Angela Davis: we have to do the work as if change were possible

With the Trump DC shitshow behind us, protesters killed by a vigilante in Wisconsin, and a violent clash between right wing thugs and activists leading to a death in Portland streets, I have encountered a pervasive hesitation and foreboding among friends in several of our ubiquitous zoom meetings. Certainly these are scary times. And it would be wonderful if we could all just crawl under our beds and the threat would go away. But it won't. The next 65 days til the election and most probably the three months after will be anxious times. That simply is where we find ourselves.

In such times, it seems worthwhile to listen to the reflections of someone who has been through a lifetime of struggle with this country's demons. The filmmaker Ava Duvernay (Selma, 13th, When They See Us) interviewed lifelong justice warrior Angela Davis for Vanity Fair. Her thoughts:

Duvernay: ... How does it feel for a woman born into segregation to see this moment? What lessons have you gleaned about struggle?

That’s a really big question. Perhaps I can answer it by saying that we have to have a kind of optimism. One way or another I’ve been involved in movements from the time I was very, very young, and I can remember that my mother never failed to emphasize that as bad as things were in our segregated world, change was possible. That the world would change. I learned how to live under those circumstances while also inhabiting an imagined world, recognizing that one day things would be different. I’m really fortunate that my mother was an activist who had experience in movements against racism, the movement to defend, for example, the Scottsboro Nine.

I’ve always recognized my own role as an activist as helping to create conditions of possibility for change. And that means to expand and deepen public consciousness of the nature of racism, of heteropatriarchy, pollution of the planet, and their relationship to global capitalism. This is the work that I’ve always done, and I’ve always known that it would make a difference. Not my work as an individual, but my work with communities who have struggled. I believe that this is how the world changes. It always changes as a result of the pressure that masses of people, ordinary people, exert on the existing state of affairs. I feel very fortunate that I am still alive today to witness this.

And I’m so glad that someone like John Lewis was able to experience this and see this before he passed away, because oftentimes we don’t get to actually witness the fruits of our labor. They may materialize, but it may be 50 years later, it may be 100 years later. But I’ve always emphasized that we have to do the work as if change were possible and as if this change were to happen sooner rather than later. It may not; we may not get to witness it. But if we don’t do the work, no one will ever witness it.

My emphasis.