Legacy racial tyranny
#Legacy racial tyranny how to#
Puzzling, because it ignores the fact that African-Americans have had a voice-a necessary voice-in the debate about how to deal with commemorations of a morally compromised past. Depressing, because it’s the epitome of racial balkanization, suggesting that American heroes do not belong to all Americans but are segregated by race. Bailey suggests that white Americans “would cry foul if black people said that the public statues and monuments and memorials built to honor white men who raped, robbed, and murdered black people and Native Americans should be torn down because their sins far outweigh the good they did.” Likewise, he says, the black community alone should decide whether Davis deserves to be honored.īut this is an argument both depressing and puzzling. Iconic black figures, Bailey writes, have to meet “white purity tests” in order to be recognized, and their flaws are allowed to outweigh everything they have done for the black community on the other hand, “white American icons” such as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson are revered even though they participated in the evil of slavery. Bailey, with whom I had an exchange on Twitter after my Forward piece, wrote a column for The Root, the African-American online magazine, arguing that the attacks on Davis show a racial double standard. But there were also objections from some black commentators who felt that Davis was being unfairly judged. The response from Twitter’s hammer-and-sickle brigades was predictable and easily dismissed. I made what I thought was a rather obvious point: a woman who spent years as an ally of Communist regimes and never once raised her voice against those regimes’ human rights abuses is a rather poor candidate for a human rights award.
She did not leave the slavishly pro-Soviet Communist Party USA until 1991 when the USSR was about to collapse.
(At the time, I was in elementary school in Moscow like other Soviet schoolchildren, our class was required to sign postcards of support for Davis.) After her acquittal, she made a triumphant tour of Communist countries, received honors and prizes, and pointedly refused to speak up for Eastern-bloc political prisoners, even those who were Communist reformers.
#Legacy racial tyranny free#
While I believe Davis’s advocacy on Palestinian issues goes far beyond support for human rights, the real issue for me was her history of support for violent radicalism in the United States and for totalitarianism abroad.Ī Communist true believer, Davis became a Soviet propaganda icon as an American “political prisoner” in 1970, when she was charged with murder for her alleged role in a deadly courthouse attack intended to free three members of the Black Panthers. In the first days of the controversy, I wrote about it for the Jewish Daily Forward (which tilts strongly to the left and also published two critical pieces taking Jewish organizations to task for “tearing down” black leaders). Krulak, former president of Birmingham-Southern College, who mentioned Davis’s past Communist Party membership and her support for Communist regimes. (It is worth noting that criteria for the award include “embody a philosophy of non-violence and reconciliation.”) But apparently, the BCRI board’s decision was also influenced by a statement issued by Gen. Shuttlesworth Human Rights Award to Davis was due to objections from two local Jewish groups concerned about Davis’s anti-Israel stance-which includes not just advocacy for the boycott/divestment/sanctions (BDS) campaign, but support for terrorists Rasmea Odeh and Marwan Barghouti, both of whom have been convicted of murdering Israeli civilians. There is little doubt that losing the BCRI award has been a win for the woman who was once the toast of Moscow, Havana and East Berlin.Īccording to reports in the media, the cancellation of the Fred L. Davis will be honored at an alternative event in Birmingham in February meanwhile, on Wednesday, she speaks at a Martin Luther King Day event at the University of New England. The Birmingham City Council unanimously approved a resolution “recognizing the life work of Angela Davis” Mayor Randall Woodfin has voiced his dismay, and the BCRI itself, while not walking back its decision, has apologized for making the move too hastily and not responding to protests soon enough. With the resurgence of Communism on the progressive left, it is perhaps fitting that America’s most famous Communist, Angela Davis, should be having a moment in the spotlight.Įarlier this month, the news that the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, Alabama’s venerable civil rights history museum, was rescinding a planned award to Davis due to questions raised about her record, caused an uproar and an outpouring of support for the 74-year-old activist/academic.