photo by Russell Tribunal (flickr)
Angela Davis, a former Communist Party USA leader and Black Panther, as well as a former member of FBI’s Top Ten Most Wanted, recently spoke at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. Her speech, entitled “Freedom is a Constant Struggle: Why Movements for Social Justice Support Palestine,” was far from impartial or fair.
Her speech was co-sponsored by the Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), the GW Black Student Union and GW Feminist Student Union. It was to kick off SJP’s ‘Palestine Awareness Week’ to promote awareness about the occupation of Palestine.
Per Campus Reform, Davis did not mince words when it came to Israel. She said, “Remember, the United States of America is also a settler colonial nation” similar to Israel and occupied Palestine. She wondered why it is “wrong to criticize the state of Israel” and that she and others “say no to Israel’s ethnic cleansing strategies.” She said that today is the time for “the dismantling of the era of Israeli occupation of Palestine. It has been long and coming.” Davis added, “In standing up against the racism of the state of Israel, we are passionately saying no to anti-Semitism as well.”
She claimed that Israel buys the same tear gas to use against Palestinians as the police officers in Ferguson, Missouri and that Americans get “their anti-terror policies from Israel.” Davis continued and criticized Israel for not being “welcoming to queer Palestinians who call for justice for their people.” [By the way, one of the gay Palestinians Israel welcome will be speaking at an upcoming AIA Author’s Night]
Davis blasted the prison system, “I consider myself a prison abolitionist,” since “reform doesn’t work.” She claimed, “The more reformed it has become, the more repressive it has become” because it is a “gendered institution with a gender binary structure.” She said that the “abolition of the prison will also entail the abolition of gender policing.” In her mind, “Palestine is the largest open air prison” and America “is a prison nation.”
