Freedom is a Constant Struggle
by Angela Y. Davis
This book is a collection of essays, interviews, and speeches reflecting on the challenges that materialize within struggles for liberation. From the text emerges the importance of collectivity, intersectionality, imagination, and perseverance.
“Our histories never unfold in isolation. We cannot truly tell what we consider to be our own histories without knowing the other stories. And often we discover that those other stories are actually our own stories.”
MY TAKEAWAYS
Collective struggles for liberation will aways be met with strong resistance from those who benefit from maintaining power and control.
People often individualistically focus on key activists from the past to define an entire movement of struggle (i.e MLK), when in fact it was masses of organized people who collectively struggled to reach the outcome that only the individual is recognized for.
Symbolic events or political turning points are often used to mark “historical closures”, when in fact the aftermath was often a continuation of the past that left the problem unsolved (i.e. the Emancipation Proclamation and Thirteenth Amendment did not instantly free all slaves, nor allow them full and equal citizenship/livelihood).
“The soaring numbers of people behind bars all over the world and the increasingly profitability of the means of holding them captive is one of the most dramatic examples of the destructive tendencies of global capitalism.”
While the abolitionist movement does aim to physically dismantle the structures of the prison industrial complex, it also aims to dismantle the ideological internalization of carceral logic within our culture and society
“We ourselves often do the work of the state in and through our interior lives. What we often assume belongs most intimately to ourselves and to our emotional life has been produced elsewhere and has been recruited to do the work of racism and repression.”
It is key to recognize the connections and intersections of struggles for liberation across both movements and geographical borders, and to not limit one’s solidarity to a narrow framework.
We must recognize and celebrate past victories within movements of struggle and learn from the experiences of the people who made those movements happen.
“We cannot go on as usual. We cannot pivot the center. We cannot be moderate. We will have to be willing to stand up and say no with our combined spirits, our collective intellects, and our many bodies.”