UC
Santa Cruz civil rights activist encourages
diversity
By Sandra Porter
Online Forty-Niner
Contributing Writer
UC Santa Cruz professor and activist Angela Davis spoke at Cal State Long Beach
Saturday on Civil rights, the Iraq War, activism, diversity and prison systems.
Davis, known for her activism with the Oakland-based organization, the Black
Panthers, has been a voice for people around the world for more than 30 years.
Davis offered her listeners a new idea of what she knew the word “diversity” to
be. Defining it in the most typical way as “multiplicity, variety and heterogeneity,” Davis
spoke of what most people think of when they hear the word “diversity”—classification
among corporate structures based on what she called “diversity management.”
“
Diversity shapes the way we think about education. Diversity shapes the way we
think about our economy,” Davis said.
She said people need to think more about the meaning of diversity and how it
is being used in today’s society via education and economy.
Davis also discussed her current mission—the abolition of prisons. For
the past several years, she has visited prisons in Australia, Spain, Brazil,
Argentina, Sweden, the Netherlands and the United States, gathering information
on prison systems. Davis said the charges and inmate gender were similar, stating
that women were primarily imprisoned for drug charges and the majority of the
remainder of the inmates were minorities.
Davis’ discussion of activism inspired students to think about what they
might do to help a cause.
“
What little thing could I do to show resistance, to help a cause move
forward?” Bernadette Nicolas, a computer engineering student, asked herself.
“
Activism is a loaded word,” Davis said. “How would you want to make
a difference based on your own talents?”
She posed this question to the audience after an earlier reference to Rosa Parks
as an individual who performed one of many acts to help the Civil Rights movement.
The discussion was presented by the History Students Association (HSA) and Program
Council as part of the First Annual Speaker Series. A poetry group called the
Nappy Tongues also performed that evening, sharing thought-provoking words with
the audience.
“
When I heard this was going to take place on a Saturday night, I said, ‘Saturday
night at California State University,
Long Beach, nobody’s gonna be there,’” Davis said jokingly
to her full-house audience that evening.
“
When we picked Angela Davis [as a speaker], we were really concerned with bringing
her to ignite a student movement,” Gennay Banks, chairwoman of the HSA
said.
She also had hopes this presentation would inspire students to get involved on
campus.
“
Get involved, become an activist,” Gennay said. “Get in the movement.
Do something.”
|
