PGHIMC - Pittsburgh Independent Media Center

Angela Davis on Terrorism and the "American Way"
by Emma Rehm Sunday, Sep. 01, 2002 at 1:36 PM

Angela Davis lectured in Pittsburgh Friday evening on the role of gender in activism, and the new world that has met activists and citizens since September 11.

After African drumming, some dancing, and a brief introduction, activist legend Angela Davis spoke to an overfull auditorium last night in the University of Pittsburgh's David Lawrence Hall.

Her lecture, entitled "Globalism, Terrorism, and Gender," spoke to some very broad and accessible topics - the illegitimacy of Bush's reign as president, and the need for activists to question not only authority
but themselves. However, Davis did make some very pointed remarks drawing together the relationships between the commodification of patriotism since September 11, the treatment of prisoners and history of the Prison-Industrial Complex, and the need to acknowledge gender as an aspect of activism.

In particular, Davis discussed the form of global terrorism that is created by the sprawl of U.S. -style prisons into the rest of the world. In a string of comments very critical of the United States government and society both, Davis pointed out that even if the country had a revolution, even if someone came in and killed some high ranking officials and assumed their positions, nothing would change. The institutions that make the U.S. famous and hated around the world - like the military- and prison-industrial complexes - would remain intact.

Davis pointed out, while discussing laws and institutions, the false assumption that racism has been eradicated because the racist laws have been removed from the books. Racism is deep rooted, she said, and will not end "just because people have learned to stop making racist comments."

When asked about her involvement in the former Soviet Union and the Communist Party, she stated emphatically, "I am a socialist," and
discussed the benefits of functional socialist societies. Davis said that Americans need to stop equating democracy with capitalism, a sentiment met with hearty applause from a very diverse audience.

She put a strong pressure on the youngest of the generation to be the leaders of the current wave of activism. Reminiscing about her activism in the 1960s, Davis said she remembered thinking that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a conservative old man. She made a point to avoid nostalgia, though, which she claims hinders progress. Young people - the people contemptuously referred to as "today's youth" by the media - have to learn to be moderately disrespectful of their elders in order to
accomplish anything. She added, encouragingly, "And I'm perfectly willing to be gotten out of the way."

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