Listening To Angela Davis In Salem

Angela Davis spoke at Willamette University on Friday evening. Many of us from Willamette Reds turned out to hear her talk. We have previously talked quite a bit on this blog about Angela Davis and her great and inspirational work on prison abolition.

Angela's talk this time took honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as her point of departure and rolled forward to the present day. She talked about prison abolition, of course, but she also talked about the complex international situation at the present moment, the Obama presidency, sustainability and some of her memories from the '60s and early '70s. I think that the point she made which will stick with most people who heard her lecture will be that we need to be to the left of the Democrats but living in creative tension--within the existing social contradiction now present in the US--with the Obama administration. She highlighted the philosophical feminist dimension or point that we need not provide ready-made answers to every problem, but that we must live and work within contradictions and contradictory realities.

The crowd was overwhelmingly young and anti-capitalist and Angela was not slow in naming the beast for what it is--capitalism and imperialism. She also made an effort to explain why she strives to be something much more than a "civil rights activist."

A comrade remarked that we are lucky to have Angela with us still because so many people must want her dead or out of the way. Without saying so in so many words, Angela did talk about the special role and responsibilities young people have today and some of her own experiences in the movement. She also briefly referred to the horrific situation in Arizona and helped put that in context for us. I thought that her recounting of King's most radical speeches was particularly useful and I will take her up on her challenge to reread these talks in light of the present political moment. It was also good that she included in her talk a full range of relevant social struggles and demands and that she includes animal welfare or rights in these.

If there were weaknesses in her talk they were that Angela did not project a socialist vision adequately enough or even use "the s word" once. Also, she opened a thought-provoking analysis of the Obama administration and the left's relationship to it without bringing her points to a fruitful conclusion. Whatever these weaknesses, I'm once more glad and grateful that we got to hear Angela Davis speak again.