Dr. Angela Davis on the role of the trans and non-binary communities in the fight for the feminist abolition she advocates for

Dr. Angela Davis on that women, queer people, and particularly the trans community have shown us that because they show that the normalcy of cisheteronormativity and patriarchy can be challenged, the normalcy of police, jails, and prisons can also be challenged.

Submitted by kasama_libsoc on June 25, 2020

What I'm referring to does not respect the binary structure of gender. Recognizing that the contribution of non-binary communities is so important, not only in pointing out the concrete issues that we need to address, and of course many of us already know that, Black trans women constitute the target of racist violence more consistently than any other community. We're talking about, State violence, we're talking about individual violence, stranger violence, intimate violence.

So if we want to develop an intersectional perspective, the trans community is showing us the way. And we can't only point to, and we need to point, to cases such as the murder of Tony McDade, for example. But we need to go beyond that and recognize that we support the trans community precisely because this community has taught us how to challenge that which is totally accepted as normal. And I don't think we would be where we are today—encouraging ever larger numbers of people to think within an abolitionist frame—had not the trans community taught us that it is possible to effectively challenge that which is considered the very foundation of our sense of normalcy. So if it is possible to challenge the gender binary, then we can certainly, effectively, resist prisons, and jails, and police.

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Retrieved from https://twitter.com/nkate96/status/1272242894536138764 and https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1272379530737602562.html

Comments

Black Badger

3 years 9 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Black Badger on June 25, 2020

shouldn't the tags also include "stalinism"?

Spikymike

3 years 9 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Spikymike on June 25, 2020

Stretches connections in reality a tad too far by sharing some common words and phrases used by political activists and assumptions as to the level of common interests amongst people sharing one particular 'identity' amongst others.

Battlescarred

3 years 7 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Battlescarred on August 14, 2020

AS Black Badger says, Stalinism should be included as a tag. Mind you, I quite like her book on the blues " Blues Legacies and Black Feminism".

wojtek

3 years 7 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by wojtek on August 14, 2020

Where does she advocate Stalinism? I'm rather ignorant.

comradeEmma

3 years 7 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by comradeEmma on August 15, 2020

Regardless of what you think of Stalin it would be petty to try and claim that CPUSA never had any history of "militant struggle". The work of CPUSA cadre in situations like the building of CIO or their work in Alabama during the "third period" are worth learning from, both failures and successes.

Black Badger

3 years 7 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Black Badger on August 15, 2020

Comrade Emma, you should probably stick to the proper chronology; Dr Davis didn't join the CPUSA until well after the Third Period, when the party had turned into a despicable sect of shameless pro-Moscow stooges...

R Totale

3 years 7 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by R Totale on August 15, 2020

I'm not sure if you were reacting to the quotation marks there, but if so, they weren't me adding scare quotes, that was just me copy-pasting the headline straight from a CPUSA site, punctuation intact. I genuinely wasn't trying to claim anything about the CPUSA's history one way or another beyond that it's a Stalinist party, which I'd hope would be uncontroversial. You can learn whatever you like from whatever bits of history you can find interesting, all I was saying was that if you write articles for CPUSA publications celebrating the organisation it illustrates what your politics are.

Nymphalis Antiopa

3 years 7 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Nymphalis Antiopa on August 16, 2020

The CPUSA even opposed the black-organised March on Washington Movement of the 1940s, which is no surprise since they always had a very patronising attitude towards blacks unless they happened to be called Paul Robeson or du Bois (and even then du Bois wasn't considered worthy until he dabbled with Stalinism in his mid-80s until he finally joined them at the age of 93). Angela Davis's Stalinism can only contribute to hiding and falsifying such contradictions and history. So it's no surprise that she wants to remain popular among her intersectionalist bullshitters in academia: opportunism comes naturally to her. Even her interesting book on the blues (which, admittedly , I've only half-read) seems to greatly exaggerate the degree of rejection of masculine macho crap among female blues singers; so many of the lyrics were all about how, despite the man she loves being abusive, deceitful, anti-social, alcoholic etc. , nevertheless she is his because he is hers or something sad like that.

Reddebrek

3 years 7 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Reddebrek on August 16, 2020

comradeEmma

Regardless of what you think of Stalin it would be petty to try and claim that CPUSA never had any history of "militant struggle". The work of CPUSA cadre in situations like the building of CIO or their work in Alabama during the "third period" are worth learning from, both failures and successes.

Sure, but even those two periods you've chosen the CPUSA spent much of its time and energy attacking and trying to cripple groups not under their direct control. The work in the CIO was in many ways just a manoeuvre to outflank and destroy the industrial organisations of every other competitor especially the "Trotskyites". And of course infamously the CIO build up also coincided with communist party controlled unions making alliances with the United states government and industrial giants.

Oh, and while we're talking about the bad stuff Angela Davis has done, she was a vocal supporter of Jim Jones, yes the suicide cult Jim Jones.

I think what's really interesting about Angela Davis is that she's one of those people who been totally overshadowed by a mythical version of herself. Many people were shocked about her announcing she'll vote for Biden and her much more positive statements on Harris, but it really shouldn't have done. The party she dedicated most of her life to the CPUSA has been essentially a lukewarm arm of the democratic party election machine for decades. And I've noticed most people think she was an ex-panther, which is technically true she did briefly have a dual membership, but when the Panthers forbid dual members she chose to stick with the CPUSA over them.

Black Badger

3 years 7 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Black Badger on August 16, 2020

The work in the CIO was in many ways just a manoeuvre to outflank and destroy the industrial organisations of every other competitor especially the "Trotskyites".

don't forget that this campaign was also what finally destroyed the influence of the IWW on the waterfronts.