Freedom is a Constant Struggle

Summary, part 3

Palestine

Beyond the aforementioned examples of connected movements, Davis highlights the relationship between the Israel-Palestine conflict and the Black Liberation movement. 

Police in Palestine and the United States.

Palestinians opposing Israeli occupation inspire the Black liberation movement and vice versa. Palestinians could relate to Black people fighting against police brutality in America because they also experience it in Palestine. Over time, freedom for Palestine has become an increasingly incorporated issue in American social justice movements.

This increased incorporation comes from more BIPOC communities (Black, Indigenous, people of color) and college students including it in their work. Davis recommends showing solidarity by supporting the Boycott, Divest, and Sanction movement, which discourages the Israeli government from illegally occupying Palestinian territory.

Another connection Davis makes between Palestine and the Black liberation movement is how people question the validity of violence from Palestinians and Black protestors. Davis argues that the focus on this violence and the categorization of this violence as terrorism diminish the struggle for freedom and self-determination. She also notes that just because we may not be an expert in the subject does not mean we cannot still support and stand by the movement to free Palestine.

G4S

The connection between Palestine and the United States goes beyond similarities in police brutality and includes G4S, a large security company. G4S provides things that states perceive as necessary for security, but actually harm society.

They profit off of racism, anti-immigrant sentiment, and repressive regimes by providing things that include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Incarceration centers for political prisoners in Palestine currently and in apartheid South Africa

• Prisons, checkpoints, and the apartheid wall in Palestine

• Border wall in the U.S.-Mexico border

• Juvenile facilities, military prisons, interrogation centers, prison-like schools, and detention centers in the United States

• Sexual assault centers in the United Kingdom

G4S is a prime example of a corporation that has privatized security, imprisonment, warfare, and education. For Davis, G4S’s existence is an example of why we need a world closer to socialism; a world that includes better education, antiracist job strategies, free health care, and other progressive movements.

Feminism

Another example Davis uses to show the connections between movements is the feminist movement.

Feminist methodologies.

Davis is guided by feminist methodologies, which is a way of approaching things that seem small and marginal that allow us to learn more than the normative dimensions of the subject at hand. When applying feminist methodologies, you then realize the necessity of developing consciousness around capitalism, racism, postcoloniality, and more.

Davis lists five things central to the feminist methodology:

1. Recognize a range of connections among discourses, institution, identities, ideologies;

2. Develop epistemological and organizing strategies that take us beyond traditional understandings of women and gender;

3. Make connections that aren’t always apparent;

4. Look at contradictions and discover what is productive in these contradictions;

5. Methods of thought and action that make separate things appear to belong together.

Davis argues that a feminist methodology will allow us to learn more about the systems or structures. This is because the feminist method looks not only at men but also at women.

Trans women in prisons.

She applies feminist methodologies by looking at trans women in male prisons. When doing so, questions about feminism and LGBTQ+ issues are brought into the prison-industrial complex conversation. Davis points out that even if they have undergone surgery, trans women are still put in male prisons and are the targets of male violence.

Not only are the men in those prisons carrying out violence, but correctional officers themselves joke about and encourage it as well. This tells us that the prison-industrial complex encourages sexual violence against women. Through this example, Davis notes that we need to challenge what is ideologically constituted as ‘normal.’

What prisoners are seen as normal? Why are trans women considered out of the norm? Why is gender such a prominent part of society in the first place?

Black feminism and the intersectionality of struggle.

Davis also mentions Black feminism, which is an intersectional way of looking at identity and struggle that factors in race, gender, class, and more. It was created because, throughout history, Black women have often found themselves forced to choose between fighting for women’s rights or fighting for Black liberation.

Black feminism posits that these things are not and should not be mutually exclusive. She argues that what progressive organizers now need is a framework that can bring multiple social justice issues together since intersectionality is not only about identity, but also about struggle.