Wonderwoman comes to town

Born in Alabama in 1944, she exploded onto the world stage in the late 1960s as the world’s most recognisable black women activist, with her movie star looks, afro hairstyle, ferocious attitude, and passionate defence of Black people’s rights.

Her notoriety was confirmed when she was linked to the murder of a judge during an attempted Black Panther prison break. She went underground and was the subject of an intense and very public manhunt.

After 18 months on the run, she was eventually arrested and had her head shaved as an act of public humiliation, but when she finally got to court, the afro was back, the attitude was back, and with the assistance of one of the best defence teams in the country, she was eventually acquitted of all charges in one of the most famous trials of the times.

She is currently Professor of History of Consciousness at the University of California and Presidential Chair at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Her research interests include: feminism, African American studies, critical theory, popular music culture, social consciousness, and the philosophy of punishment (women's prisons).

Last week, I had the privilege of hosting Angela Davis when she came to Aotearoa with the assistance of the Amokura Family Violence project.

Her current focus is America’s Prison Industrial Complex, and the groups that benefit from an ever expanding prison system, like politicians, state officials, construction, media, staff, suppliers.

She talked about the poverty that generates despair and violence that keeps prisons filled. She talked about the explosion in the prison population over that past 35 years (there are more women in prison in California today than there were in the whole USA in 1970). She says that society uses violent stereotypes to keep building more prisons rather than deal with the real problems, and that prisons have been a total failure in rehabilitation, so all they turn out is harder criminals. And she says slavery hasn’t been abolished; it’s just been shifted into the prisons.

She didn’t say anything new, but she did reinforce the importance of us breaking out of the mindset that prisons do anything but generate pain, anger and suffering that comes back to haunt us all, and she challenged us all to find a better way.

Her humanity and her warmth have replaced the rebellious anger of the sixties, but her passion for justice remains undimmed. Angela Davis –wonderwoman.

ENDS

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