be hierarchically
363. <v Speaker 1>structured.
364. <v Speaker 1>You know, their big sisters,
365. <v Speaker 1>their little sisters, and then their baby sisters.
366. <v Speaker 1>I don't think I have to spell out
367. <v Speaker 1>who inhabits which positions,
368. <v Speaker 1>in this hierarchy.
369. <v Speaker 1>The point I would like to make is that female
370. <v Speaker 1>or feminist
371. <v Speaker 1>transnational
372. <v Speaker 1>connections need to be
373. <v Speaker 1>politically
374. <v Speaker 1>grounded.
375. <v Speaker 1>Feminist transnational
376. <v Speaker 1>connections
377. <v Speaker 1>need to be
378. <v Speaker 1>politically grounded and informed by the real
379. <v Speaker 1>work
380. <v Speaker 1>women and men are doing
381. <v Speaker 1>around the world.
382. <v Speaker 1>Which brings me to
383. <v Speaker 1>some of the specific points I'd like to make
384. <v Speaker 1>about one struggle
385. <v Speaker 1>that could greatly
386. <v Speaker 1>benefit from
387. <v Speaker 1>increased
388. <v Speaker 1>transnational
389. <v Speaker 1>linkages.
390. <v Speaker 1>If there is one lesson
391. <v Speaker 1>women
392. <v Speaker 1>in the West or in the North
393. <v Speaker 1>should have learned from women's struggles in the third world,
394. <v Speaker 1>in the South, it is that an equal rights
395. <v Speaker 1>framework
396. <v Speaker 1>does not work,
397. <v Speaker 1>particularly since the status of males is not exactly
398. <v Speaker 1>the emancipation
399. <v Speaker 1>women in these countries seek.
400. <v Speaker 1>Now not long ago, a couple of months ago in
401. <v Speaker 1>September,
402. <v Speaker 1>I believe, I came across a picture in the New York Times,
403. <v Speaker 1>the cover of New York Times, I think it was.
404. <v Speaker 1>It was a picture of three women prisoners
405. <v Speaker 1>in
406. <v Speaker 1>Phoenix, Arizona.
407. <v Speaker 1>Some of you probably saw that picture.
408. <v Speaker 1>The photograph
409. <v Speaker 1>foregrounded
410. <v Speaker 1>their combat boots,
411. <v Speaker 1>and their combat boots were linked together by chains.
412. <v Speaker 1>Under the picture,
413. <v Speaker 1>there was this caption,
414. <v Speaker 1>a chain gang of women,
415. <v Speaker 1>and this was the text.
416. <v Speaker 1>The nation's
417. <v Speaker 1>first female
418. <v Speaker 1>chain gang
419. <v Speaker 1>began work yesterday
420. <v Speaker 1>picking up trash and pulling weeds in Downtown Phoenix.
421. <v Speaker 1>The 15 women were chained at the ankles in groups of five.
422. <v Speaker 1>The sheriffs
423. <v Speaker 1>well, you probably know about sheriff,
424. <v Speaker 1>Joe Arpaio. Right?
425. <v Speaker 1>The meanest what do they call him?
426. <v Speaker 1>The meanest sheriff in the country or something like that. Anyway,
427. <v Speaker 1>his comment was, and I quote, I don't believe in discrimination
428. <v Speaker 1>in my jail system.
429. <v Speaker 1>So
430. <v Speaker 1>this
431. <v Speaker 1>female chain gang was designed to be an expression of
432. <v Speaker 1>the equality,
433. <v Speaker 1>women have earned.
434. <v Speaker 1>If there are male chain gangs,
435. <v Speaker 1>then women should also have the right
436. <v Speaker 1>to work on chain gangs.
437. <v Speaker 1>I I mean, I think that's clear that,
438. <v Speaker 1>to, you know, formulate such questions
439. <v Speaker 1>within
440. <v Speaker 1>what some of us might call a
441. <v Speaker 1>bourgeois democratic
442. <v Speaker 1>equal rights framework,
443. <v Speaker 1>often creates
444. <v Speaker 1>more problems
445. <v Speaker 1>than it solves.
446. <v Speaker 1>In this particular instance, of course, this call for equal rights for women,
447. <v Speaker 1>prisoners only reinforces
448. <v Speaker 1>the punishment industry.
449. <v Speaker 1>And just a little bit about The U. S. Punishment
450. <v Speaker 1>industry,
451. <v Speaker 1>The
452. <v Speaker 1>US prison industrial
453. <v Speaker 1>complex.
454. <v Speaker 1>The United States presently boasts of the highest rate of incarceration
455. <v Speaker 1>in the world,
456. <v Speaker 1>the highest rate of incarceration in the world.
457. <v Speaker 1>But what is often ignored, even by those who acknowledge the dangers of committing
458. <v Speaker 1>vast numbers of youth from communities of color
459. <v Speaker 1>to jails and prisons, and,
460. <v Speaker 1>you may know that,
461. <v Speaker 1>over
462. <v Speaker 1>forty percent of young
463. <v Speaker 1>well, in the state of California, something like seventy five percent of all young black men have been arrested at one time or another
464. <v Speaker 1>at one time or another. And on any given day,
465. <v Speaker 1>about forty two percent of young Black men are,
466. <v Speaker 1>in the criminal justice system.
467. <v Speaker 1>In the nation,
468. <v Speaker 1>about one third, thirty two percent of all young Black men are
469. <v Speaker 1>either in jail, in prison, or on probation
470. <v Speaker 1>or
471. <v Speaker 1>parole.
472. <v Speaker 1>Now, what's often ignored
473. <v Speaker 1>is that
474. <v Speaker 1>populations of women
475. <v Speaker 1>prisoners
476. <v Speaker 1>are growing at a rate that far surpasses the populations
477. <v Speaker 1>of imprisoned men.
478. <v Speaker 1>The gender
479. <v Speaker 1>dimension
480. <v Speaker 1>of state
481. <v Speaker 1>inflicted punishment
482. <v Speaker 1>is
483. <v Speaker 1>so frequently overlooked because of the comparatively
484. <v Speaker 1>small percentage of women behind bars. There are about 100,000
485. <v Speaker 1>women,
486. <v Speaker 1>in
487. <v Speaker 1>prison within The U. S. This amounts to about 7.5,
488. <v Speaker 1>7.6
489. <v Speaker 1>of the total,
490. <v Speaker 1>jail and prison population.
491. <v Speaker 1>But since 1980,
492. <v Speaker 1>the imprisoned
493. <v Speaker 1>female population has increased by 275%,
494. <v Speaker 1>while the male population has increased by 160%.
495. <v Speaker 1>Moreover, and think about this seriously,
496. <v Speaker 1>during the decade of the 1980s,
497. <v Speaker 1>34
498. <v Speaker 1>new women's
499. <v Speaker 1>prisons were either constructed
500. <v Speaker 1>or created,
501. <v Speaker 1>as compared to 17
502. <v Speaker 1>during the 1970s
503. <v Speaker 1>and seven
504. <v Speaker 1>during the 1960s.
505. <v Speaker 1>You know, there used to be one women's prison in the state of California.
506. <v Speaker 1>You know, now they're building prisons across the street from prisons.
507. <v Speaker 1>You know, across the street from Chowchilla
508. <v Speaker 1>is that prison they call Valley State.
509. <v Speaker 1>Yeah.
510. <v Speaker 1>Now during the last century, feminist approaches to women in prison consisted
511. <v Speaker 1>largely in demanding
512. <v Speaker 1>separate and specifically
513. <v Speaker 1>feminine
514. <v Speaker 1>incarceration
515. <v Speaker 1>regimes. As a matter of fact, women
516. <v Speaker 1>relegated to the penitentiary were considered to be
517. <v Speaker 1>fallen
518. <v Speaker 1>women.
519. <v Speaker 1>The fact that they were accused of committing
520. <v Speaker 1>crimes was not as important as the fact that they were assumed to have
521. <v Speaker 1>violated the ethics of their gender roles.
522. <v Speaker 1>Therefore, women's prisons,
523. <v Speaker 1>as they were demanded by
524. <v Speaker 1>the feminist
525. <v Speaker 1>reformers,
526. <v Speaker 1>should rehabilitate
527. <v Speaker 1>them in the sense of teaching them how to be good wives, good mothers, good domestic servants,
528. <v Speaker 1>teaching them how to cook, how to sew, how to keep house. And part of this is still very much a part of the prison system today,
529. <v Speaker 1>by the way. I can tell you about some of the experiences
530. <v Speaker 1>I had.
531. <v Speaker 1>But later, the emphasis shifted to this fight for the equal rights of women prisoners.
532. <v Speaker 1>And in a sense, tactically,
533. <v Speaker 1>it does make sense
534. <v Speaker 1>in a range of situations.
535. <v Speaker 1>It seems absurd that we should have to argue for gender equality within
536. <v Speaker 1>such an institution as the prison system, which is designed to dehumanize and destroy women
537. <v Speaker 1>and men,
538. <v Speaker 1>when there are situations such as the lack of medical facilities,
539. <v Speaker 1>Valley State, which I mentioned,
540. <v Speaker 1>you'll remember,
541. <v Speaker 1>is
542. <v Speaker 1>a facility that does not even have a medical room. It doesn't have an infirmary. It has no
543. <v Speaker 1>permanent
544. <v Speaker 1>physician.
545. <v Speaker 1>And as a matter of fact, in Northern California, there are very interesting movements that have developed,
546. <v Speaker 1>organized by the California
547. <v Speaker 1>Coalition for Women in Prison, demanding,
548. <v Speaker 1>health rights,
549. <v Speaker 1>and specifically
550. <v Speaker 1>looking at women with HIV.
551. <v Speaker 1>But what I want to emphasize today is not so much that equal rights
552. <v Speaker 1>tactical
553. <v Speaker 1>move that we sometimes,
554. <v Speaker 1>are compelled to make.
555. <v Speaker 1>You know, when I was in jail,
556. <v Speaker 1>women did not have the right to exercise
557. <v Speaker 1>over in I was one of one of the one of the many jails I was in, Marin County, there was a huge exercise for men,
558. <v Speaker 1>but none for women. So we went to court, and,
559. <v Speaker 1>on behalf of all of the women who were imprisoned there,
560. <v Speaker 1>to
561. <v Speaker 1>demand that women be able to use the exercise yard. And that's something of course, you know, we take that for granted.
562. <v Speaker 1>But I can tell you, after being in that prison,
563. <v Speaker 1>for that jail for many, many months,
564. <v Speaker 1>it made a big difference,
565. <v Speaker 1>whether I could go outside
566. <v Speaker 1>or not.
567. <v Speaker 1>They finally allowed the women there to, exercise together,
568. <v Speaker 1>and then I exercised alone.
569. <v Speaker 1>They wouldn't allow me to go out with the rest of the women. I was in solitary confinement for that entire period.
570. <v Speaker 1>But
571. <v Speaker 1>I appreciated the fresh air
572. <v Speaker 1>and some space,
573. <v Speaker 1>to do my karate katas,
574. <v Speaker 1>as well.
575. <v Speaker 2>You're listening to a speech by Angela Davis recorded last December at the Frontline Feminism's Conference, Women, War, and Resistance.
576. <v Speaker 0>You can obtain a copy of this program and other public radio programs by calling 1807350230.
577. <v Speaker 1>What I wanna emphasize now, however,
578. <v Speaker 1>is the fact that
579. <v Speaker 1>the expanding
580. <v Speaker 1>prison space for women is an integral
581. <v Speaker 1>part of what we can call
582. <v Speaker 1>the prison
583. <v Speaker 1>industrial
584. <v Speaker 1>complex.
585. <v Speaker 1>We therefore need to develop feminist strategies of
586. <v Speaker 1>challenging this prison industrial
587. <v Speaker 1>complex in ways that simultaneously
588. <v Speaker 1>address the specific
589. <v Speaker 1>needs of the individual women whose lives are violated.
590. <v Speaker 1>And we're talking about
591. <v Speaker 1>on an international
592. <v Speaker 1>scale,
593. <v Speaker 1>by violence, by torture, by
594. <v Speaker 1>quotidian
595. <v Speaker 1>regimes of dehumanization.
596. <v Speaker 1>We need to develop feminist strategies that move toward
597. <v Speaker 1>radical,
598. <v Speaker 1>structural
599. <v Speaker 1>transformation
600. <v Speaker 1>as well.
601. <v Speaker 1>Now, one of the problems with many movements,
602. <v Speaker 1>and, you know, I mentioned the prison movement, but there's the homeless movement as well, is that many of us tend to get caught up into
603. <v Speaker 1>service,
604. <v Speaker 1>strategies.
605. <v Speaker 1>And services are extremely
606. <v Speaker 1>important,
607. <v Speaker 1>but a service approach
608. <v Speaker 1>does not prohibit you, you know, from also
609. <v Speaker 1>thinking about
610. <v Speaker 1>the ways in which
611. <v Speaker 1>this institutionalized
612. <v Speaker 1>poverty and institutionalized
613. <v Speaker 1>punishment
614. <v Speaker 1>link up with
615. <v Speaker 1>transnational
616. <v Speaker 1>global
617. <v Speaker 1>capitalism
618. <v Speaker 1>today.
619. <v Speaker 1>You know, capitalism is a word that people
620. <v Speaker 1>don't use very much anymore.
621. <v Speaker 1>Have you noticed that?
622. <v Speaker 1>Have you noticed that
623. <v Speaker 1>at a time when
624. <v Speaker 1>capital is becoming
625. <v Speaker 1>increasingly
626. <v Speaker 1>global
627. <v Speaker 1>and in which we can see
628. <v Speaker 1>more clearly the impact of capitalism
629. <v Speaker 1>on people's lives.
630. <v Speaker 1>I mean, look at the extent to which immigration
631. <v Speaker 1>in this country
632. <v Speaker 1>is very much informed
633. <v Speaker 1>by
634. <v Speaker 1>migrating
635. <v Speaker 1>corporations.
636. <v Speaker 1>You see what I mean? Why don't we talk about that? Why are we so afraid to talk about capitalism?
637. <v Speaker 1>Do we buy into the fact
638. <v Speaker 1>that because the socialism,
639. <v Speaker 1>that once existed
640. <v Speaker 1>in Eastern Europe
641. <v Speaker 1>is no longer there, does that mean that
642. <v Speaker 1>that capitalism has
643. <v Speaker 1>won the battle?
644. <v Speaker 1>Do we really,
645. <v Speaker 1>believe that?
646. <v Speaker 1>Well, I just wanna
647. <v Speaker 1>suggest,
648. <v Speaker 1>that
649. <v Speaker 1>we,
650. <v Speaker 1>now think about
651. <v Speaker 1>ways of radicalizing
652. <v Speaker 1>our
653. <v Speaker 1>strategic
654. <v Speaker 1>approaches
655. <v Speaker 1>to organizing.
656. <v Speaker 1>And activists and academics
657. <v Speaker 1>have to
658. <v Speaker 1>come together to figure out, you know, some of these things.
659. <v Speaker 1>And I wanna suggest, and I've been talking about this for quite some time. Some of you, I'm sure, have heard me,
660. <v Speaker 1>refer to this before,
661. <v Speaker 1>is,
662. <v Speaker 1>you know, I wanna suggest that with respect to prisons, for example,
663. <v Speaker 1>we need to
664. <v Speaker 1>to begin to take seriously
665. <v Speaker 1>abolitionist
666. <v Speaker 1>strategies,
667. <v Speaker 1>strategies designed
668. <v Speaker 1>to reduce and ultimately
669. <v Speaker 1>abolish
670. <v Speaker 1>the role that prisons play in relation to social problems like poverty and racism
671. <v Speaker 1>and violence.
672. <v Speaker 1>The term
673. <v Speaker 1>prison industrial
674. <v Speaker 1>complex is an important one to popularize.
675. <v Speaker 1>Just as some of you will remember,
676. <v Speaker 1>during the era of the Vietnam War, the term
677. <v Speaker 1>military
678. <v Speaker 1>industrial complex,
679. <v Speaker 1>which had a certain
680. <v Speaker 1>currency,
681. <v Speaker 1>prior to that period going back to the '50s, right?
682. <v Speaker 1>But it was during the late '60s and the early '70s that it acquired
683. <v Speaker 1>popular currency,
684. <v Speaker 1>that organizers
685. <v Speaker 1>and activists
686. <v Speaker 1>began to conceptualize
687. <v Speaker 1>the
688. <v Speaker 1>military
689. <v Speaker 1>industrial complex, sometimes
690. <v Speaker 1>granted in a conspiratorial
691. <v Speaker 1>way,
692. <v Speaker 1>and there probably were some conspiracies here and there.
693. <v Speaker 1>But just as it was important then, it is important now to find ways of developing
694. <v Speaker 1>popular consciousness
695. <v Speaker 1>regarding the connections
696. <v Speaker 1>between
697. <v Speaker 1>corporate capitalism, the rise of a military
698. <v Speaker 1>industry that absorbed
699. <v Speaker 1>and continues
700. <v Speaker 1>to absorb
701. <v Speaker 1>the resources we desperately
702. <v Speaker 1>need to combat
703. <v Speaker 1>poverty
704. <v Speaker 1>and homelessness,
705. <v Speaker 1>a deteriorated
706. <v Speaker 1>educational system,
707. <v Speaker 1>a privatized
708. <v Speaker 1>and increasingly
709. <v Speaker 1>inaccessible
710. <v Speaker 1>health care system,
711. <v Speaker 1>and racism and domestic violence, and we could go on and on.
712. <v Speaker 1>The U. S. Military
713. <v Speaker 1>industry ought to be
714. <v Speaker 1>disestablished
715. <v Speaker 1>now.
716. <v Speaker 1>Shut down the Pentagon.
717. <v Speaker 1>You know, what was once considered to be this major communist threat,
718. <v Speaker 1>That's how I ended up in the situation,
719. <v Speaker 1>you know, that I found myself in in 1969
720. <v Speaker 1>because because I was one of the embodiments of
721. <v Speaker 1>the communist threat.
722. <v Speaker 1>But this communist threat, it doesn't exist anymore. So, you know, why is it that the military
723. <v Speaker 1>industry
724. <v Speaker 1>continues to grow?
725. <v Speaker 1>Boeing, for example,
726. <v Speaker 1>and its takeover bid of
727. <v Speaker 1>McDonnell Douglas. This is an indication of the extent to which
728. <v Speaker 1>the military
729. <v Speaker 1>industrial complex
730. <v Speaker 1>persists in exerting its influence
731. <v Speaker 1>not only on The U. S. Economy, but Boeing has a presence in virtually every state in the country.
732. <v Speaker 1>There was an article in the last issue of The Nation,
733. <v Speaker 1>and they pointed out that Boeing
734. <v Speaker 1>plays a key role in developing congressional support, you know, for example, for sales of, AWAC's
735. <v Speaker 1>radar planes to Saudi Arabia,
736. <v Speaker 1>for most favored nation status, for China.
737. <v Speaker 1>And it's possible that in
738. <v Speaker 1>battles over whether to sell weapons
739. <v Speaker 1>and weapon technologies
740. <v Speaker 1>to
741. <v Speaker 1>countries
742. <v Speaker 1>like Indonesia
743. <v Speaker 1>and Turkey,
744. <v Speaker 1>this,
745. <v Speaker 1>Boeing McDonnell
746. <v Speaker 1>combined can play,
747. <v Speaker 1>a pivotal role in
748. <v Speaker 1>convincing
749. <v Speaker 1>the government to
750. <v Speaker 1>forget about human rights concerns
751. <v Speaker 1>and weapons,
752. <v Speaker 1>proliferation,
753. <v Speaker 1>treaties,
754. <v Speaker 1>and
755. <v Speaker 1>strategies.
756. <v Speaker 1>Well, this prison industrial complex that I've been talking about,
757. <v Speaker 1>has joined and to a certain extent is beginning to displace
758. <v Speaker 1>the military
759. <v Speaker 1>industrial
760. <v Speaker 1>complex.
761. <v Speaker 1>There are many ways in which the proliferation
762. <v Speaker 1>of prisons is directly related
763. <v Speaker 1>to the rise of transnational
764. <v Speaker 1>capitalism.
765. <v Speaker 1>Well, you know, first of all, how are such large
766. <v Speaker 1>prison populations,
767. <v Speaker 1>or potential
768. <v Speaker 1>prison populations
769. <v Speaker 1>created?
770. <v Speaker 1>Where do they come from? There's a direct relationship
771. <v Speaker 1>between
772. <v Speaker 1>the deindustrialization
773. <v Speaker 1>of The US economy,
774. <v Speaker 1>the ability of corporations now to move wherever they wish,
775. <v Speaker 1>without respecting,
776. <v Speaker 1>any
777. <v Speaker 1>national
778. <v Speaker 1>borders
779. <v Speaker 1>in search of the
780. <v Speaker 1>cheapest
781. <v Speaker 1>labor,
782. <v Speaker 1>and of course the loss of jobs,
783. <v Speaker 1>in this country, particularly for certain
784. <v Speaker 1>kinds of people, particularly
785. <v Speaker 1>for young
786. <v Speaker 1>people of color.
787. <v Speaker 1>And
788. <v Speaker 1>when those jobs disappear, when that economy
789. <v Speaker 1>deteriorates,
790. <v Speaker 1>new economies
791. <v Speaker 1>move in.
792. <v Speaker 1>The economy, the drug economy, for example,
793. <v Speaker 1>moves right in to take the place of the, you know, for example, the automobile economy. Look at
794. <v Speaker 1>a place like Detroit.
795. <v Speaker 1>The economy in sexual services.
796. <v Speaker 1>And of course, those economies
797. <v Speaker 1>lead
798. <v Speaker 1>the people who participate
799. <v Speaker 1>in them
800. <v Speaker 1>directly into the criminal justice system. So there's that,
801. <v Speaker 1>connection between
802. <v Speaker 1>transnational
803. <v Speaker 1>capitalism
804. <v Speaker 1>and the rise of this,
805. <v Speaker 1>out of control
806. <v Speaker 1>prison industrial
807. <v Speaker 1>complex.
808. <v Speaker 1>Well, there's a corporation
809. <v Speaker 1>that is called Corrections
810. <v Speaker 1>Corporation of America,
811. <v Speaker 1>And as I mentioned,
812. <v Speaker 1>before,
813. <v Speaker 1>they actually have an interlocking directorate with the hospitals,
814. <v Speaker 1>corporations
815. <v Speaker 1>of America.
816. <v Speaker 1>And obviously,
817. <v Speaker 1>the privatization
818. <v Speaker 1>of
819. <v Speaker 1>key areas of the, you know, what I call the punishment industry
820. <v Speaker 1>makes sense only if it's profitable.
821. <v Speaker 1>This is why it's so important to talk about
822. <v Speaker 1>a prison industrial
823. <v Speaker 1>complex, because there are stakes
824. <v Speaker 1>in
825. <v Speaker 1>this expanding prison
826. <v Speaker 1>industry
827. <v Speaker 1>that
828. <v Speaker 1>go a lot deeper than we would imagine.
829. <v Speaker 1>And it's not only the privatization
830. <v Speaker 1>of certain prisons and prison systems in certain states,
831. <v Speaker 1>it's,
832. <v Speaker 1>the insinuation
833. <v Speaker 1>of private industries
834. <v Speaker 1>into
835. <v Speaker 1>state government controlled
836. <v Speaker 1>prisons as well. As a matter of fact, California, since we're here in this state, has what it calls a joint venture
837. <v Speaker 1>program, which
838. <v Speaker 1>lures or encourages
839. <v Speaker 1>corporations
840. <v Speaker 1>to use the labor
841. <v Speaker 1>of prisoners.
842. <v Speaker 1>And you see,
843. <v Speaker 1>in a sense, what's happening is that the third world labor pools
844. <v Speaker 1>that corporations
845. <v Speaker 1>seek when they
846. <v Speaker 1>shut down here and and and move to
847. <v Speaker 1>countries like Mexico,
848. <v Speaker 1>you know, countries
849. <v Speaker 1>like Korea, etcetera,
850. <v Speaker 1>that that pool is is going to be complemented
851. <v Speaker 1>by
852. <v Speaker 1>a pool of very cheap labor right here in The U. S. Prison labor.
853. <v Speaker 1>And if you look at some of the literature that the California Corrections
854. <v Speaker 1>Department puts out, it encourages,
855. <v Speaker 1>businesses to come in and use,
856. <v Speaker 1>the labor of the prison system because, you know, first of all,
857. <v Speaker 1>it's cheap labor,
858. <v Speaker 1>right? No minimum wage,
859. <v Speaker 1>no benefits,
860. <v Speaker 1>and they point out that
861. <v Speaker 1>their employees won't have the problems that other employees have, won't have problems finding babysitters,
862. <v Speaker 1>you know, won't have problems in terms of traffic
863. <v Speaker 1>because they're right there.
864. <v Speaker 1>They don't have to worry about vacation pay, etcetera. So there's this sort of conscious attempt to bring,
865. <v Speaker 1>you know, corporate,
866. <v Speaker 1>businesses into
867. <v Speaker 2>the prison system. You're listening to a speech by Angela Davis recorded last December at the Frontline Feminism's Conference, Women, War, and Resistance.
868. <v Speaker 1>But I wanna say also that,
869. <v Speaker 1>and I, you know, I I often I I try to include this into my talks on prison,
870. <v Speaker 1>because we often don't think about the ideological
871. <v Speaker 1>role that prisons play
872. <v Speaker 1>and the way in which
873. <v Speaker 1>the
874. <v Speaker 1>emphasis on crime
875. <v Speaker 1>and incarceration
876. <v Speaker 1>and prisons
877. <v Speaker 1>encourages
878. <v Speaker 1>us
879. <v Speaker 1>to
880. <v Speaker 1>think about these
881. <v Speaker 1>prisons as abstract
882. <v Speaker 1>sites.
883. <v Speaker 1>Most of us, if we haven't been in prison or we don't have relatives in prison, we don't have some connection, we rarely think about
884. <v Speaker 1>what prisons are like concretely.
885. <v Speaker 1>The
886. <v Speaker 1>concept
887. <v Speaker 1>prison
888. <v Speaker 1>remains very much an abstract
889. <v Speaker 1>concept,
890. <v Speaker 1>into which undesirables
891. <v Speaker 1>are deposited,
892. <v Speaker 1>right?
893. <v Speaker 1>So that we don't have to
894. <v Speaker 1>think about
895. <v Speaker 1>the real issues that afflict the communities
896. <v Speaker 1>from which prisoners are drawn in such disproportionate
897. <v Speaker 1>numbers.
898. <v Speaker 1>This is the ideological
899. <v Speaker 1>work that, prison performs. It relieves us of the responsibility
900. <v Speaker 1>of seriously engaging with the problems of
901. <v Speaker 1>of late capitalism,
902. <v Speaker 1>of transnational
903. <v Speaker 1>capitalism.
904. <v Speaker 1>The punishment
905. <v Speaker 1>industry, which is,
906. <v Speaker 1>becoming also increasingly
907. <v Speaker 1>privatized,
908. <v Speaker 1>in that sense, it's following the health care
909. <v Speaker 1>industry.
910. <v Speaker 1>And as a matter of fact, there's an interlocking directorate,
911. <v Speaker 1>between
912. <v Speaker 1>the some major corporations, corrections corporations,
913. <v Speaker 1>hospital
914. <v Speaker 1>corporations.
915. <v Speaker 1>Prisons are
916. <v Speaker 1>also gradually
917. <v Speaker 1>moving into
918. <v Speaker 1>spaces
919. <v Speaker 1>vacated by migrant
920. <v Speaker 1>corporations,
921. <v Speaker 1>also moving into
922. <v Speaker 1>spaces
923. <v Speaker 1>vacated by the military industry.
924. <v Speaker 1>As a matter of fact,
925. <v Speaker 1>there was a conference a couple of years ago,
926. <v Speaker 1>entitled
927. <v Speaker 1>Law Enforcement
928. <v Speaker 1>Technology in the twenty first Century
929. <v Speaker 1>that was sponsored by the research arm of the Justice Department.
930. <v Speaker 1>And the theme of the conference
931. <v Speaker 1>was to figure out
932. <v Speaker 1>how the defense
933. <v Speaker 1>industry
934. <v Speaker 1>could be converted to
935. <v Speaker 1>a law enforcement
936. <v Speaker 1>industry.
937. <v Speaker 1>For example, they
938. <v Speaker 1>talked about
939. <v Speaker 1>Stinger Corporation working on
940. <v Speaker 1>smart guns, which will fire only for the owner,
941. <v Speaker 1>and retractable
942. <v Speaker 1>spike barrier strips to unfurl in front of
943. <v Speaker 1>fleeing vehicles.
944. <v Speaker 1>Westinghouse
945. <v Speaker 1>was promoting a smart car in which the many computers could be linked up with big mainframes
946. <v Speaker 1>at the police department, allowing for the
947. <v Speaker 1>speedy booking of prisoners as well as exchanges of
948. <v Speaker 1>information. I mean, the kinds of,
949. <v Speaker 1>products that they were talking about developing
950. <v Speaker 1>as a way of converting
951. <v Speaker 1>the military industry into a so called law enforcement
952. <v Speaker 1>industry
953. <v Speaker 1>is really frightening,
954. <v Speaker 1>really frightening, because we're talking about an out of control proliferation
955. <v Speaker 1>of incarcerated
956. <v Speaker 1>populations.
957. <v Speaker 1>And why here in The US do we
958. <v Speaker 1>are we so reluctant
959. <v Speaker 1>to stand up and fight back? Why?
960. <v Speaker 1>One of the reasons is because I think we're all afraid.
961. <v Speaker 1>We're afraid
962. <v Speaker 1>of the figure of the criminal that is created in order to justify
963. <v Speaker 1>the expansion of this,
964. <v Speaker 1>punishment industry and many of us
965. <v Speaker 1>who do feminist work
966. <v Speaker 1>don't
967. <v Speaker 1>acknowledge the extent to which women are being demonized
968. <v Speaker 1>in this process
969. <v Speaker 1>and the extent to which the assault on
970. <v Speaker 1>welfare
971. <v Speaker 1>and the dismantling of the welfare system
972. <v Speaker 1>is a part of a process
973. <v Speaker 1>of increasingly
974. <v Speaker 1>demonizing
975. <v Speaker 1>women, certain kinds of women,
976. <v Speaker 1>who will who are increasingly
977. <v Speaker 1>inhabiting
978. <v Speaker 1>these new prison
979. <v Speaker 1>spaces.
980. <v Speaker 1>I mean, that's the connection,
981. <v Speaker 1>the connection between the demonization
982. <v Speaker 1>of immigrants
983. <v Speaker 1>from Central America and Asia
984. <v Speaker 1>and the demonization
985. <v Speaker 1>of
986. <v Speaker 1>young
987. <v Speaker 1>people of color who are
988. <v Speaker 1>presented as criminals. It's very much
989. <v Speaker 1>connected,
990. <v Speaker 1>and I think that
991. <v Speaker 1>feminist
992. <v Speaker 1>strategies
993. <v Speaker 1>which are supposed to be based on acknowledging
994. <v Speaker 1>connections, right, and intersections
995. <v Speaker 1>and interlocking of, you know, well, you know the
996. <v Speaker 1>the the terminology
997. <v Speaker 1>we use.
998. <v Speaker 1>Now, why can't we begin to use some of those strategies
999. <v Speaker 1>to unveil
1000. <v Speaker 1>some of
1001. <v Speaker 1>the connections that ought to be so obvious
1002. <v Speaker 1>to us,
1003. <v Speaker 1>but which we almost
1004. <v Speaker 1>always ignore?
1005. <v Speaker 1>So I guess what I'm suggesting
1006. <v Speaker 1>is that we connect
1007. <v Speaker 1>forms of activism,
1008. <v Speaker 1>such as work around
1009. <v Speaker 1>women's,
1010. <v Speaker 1>women prisoners, women's prisons,
1011. <v Speaker 1>that we connect these with radical
1012. <v Speaker 1>contestations
1013. <v Speaker 1>of capitalism,
1014. <v Speaker 1>radical resistance
1015. <v Speaker 1>to capitalism. That's the theme of this conference.
1016. <v Speaker 1>And on an international
1017. <v Speaker 1>scale,
1018. <v Speaker 1>there is an incredible
1019. <v Speaker 1>amount of work
1020. <v Speaker 1>that can be done around issues of women in prison,
1021. <v Speaker 1>women's prisons,
1022. <v Speaker 1>women political prisoners.
1023. <v Speaker 1>There is work that is being done now. There's very important work that is being done,
1024. <v Speaker 1>but there's the tendency
1025. <v Speaker 1>to focus
1026. <v Speaker 1>almost
1027. <v Speaker 1>exclusively
1028. <v Speaker 1>on issues
1029. <v Speaker 1>of
1030. <v Speaker 1>how
1031. <v Speaker 1>the children
1032. <v Speaker 1>of incarcerated
1033. <v Speaker 1>women
1034. <v Speaker 1>are affected
1035. <v Speaker 1>by their imprisonment.
1036. <v Speaker 1>And while this is extremely important because we know that children, you know, often bear,
1037. <v Speaker 1>much of the brunt of that process.
1038. <v Speaker 1>We can't erase
1039. <v Speaker 1>women's
1040. <v Speaker 1>lives.
1041. <v Speaker 1>We can't argue.
1042. <v Speaker 1>We can't create this,
1043. <v Speaker 1>this
1044. <v Speaker 1>hierarchy
1045. <v Speaker 1>of interests in which we argue that the interests of the children
1046. <v Speaker 1>come first and then the interests of the woman constructed as mother
1047. <v Speaker 1>come second.
1048. <v Speaker 1>And this is a real challenge within the international movement
1049. <v Speaker 1>around women's,
1050. <v Speaker 1>prison
1051. <v Speaker 1>issues. You know, how do we address
1052. <v Speaker 1>issues of the way in which
1053. <v Speaker 1>the prison,
1054. <v Speaker 1>tends to
1055. <v Speaker 1>destroy
1056. <v Speaker 1>relationships
1057. <v Speaker 1>between
1058. <v Speaker 1>mother and child
1059. <v Speaker 1>without
1060. <v Speaker 1>allowing
1061. <v Speaker 1>this
1062. <v Speaker 1>conservative
1063. <v Speaker 1>ideology of family values to insinuate
1064. <v Speaker 1>itself into the work that we do.
1065. <v Speaker 1>So I would like to
1066. <v Speaker 1>close by acknowledging
1067. <v Speaker 1>the presence of such
1068. <v Speaker 1>large numbers of
1069. <v Speaker 1>women political
1070. <v Speaker 1>prisoners
1071. <v Speaker 1>throughout the world,
1072. <v Speaker 1>here in The US and all over the world.
1073. <v Speaker 1>And
1074. <v Speaker 1>since we are in the state of California,
1075. <v Speaker 1>I'd like to mention Delicia Pagan,
1076. <v Speaker 1>and all of the Puerto Rican political prisoners who have been in the federal
1077. <v Speaker 1>prison system for over fifteen years,
1078. <v Speaker 1>and perhaps many of you know the name of Mumia Abu
1079. <v Speaker 1>Jamal. I'd like to evoke,
1080. <v Speaker 1>his
1081. <v Speaker 1>presence
1082. <v Speaker 1>amidst
1083. <v Speaker 1>our gathering,
1084. <v Speaker 1>women like Laura Whitehorn.
1085. <v Speaker 1>I will never forget when I was in jail myself
1086. <v Speaker 1>how moved I felt
1087. <v Speaker 1>on a number of occasions when I received
1088. <v Speaker 1>messages
1089. <v Speaker 1>and presents from people who were
1090. <v Speaker 1>in
1091. <v Speaker 1>dungeons
1092. <v Speaker 1>in other parts of the world.
1093. <v Speaker 1>You know, I remember
1094. <v Speaker 1>a message I received
1095. <v Speaker 1>from
1096. <v Speaker 1>political prisoners in Greece
1097. <v Speaker 1>who had smuggled out
1098. <v Speaker 1>this,
1099. <v Speaker 1>some kind of toilet paper,
1100. <v Speaker 1>you know, with a message of solidarity,
1101. <v Speaker 1>to me,
1102. <v Speaker 1>on it, and I felt, you know, I don't deserve all of this.
1103. <v Speaker 1>There are so many, you know, other
1104. <v Speaker 1>political prisoners and prisoners all over the world,
1105. <v Speaker 1>who
1106. <v Speaker 1>need that solidarity,
1107. <v Speaker 1>that, you know, commitment.
1108. <v Speaker 1>And I guess twenty five years later, I
1109. <v Speaker 1>I don't I find that my sense of
1110. <v Speaker 1>of wanting to participate in
1111. <v Speaker 1>expanding movements around political prisoners and prisoners has not diminished.
1112. <v Speaker 1>As a matter of fact, I think that now,
1113. <v Speaker 1>given the conditions around the globe,
1114. <v Speaker 1>we need to build these movements
1115. <v Speaker 1>more than ever before.
1116. <v Speaker 1>And if we
1117. <v Speaker 1>organize these international
1118. <v Speaker 1>solidarity
1119. <v Speaker 1>movements with women political prisoners,
1120. <v Speaker 1>if we politicize
1121. <v Speaker 1>and
1122. <v Speaker 1>radicalize
1123. <v Speaker 1>our work against
1124. <v Speaker 1>prisons,
1125. <v Speaker 1>then perhaps we may be able to
1126. <v Speaker 1>radicalize
1127. <v Speaker 1>vast
1128. <v Speaker 1>sectors
1129. <v Speaker 1>of our
1130. <v Speaker 1>movements,
1131. <v Speaker 1>throughout
1132. <v Speaker 1>the globe. I want to leave on a rather optimistic
1133. <v Speaker 1>note, when I leave this conference, and I hope that many of you agree with me that,
1134. <v Speaker 1>it is still possible
1135. <v Speaker 1>to bring about change
1136. <v Speaker 1>in the world and here in The US. Thank you very much.
1137. <v Speaker 2>You've been listening to a speech delivered by Angela Davis at the University of California at Riverside to the Frontline Feminism's Conference titled Women, War, and Resistance.
1138. <v Speaker 2>Although Angela Davis was officially fired from her teaching position in the philosophy department at UCLA because of her communist affiliation,
1139. <v Speaker 2>Angela felt that her decision was at least partially racially motivated.
1140. <v Speaker 2>In this statement by Angela Davis in 1969,
1141. <v Speaker 2>she discusses the role of racism in her dismissal from the university.
1142. <v Speaker 3>You see, I think we have to
1143. <v Speaker 3>distinguish between
1144. <v Speaker 3>blanket racial discrimination
1145. <v Speaker 3>and
1146. <v Speaker 3>institutional racism, racism which continues,
1147. <v Speaker 3>perhaps in spite of
1148. <v Speaker 3>or independent of the psychological attitude that the individuals who are actually executing,
1149. <v Speaker 3>racist acts maintain.
1150. <v Speaker 3>Now,
1151. <v Speaker 3>I think the press, to a very great extent, has distorted our positions
1152. <v Speaker 3>on the role that racism
1153. <v Speaker 3>played in the,
1154. <v Speaker 3>in the region's action against me.
1155. <v Speaker 3>I think that,
1156. <v Speaker 3>perhaps they have interpreted
1157. <v Speaker 3>the role of racism merely as
1158. <v Speaker 3>blanket racial discrimination,
1159. <v Speaker 3>and I I agree entirely that what is happening more and more
1160. <v Speaker 3>is that racism is beginning to be expressed in much more subtle means.
1161. <v Speaker 3>The manifestations
1162. <v Speaker 3>of racism are more difficult to get at now.
1163. <v Speaker 3>And while someone like regent Pauley
1164. <v Speaker 3>could make a statement that he intended to replace me with another, you know, black person,
1165. <v Speaker 3>that still that that means perhaps,
1166. <v Speaker 3>you know, that they
1167. <v Speaker 3>are,
1168. <v Speaker 3>because of the pressures of the times,
1169. <v Speaker 3>are not able to,
1170. <v Speaker 3>commit overtly
1171. <v Speaker 3>overt acts, rather, of racial discrimination, but rather they're they're continuing their racism on another level. And that level is precisely that of trying to determine what kinds of
1172. <v Speaker 3>black people who
1173. <v Speaker 3>are admitted into the university ought to have. And I think the regents action
1174. <v Speaker 3>has the,
1175. <v Speaker 3>significance of of stating
1176. <v Speaker 3>out and out, that they have the right, or they have or they are going to at least usurp the authority to to determine
1177. <v Speaker 3>what kind of black person
1178. <v Speaker 3>is able to teach on the University of California.
1179. <v Speaker 3>I think that, in the past,
1180. <v Speaker 3>people like W. E. Du Bois, Paul Robeson, Eldridge Cleaver, in the very recent past, have been subjected to this kind of, you know, institutional
1181. <v Speaker 3>racism,
1182. <v Speaker 3>where
1183. <v Speaker 3>they are completely
1184. <v Speaker 3>ruled out of the intellectual
1185. <v Speaker 3>atmosphere of the of any kind of a public forum, a public stage in the society.
1186. <v Speaker 3>And I think that this is what the regents are trying to do. Now I
1187. <v Speaker 3>I don't say that they didn't, you know, fire me because I was a communist. This is what they stated.
1188. <v Speaker 3>But my membership in the Chelimumba Club of of the Communist Party is bound up with
1189. <v Speaker 3>my participation
1190. <v Speaker 3>in the black liberation struggle. I can't separate the two.
1191. <v Speaker 3>Now, therefore, I think that the question of racism
1192. <v Speaker 3>has to be qualified in a political manner.
1193. <v Speaker 3>So I, you know, quite agree that this is a part of a an era of political repression, which is increasing
1194. <v Speaker 3>at
1195. <v Speaker 3>at a degree which is absolutely absolutely
1196. <v Speaker 3>incredible. I think it's something which which far overshadows what happened during the McCarthy,
1197. <v Speaker 3>era, because it's not
1198. <v Speaker 3>confined, you know, to one group of people. It's spreading into all different areas. It's it's attacking the black community, I think,
1199. <v Speaker 3>especially.
1200. <v Speaker 3>But anyone who dares criticize
1201. <v Speaker 3>the
1202. <v Speaker 3>society to any extent, I think, is becoming more and more, you know, subject to,
1203. <v Speaker 3>that kind of, persecution.
1204. <v Speaker 2>You've been listening to a speech delivered by Angela Davis. She has authored several books, including If They Come in the Morning, Voices of Resistance,
1205. <v Speaker 2>and her autobiography,
1206. <v Speaker 2>Angela Davis, With My Mind on Freedom.
1207. <v Speaker 2>She remains committed to penal reform, and she is currently working on a new book dealing specifically with the issues of racism and the egregious treatment of women in the prison system.
1208. <v Speaker 2>This has been Voices of Pacifica,
1209. <v Speaker 2>a program that features selections from the Pacifica Radio Archive's 50,000 tape library.
1210. <v Speaker 2>I'm Verna Avery Brown. Join us again next week when we will bring you the ideas and opinions of America's best known authors, activists, and political commentators.
1211. <v Speaker 0>Voices of Pacifica is one of the many programs that is available to you on cassette through the Pacifica Radio archives.
1212. <v Speaker 0>Call 1807350230
1213. <v Speaker 0>to order this program or to receive a free catalog.
1214. <v Speaker 0>That's 1807350230.