We live in a society of an imposed forgetfulness, a society that depends on public amnesia.
Angela DavisRead
What I think is different today is the lack of political connection between the black middle class and the increasing numbers of black people who are more impoverished than ever before.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the disconnect between the black middle class and those in poverty within the black community.
Angela Davis points out a concerning trend where the political interests and connections of the black middle class diverge from the dire realities faced by a growing number of impoverished black individuals. This disconnection can hinder collective progress and the pursuit of social justice, indicating a need for solidarity and shared political engagement within the community.
In practice
This quote can be used to initiate discussions at social justice seminars.
We live in a society of an imposed forgetfulness, a society that depends on public amnesia.
Well, we see an increasingly weaker labor movement as a result of the overall assault on the labor movement and as a result of the globalization of capital.
Racism is a much more clandestine, much more hidden kind of phenomenon, but at the same time it's perhaps far more terrible than it's ever been.
Imprisonment has become the response of first resort to far too many of our social problems.
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
Radical simply means 'grasping things at the root.'
If you don't have a lens that's been trained to look at how various forms of discrimination come together, you're unlikely to develop a set of policies that will be as inclusive as they need to be.
It is devastating that jail is seen as a rite of passage for many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, part of the natural order of things. It is an outrage that there is an attitude that this is normal. This is not normal. We can't shrug our shoulders and say this is just a 'fact of life' in remote Australia.
We're criminalizing economic inability to stay out of the system. Women get penalized more than men for the same crime; blacks get penalized more than whites for the same crime. We need to bring out more into the light, because it's not fair... I applaud Colin Kaepernick for speaking out.
Feminists must denounce the use of white insecurity - whether in relation to white womanhood, white neighborhoods, white politics, or white wealth - to justify the brutal assaults against black people of all genders.
We can stop being so taken aback by Black Lives Matter. If we didn't need to be reminded, there would be justice for Breonna Taylor, a Kentuckian like me, and countless others.
Exploitation. Now, there's a word that has been scrubbed out of the poverty debate.
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