Quote

Jails and prisons are designed to break human beings, to convert the population into specimens in a zoo - obedient to our keepers, but dangerous to each other.

Angela Davis

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Angela Davis
Age: 80
Born: 1944
Born: January 29
Autobiographer
Feminist
Human Rights Activist
Philosopher
Political Activist
Politician
Teacher
University Teacher
Writer
Birmingham
Alabama
Angela Yvonne Davis
Angela Y. Davis
Dangerous
Prisons
Break
Convert
Dehumanization
Human
Obedient
Specimens
Humans
Jail
Jails
Designed
Zoos
Prison
Converting
Population
Imprisonment
Beings
Keepers

More quotes by Angela Davis

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I don't think it's necessary to feel guilty. Because I know that I'm still doing the work that is going to help more sisters and brothers to challenge the whole criminal justice system, and I'm trying to use whatever knowledge I was able to acquire to continue to do the work in our communities that will move us forward.
Angela Davis
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We cannot assume that people by virtue of the fact that they are black are going to associate themselves with progressive political struggles. We need to divest ourselves the kinds of strategies that assume that black unity black political unity is possible.
Angela Davis
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It's true that it's within the realm of cultural politics that young people tend to work through political issues, which I think is good, although it's not going to solve the problems
Angela Davis
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We are never assured of justice without a fight.
Angela Davis
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I think it is important to acknowledge the extent to which the black middle class tends to rely on a kind of imagined struggle that gets projected into commodities like kente cloth for example on the one hand and images like the Million Man March.
Angela Davis
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Kids these days are kind of going back to Tupac and Snoop Doggy Dogg as examples of people that stand for something.
Angela Davis
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we have accumulated a wealth of historical experience which confirms our belief that the scales of American justice are out of balance.
Angela Davis
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I'm thinking about some developments say in the 80s when the anti-apartheid movement began to claim more support and strength within the US. Black trade unionists played a really important role in developing this US anti-apartheid movement.
Angela Davis
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I think we have to really focus on the issues much more than we may have in the past. I think we have to seek to create coalitional strategies that go beyond racial lines. We need to bring black communities, Chicano communities, Puerto Rican communities, Asian American communities together.
Angela Davis
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First of all, I didn't suggest that we should simply get rid of all prisons.
Angela Davis
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I do think it's extremely important to acknowledge the gains that were made by the civil rights movement, the black power movement.Institutional transformations happened directly as a result of the movements that people, unnamed people, organized and gave their lives to.
Angela Davis
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You can't criticize people for wanting to have a decent life or wanting to live decently.
Angela Davis
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We have been basically persuaded that we should not talk about racism.
Angela Davis
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in this society, dominated as it is by the profit-seeking ventures of monopoly corporations, health has been callously transformed into a commodity - a commodity that those with means are able to afford, but that is too often entirely beyond the reach of others.
Angela Davis
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I’m a feminist so I believe in inhabiting contradictions. I believe in making contradictions productive, not in having to choose one side or the other side. As opposed to choosing either or, choosing both.
Angela Davis
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But at the same time you can't assume that making a difference 20 years ago is going to allow you to sort of live on the laurels of those victories for the rest of your life
Angela Davis
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And I guess what I would say is that we can't think narrowly about movements for black liberation and we can't necessarily see this class division as simply a product or a certain strategy that black movements have developed for liberation.
Angela Davis
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You have to act as if it were possible to radically transform the world. And you have to do it all the time.
Angela Davis
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Now, if we look at the way in which the labor movement itself has evolved over the last couple of decades, we see increasing numbers of black people who are in the leadership of the labor movement and this is true today.
Angela Davis
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Well of course I get depressed sometimes, yes I do.
Angela Davis