Like Marc Lamont Hill, who was fired by CNN two months ago for his views on Palestine, Angela Davis:
- supports BDS (Boycott, Divest and Sanctioning of Israel for its human rights abuses against Palestinians).
- notices that many progressives in the US are progressive on everything except, strangely, Palestine.
- points out that Israel trains US police forces.
- thinks Palestinians, like any occupied people, have a moral right to use violence against their occupiers.
- believes in internationalism – that the oppressed of the world need to work together across borders.
In 2011 Davis visited Palestine:
“we were all thoroughly shocked to discover that the repression associated with Israeli settler colonialism was so evident and so blatant. The Israeli military made no attempt to conceal or even mitigate the character of the violence they inflicted on the Palestinian people. Gun-carrying military men and women – many extremely young – were everywhere. The wall, the concrete, the razor wire everywhere conveyed the impression that we were in prison.”
It was worse than Jim Crow as she remembers it growing up in Birmingham, Alabama on Dynamite Hill (so called because it was regularly bombed by the Klan).
From Palestine to Ferguson: That hideous militarized look that the police had at first in Ferguson – that came straight out of occupied Palestine. Israel trains US police forces how to fight “terrorism”. Which is why Palestinians found themselves tweeting advice to protesters in Ferguson.
BDS: Davis calls Israel’s wall the “apartheid wall” and sees Israel as being very much like apartheid South Africa. Therefore, just as boycotts and divestments helped to bring down the apartheid government in South Africa, so BDS can do the same in Israel. It will not be as easy, though: Israel, unlike South Africa, has heavy US support, to the tune of $8.5 million a day. And there is also:
“the Zionist lobby, which can be seen in terms of Black religion; its tentacles reach into the Black church, there have been direct efforts to, on the part of the state of Israel, to recruit significant Black figures.”
All of this seems to have come full circle:
Last October the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute (BCRI) said that on February 16th 2019 it was going to give Davis its highest honour, the Fred Shuttlesworth Human Rights Award:
“[Angela Davis is] one of the most globally recognized champions of human rights, giving voice to those who are powerless to speak.”
But on January 4th it suddenly cancelled the award:
“she unfortunately does not meet all of the criteria on which the award is based.”
Unworthy: The about-face came soon after Southern Jewish Life magazine and the Birmingham Holocaust Education Center said she was unworthy, both giving her support of BDS as a reason. The Birmingham Jewish Federation was also reportedly against her receiving the award. (Jewish Voice for Peace, on the other hand, supports her.)
Frank Matthews, a Black activist in Birmingham:
“when we have our vigils, y’all don’t come, so don’t come to tell us who we should honor.”
– Abagond, 2019.
Sources: mainly “Freedom is a Constant Struggle” (2016) by Angela Davis; Southern Jewish Living (2019-01-08); Electronic Intifada (2019-01-07).
See also:
- Angela Davis
- Marc Lamont Hill on Palestine
- Israel
- apartheid
- Jim Crow
- Ferguson
- Zionism
- The Zionist lobby
- Fred Shuttlesworth
- CNN
- settler colonialism
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Reblogged this on League of Bloggers For a Better World.
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How do Jewish continue to get away with this racism against the Palestinian. Its awful considering that American History Channel plays Hitler holocaust remembrance shows 24/7
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Oh boy, I can’t wait to read blakksage tell her “Next time, wear a mask and accept your current fate as a courtesy and as your Kneegrow wake up call. As for now, get back on the plantation!”
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Israel controls it; America patrols it!
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8.5 million DOLLARS a DAY. And a lot of civilian and government officials here in the good old U.S of A cringe at a 125 dollar a month SNAP payout,
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Michelle Alexander –
Time to Break the Silence on Palestine
Martin Luther King Jr. courageously spoke out about the Vietnam War. We must do the same when it comes to this grave injustice of our time.
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The country of the free and the brave is afraid of criticizing Israel.
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I just read that the BCRI reversed their decision.
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“Israel controls it, America patrols it.”
Really, William? Cut me a break.
I’ve heard Angela Davis speak in this decade and she was terrific. She deserves awards heaped upon her. But that doesn’t mean she’s right to support BDS. BDS is tainted by antisemites, even if Angela Davis herself is not personally antisemitic.
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I, too, believe in a form of internationalism – the White Man should work across borders to promote the interests of his volk.
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