Three things I understood when meeting Angela Davis

A few days ago I saw Angela Davis, with a few hundred other spectators, sitting on the benches of the Théâtre de la Ville.

Even when we know little about her, when we hear her name from childhood without having looked further, something happens at the heart level when this almost 80-year-old woman, vigorous, kind and smiling, enters the room and begins to speak, with his voice calm and warm. Here are the three lessons I didn’t foresee and realized during this timeless discussion.

We are deeply connected to our struggling mothers

Which feminist, which decolonial activist has not already experienced a feeling of immense crushing and loneliness when faced with the extent of the power of the oppressors? The euphoric energy of struggle brings with it its share of repercussions and, at times, one can feel very small in the face of the hegemony of violent and absurd forces at work for centuries all over the world.

But the moment we meet Angela Davis, something obvious becomes obvious to us. Even though we may be separated by several decades, by several thousand kilometers, our struggles are the same. Feminism, anti-racism, anti-imperialism and all intersectional struggles do not die at the same time as activists but are transmitted and create a bond of filiation between us.

The first thing Angela Davis said upon entering the amphitheater was: “Don’t applaud me, let’s applaud each other. » Reject to be so elevated in rank iconis to consider yourself uniquepart of a collective militant force, which transcends time and space. Angela Davis is African American, born in 1944 and lived, among other things, racial discrimination, police violence and the prison In the USA. At first glance, we might think that it is impossible to identify with a journey so far from ours. Yet, the moment Angela Davis starts speaking, we realize it how much our understanding of the world, the values ​​and ideals that guide us are the same. We no longer see just an almost unreal idol, but one of our fighting mothersliving proof that the resistance is much stronger and more solid than we thought.

Feminism is intersectional or not

In the program announcing a meeting with Angela Davis we read that it will be a reflection on current artistic events and the world political situation.

Angela Davis spoke from this simple initial postulate her lesbianism as freedom from patriarchy, from the role of blues musicians AS precursors revolutionariesthe fight against anti-Semitism, the homage to the dignity of the Palestinian people, Jean Genet and many other themes.

As varied as these topics were, this discussion did not feel like a list of unrelated topics. During her speech, Angela Davis made us feel the proof of this feminism is not a simple reform but a revolution. Free society from racial, economic, homophobic and transphobic violence. With a simplicitya humility it’s a wisdom Remarkably, Angela Davis appeared as an embodiment of this intersectional feminismthat beat in the hearts of activists long before we were born and will continue to vibrate after us.

The feeling of freedom you get while listening to music is not an illusion

By transmitting the music of blues singers (such as Roberta Flack, Billie Holiday or Cécile McLorin Salvant), Angela Davis evoked this very precise sensation but which we do not always give the credit it deserves: that of living a powerful feeling of freedom listening to music.

For Angela Davis, music is not just entertainment, along with more “serious” things. to elaborate the contours of a better society or campaign to make this happen. Actually, the music It’s really the fertile ground of the revolution. The activist, professor and writer explained that music (specifically, the music we listen to collectively) gives us to see and hear freedom before we even had the words, the time, the tools to make it a concrete political project.

We hear before you knowand so it is from this visceral sensation, of this spontaneous revelation that we glimpse the ideals to which we aspire. It is from music that we draw faith and the strength to fightto realize freedom, even beyond music.

“ It is often taken for granted that the most important figures in a movement are the theorists, theorists, speakers, organizers, organizers. […]

I think just because art allows us to feel the connections that unite us AND collectively experience the possibilities for the future, plays a profound role in the development of radical social movements. »

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