I see where Dr. Angela Davis was chosen as keynote speaker for UTC MLK Day 2023. In the article in the Chattanoogan it failed to note that this is a lady who is an avowed Marxist who was investigated for providing guns to the killers of a San Francisco Judge back in 1970; she has advocated abolition of our prisons yet endorsed the imprisonment of political dissidents by the former Soviet Union Communist government; received the "Lenin Peace Prize" from the former Soviet Union in 1979; was the Communist Party USA's 1980 and 1984 vice presidential candidate; opposed the 1995 Million Man March because it promoted "male chauvinism" but at the same time was also the honorary co-chair of the 2017 Women's March on Washington (female chauvinism?).
To quote Wikipedia, Davis has "a long record of support for political violence in the United States and the worst of human rights abusers abroad".
This is the person chosen to speak at a program whose central theme is "A Call for Civility"?
While this lady has every right to speak on the UTC campus should the Office of Multicultural Affairs have her as the keynote speaker at this particular forum celebrating MLK Day?
David Taylor
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I see McCarthyism is alive and well in 2023.
Angela Davis is a academic. It would have been better to dissect something she wrote than to scan her biography in an attempt to smear her legacy.
But then again, that would require opening a book.
Also, I am curious how much Marx Mr. Taylor has read? As he is keen to use Marxism as an affront. Somehow, it comes across as if he has only read a few sentences in a Wikipedia article on the subject. Probably less.
The power theory to strikes fear into the hearts and minds of so many people never ceases to amaze me. No one has to agree with everything someone writes, but engaging with their work should be the starting point of any serious critique.
Marquis Harris
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I'm not sure how old David Taylor is, but I'm old enough to remember those 1960, 1970 and later to parts of the 1990s days. Where in a supposedly Democratic nation democracy remained elusive and non-existing for far too many, particularly Black people. Let me put it this way, if someone dressed up in Democratic/Republic attire is trying to drown you and another person comes along in Communist attire and throws you a lifejacket you're going to cling to that life jacket and identify more with the person who attempted to save you in Communist attire. That's basically what it was like back then.
So, having been rejected, beaten down even by a supposedly Democratic/Republic democracy, many Blacks back then began to lean towards and identify with American Communist groups. The late poet Langston Hughes belonged to the American Communist party. I can still remember one of the poetries or essays I read as a child written by Langston Hughes that went something like, "The Belgians cut off my hands in the Congo, they lynched me in Texas."
On up to and well into the 1970s, some 1980s and 1990s even, things could go very dark, very fast and without notice for many Black people going about their daily lives. It was akin to government sanctioned terrorism against a group for no other reason than the color of their skin. There are still remnants of that period in existence today.
After reading over David Taylor's list of points against Professor Davis, I went back to refresh my memory by reading up on a few things I could only vaguely recall. David Taylor failed to also mention Professor Angela Davis was born and grew up in an area of Birmingham, Al. known as "Dynamite Hill." So named because the area was constantly being bombed to run out middle-classed Blacks. Or that she was closely acquainted with the four little girls who died in the Birmingham church bombing in 1963. That Professor Davis was acquitted of all charges by an all white jury after being jailed for over a year, wrongly accused in a courtroom attack where a judge and three others were killed.
In those days, activists like Professor Davis and even Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., along with so many others like them, were often targeted and set up in an effort to discredit them and turn sentiment against them. More so even if they identified as being a member of the American Communist Party. To this day, although some openly praise Dr. King they didn't like him back then and denounce him privately or when in the company of like minds to this day. They only pull him out when going on the attack and trying to boast their argument against another activist, civil or human rights person or persons they don't like.
Professor Angela Davis is a phenomenal woman, who's gift, talented, smart and worldly wise. That's an obvious threat to far too many who prefer to keep some groups on their knees. Keeping people on their knees might look like praying to some, but its's also more akin to begging and pleading. That way you can better control them.
Welcome, Professor Angela Davis.
Brenda Washington