Yeah -so I was one of those sardines packed into the Rockefeller Chapel to see and hear the illustrious Angela Davis deliver the annual George E. Kent Lecture.
It was ...cool. She is, as one person put it, "more down to earth than I expected..."
She spoke of how the Foundations of our (U.S.'s) democracy are inherently flawed, thus the disintegration of our civil liberties which we seems to be witnessing today is part of a tradition. She spoke against capitalism, saying she's not against people having nice things, - she just wants EVERYONE to have nice things. She underlined the point that ordinary people are the true engines of social change, and have the power to create a new world - if only we can IMAGINE a world other than the one we live in today.
She warned us not mythologize the heroes of the past, especially since so much of their work remains unfinished. But it is not these individuals who triumph when advancements are made, altho we tend to over-associate these figures with such advancements - yet these advancements are the result of collective action. Individualism, especially capitalist individualism, will not bring about the change everyone so eagerly seeks - it is solidarities, communities, such as the one that was created when we all decided to gather in that chapel...
We are who we are because of what others before us have done, but we still have the capacity to make something more for those who will no doubt follow us,,,,,,
imagine.
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