Angela Davis:
Rooting out embedded racism
http://reporter.mcgill.ca/2009/10/rooting-out-embedded-racism/
Former Black Panther addresses full house on race and the media
By Allison Flynn
Oct 02 2009
Last Thursday night, Angela Davis, the veteran activist and '60s icon
of black power politics, was greeted by a rousing ovation in a
filled-to-capacity Leacock 132 before she even uttered a word. Davis
was on campus to deliver Media@McGill's Beaverbrook Lecture that
sought to take a closer look at the complex relationship between
race, power and the media in the U.S.
As she scanned the auditorium, Davis acknowledged that most in
attendance weren't yet born when she first gained infamy in 1970,
when she was arrested, charged and tried for three capital crimes -
conspiracy, kidnapping and homicide. "Though I was innocent of those
charges, it's clear that had it not been for the massive mobilization
of people all over the world, I might still be sitting in one of
California's three women's prisons," said Davis.
Davis framed her talk with the case of Oscar Grant, the 22-year-old
African-American who was fatally shot while allegedly being
handcuffed, face-down, on a train platform by a white transit police
officer in Oakland on Jan. 1, 2009. The incident, from many vantage
points, was captured on cell phone cameras held by passengers on the
train idling next to the platform. The clips were subsequently
broadcast on TV news and spread like wildfire across the Web,
prompting an enraged community to protest and riot over the days that followed.
"What convinced this man that it would be okay to shoot a young black
person like that?" Davis said. "I am much more interested in the
embedded racism, the systemic racism that encourages individuals to
commit such acts."
She maintained that the American justice system is inherently racist
and listed a number of famous cases where racial profiling and police
brutality made the headlines through a complicit "dominant media." As
an example, she cited some of the media's references to white
post-Katrina thieves as "foragers" versus the blacks who were
regularly referred to as "looters."
Well over 1,000 people attended Davis's lecture. Leacock 132, which
seats 800, filled-up quickly and an overflow room upstairs that seats
another 300 was filled to standing room only.
Davis, now in her mid-60s, continues to push for racial and gender
equality, gay rights, and prison abolition alongside her work as a
professor at the University of California at Santa Cruz.
--------
Justice systems racist, Davis argues
http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Justice+systems+racist+Davis+argues/2057689/story.html
Rooted in slavery, longtime activist tells conference
By JASON MAGDER
October 2, 2009
The justice systems in Canada and the United States are inherently
racist and must be changed, veteran civil rights activist Angela
Davis told a packed lecture hall at McGill University's Leacock
Building yesterday evening.
Davis made that statement after talking about the Jan. 1, 2009,
shooting death of Oscar Grant, a black man, in Oakland, Calif.
Witnesses said Grant was shot while he was lying on the ground and
being handcuffed by transit police officer Johannes Mehserle, 27, who is white.
"I am much more interested in the embedded racism, the systemic
racism that encourages individuals to commit such acts," Davis said.
"What convinced this man it would be okay to shoot a young black
person like that?"
More than 1,000 attended last night's lecture, held in a conference
room that holds 800 people, and broadcast to a spillover room one floor up.
Davis, a former Black Panther and now a professor at the University
of California, Santa Cruz, spoke as part of the Beaverbrook Canadian
Foundation's Media@McGill conference.
She told the audience that racial profiling has roots in history -
and in the U.S., those roots are in slavery.
"In the immediate aftermath of slavery, the southern states hastened
to develop a criminal justice system that would legally restrict the
possibilities of freedom," Davis said.
"I think we need to acknowledge that if racism is viewed as a
anachronistic vestige of the past, then we fail to grasp the extent
to which the long memory of institutions continues to permit racism
to determine, for example who has access to education, and who has
access to incarceration."
Davis said she would like to see the prison system abolished. She
contends prisons allow the public to ignore serious problems in
society rather than have a debate about why people commit crimes in
the first place.
Most who attended last night's conference weren't even born when
Davis first gained notoriety in 1970. She was arrested and held for
18 months for her role in the shooting of a judge because the shotgun
used in the crime was registered in her name. She was charged with
murder, conspiracy and kidnapping, but was never convicted of any crime.
Davis said she credits her freedom to a huge world movement that
broke out after she was arrested.
"Though I was innocent of those charges, it's very clear that had it
not been for the massive mobilization of people all over the world, I
might still be sitting in one of California's women's prisons."
--
jmagder@thegazette.canwest.com
.
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