Reading and Discussion Questions
Joy James, ed., The Angela Davis Reader
Excerpts from Davis, An Autobiography
1. What do you think Angela Davis’s goal was in describing her experience
in jail? Why did she make a point of saying that she resisted individualizing
her circumstances and guarded against self-pity, even while in solitary
confinement?
2. What is a political prisoner? Why did Davis consider herself one?
"Reflections on the Black Woman’s Role in the Community
of Slaves"
1. Why did Davis argue so forcefully against the idea that black women
were “matriarchs” during the era of slavery while also insisting
that “the black woman was assigned the mission of promoting the
consciousness and practice of resistance”?
2. What was it about domestic life that Davis thinks allowed women to
assert their humanity, and the humanity of their families, in the face
of a dehumanizing system?
3. What role does labor play in her analysis?
4. Why is it ironic that female slaves were not bound to the ideology
of femininity? What kind of equality did female and male slaves have?
What do you think of calling this “equality”?
5. What evidence does Davis offer of slave resistance and punishment?
Would you interpret this evidence as she does, or differently?
6. Do you agree that the material conditions of slavery made for a “greater
objective equality between the black man and the black women”?
"JoAnne Little: The Dialectics of Rape"
1. Who was JoAnne Little? Why did her story become public in 1974?
2. Why does Davis invoke history to understand her story? Do you agree
that institutionalized rape has been a constant feature of the racial
subordination of African-American women and the idea of the black male
rapist has played a corresponding role in the history of African-American
men?
3. What does she mean by suggesting that racism and male supremacy exist
in a dialectical relationship? What “larger system” drives
both of these, according to Davis?
"Women and Capitalism: Dialectics of Oppression and Liberation"
1. In this piece, Davis self-consciously utilizes the marxist tradition
to analyze the social position of women. What does she hope to gain from
this exercise? What other approaches to the social position of women is
she trying to displace? What does she mean by “bourgeois”
feminism?
2. What examples of the capitalist organization of labor does Davis use
to reinforce her point that women’s subordination is a product of
historical forces rather than “nature”?
3. Do you agree that the oppression of women and the potential for their
liberation are both exaggerated in market societies?
4. What general course of action does Davis recommend for the women’s
movement?
"Black Women and the Academy"
1. Davis addressed a conference on “Black Women in the Academy”
with a speech about sexual violence, ethnocentrism, immigration, and prisons.
Why? Are academic concerns inevitably tied to urgent social questions?
Should they be?
2. What does she mean by suggesting “that we theorize–and
organize–a new abolitionism”?
"Meditations on the Legacy of Malcolm X"
1. The black nationalism associated with Malcolm X was frequently associated
with an aggressive assertion of masculinity and patriarchy, so why would
Davis argue for “some possible feminist implications of his legacy”?
Do you think she would have written this article twenty years earlier?
Why or why not?
2. How does Davis feel about the renaissance of Malcolm’s iconic
status several decades after his death?
"Black Nationalism: The Sixties and the Nineties"
1. Why did Davis oppose “narrow nationalism” during the 1960s?
What was “narrow” about it, and what kind of nationalism did
she find less objectionable politically?
2. What sort of “black nationalism” is Angela Davis’s
name and image associated with in your mind? Do you think the subtle distinctions
between the nationalisms she describe matter in terms of public perception
and debate?
"Coalition Building Among People of Color: A Discussion
with Angela Y. Davis and Elizabeth Martinez"
1. What changes in the United States do you think prompted Davis and Martinez
to talk about coalition building in 1994?
"Reflections on Race, Class, and Gender in the USA"
1. Does Davis assess the critique of feminism by women of color as a success,
a failure, or something else? Explain.
2. What do you think of Davis’s reflections on her life as a teacher
as well as a political activist? How are they related? How are they different?
Appendix: Opening Defense Statement, March 29, 1972
1. What strategy does Davis pursue in defending herself in court?
2. Do you think such a statement would be convincing to a jury? Then?
Now?
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