We live in a society of an imposed forgetfulness, a society that depends on public amnesia.
In a sense the quest for the emancipation of black people in the U.S. has always been a quest for economic liberation which means to a certain extent that the rise of black middle class would be inevitable.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The pursuit of freedom for Black people is inherently tied to economic empowerment, suggesting that the emergence of a Black middle class is unavoidable.
In this quote, Angela Davis emphasizes that the struggle for Black liberation in the United States is intricately linked to economic freedom. She argues that the fight for equality is not only about social and political rights but also about achieving economic stability and prosperity, which will inevitably lead to the development of a Black middle class as a symbol of progress and self-sufficiency. This reflects a broader narrative that real emancipation encompasses not just civil rights but also the eradication of economic disparities.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
During a speech advocating for economic reforms, one could use this quote to underline the connection between social justice and economic empowerment.
More from Angela Davis
All quotes →Well, 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
I want to help correct the inaccurate image of immigration in the media. There is an idea that women's issues are over here and immigration is over there. Three quarters of undocumented workers are women and children.
My father was at the forefront of the economic justice movement - fighting for and with Black women who were on welfare for dignity and for enough support to feed their families, shelter their kids.
(Farm workers) are involved in the planting and the cultivation and the harvesting of the greatest abundance of food known in this society. They bring in so much food to feed you and me and the whole country and enough food to export to other places. The ironic thing and the tragic thing is that after they make this tremendous contribution, they don't have any money or any food left for themselves.
The default of our society is the reproduction of racial inequality. I mean, that's what it does; that's what it's been doing for hundreds of years.
I think we've become blind in this country to the ways in which we've managed to reinvent a caste-like system here in the United States, one that functions in a manner that is as oppressive, in many respects, as the one that existed in South Africa under apartheid and that existed under Jim Crow here in the United States.
The March on Washington was a March for Jobs and Freedom. There are still too many people who are unemployed or underemployed in America - they're black, white, Latino, Native American and Asian American.