We live in a society of an imposed forgetfulness, a society that depends on public amnesia.
That's true but I think the contemporary problem that we are facing increasing numbers of black people and other people of color being thrown into a status that involves work in alternative economies and increasing numbers of people who are incarcerated.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Angela Davis highlights the issues faced by Black individuals and people of color in alternative economies and the prison system.
In this quote, Angela Davis discusses the pressing social issue of how contemporary society marginalizes increasing numbers of Black individuals and other people of color. She points to the struggles they face as they are pushed into alternative economies, which often lack stability and opportunity, while also addressing the troubling rise in incarceration rates among these communities. Davis's insights call for a deeper examination of the structural inequalities that lead to such disparities.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could be used in a discussion about systemic racism and its impact on the economy.
More from Angela Davis
All quotes βWell, 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.'
Similar quotes
The one public system in which America goes out of its way to provide services to African-Americans is prison.
Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane.
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.
By expanding the legal authority of law enforcement agencies - without addressing the infiltration of white supremacy within law enforcement - we are expanding the capacity of white supremacy itself.
In the racialized space of capitalist gentrification, police are not only arbiters of the peace, they are the muscle of retail racism: You can only be in this space if you transcend your blackness by showing us some green dollars. Even then, there is no guarantee that green will transcend your black skin.
When we let cops talk about themselves as a separate community, then we are letting cops wall themselves off from the rest of us. We don't generally do that with any other jobs. We don't talk about the barista community or the Wal-Mart greeter community.