IMGpapers 1980–83

Newspapers of the International Marxist Group and its forerunners, 1980–83

Angela Davis - No answers for women

· Socialist Challenge No. 272, 3 December 1982 · pp. 11-12 of the scan · 446 words

The scan: sc-no272.pdf (PDF, Marxists Internet Archive, opens at this page)

Uncorrected machine reading. This text was read by machine (Apple Vision OCR) from a scan of a newspaper page, and the page was cut into articles by machine, at the headlines found by their type size. Nothing has been corrected: expect misread words, text from a neighbouring article, and titles that are the machine reading of the headline, some of them only fragments. Quote from the scan, not from this page.
How this article was cut and titled: headline found by type size in the OCR geometry (split_tabloid.py); 1-3 of 7; machine-segmented newspaper page; uncorrected Vision OCR.

page 11 of the scan

THE Women's Press has just published a new book by Angela Davis.

Class' was reviewed in the American newspaper The Militant by Laura Moorehead which we reprint here in a shortened version.

I saw this book in a local bookstore and I immediately bought bought it because it is written by Angela Davis.

In 1969 and 1970, as a California Los Angeles, twice fired for her membership in the Communist Party.

the FBI's Wanted' accused murder and kidnapping in connection with an attack on a courtroom by a man she had worked with in defence When political BE SOBES. Davis was finally caught, she was wown m orson TOr SIX Millions of people young identified with her plight amisher defence of black prisoners participated in the internacampaign that secured her acquittal.

is bour ner own per sonal struggle and the imWELL US delense campaign on the black movement that bring authority Women, Race and to the name Angela Davis. and require a look at her political writings.

As history. much of Women, Race and Class is rewarding reading, UCL ticularly the chapters *Black women and the Club Movement," and *Women Suffrage at the Turn of the Century: The Rising Influence of Racism. Both of these are solid contributions to the history of black women as activists in the lynching movement, and shed light on the impact of the development of the an imperialist power the campaign to win the vote But Women, Race and Class is: seriously flawed. It never delivers on the promise of the title.

The main weakness is a political loes Davis lay out a road forward for women today. She simply SUHLCHIHALE on excoriating segments of the leadership of the past and present American feminist movement for She never explains that the key to this racism is these misleaders reliance on the ruling class to give women some equality. instead of allying the the black and Latino comthe government, which 1S the main enemy of all the fundamental political error that leads to ignoring or downplaying for the interests the most op pressed women because these present the biggest who own the government.

By constanly commer posing the fight women's rights the CLU struggle for black rights and the struggles of working women, Davis implies that blacks, women, and working people have some conflicting interests.

For example. in the chapter titled •Rape, Racism and the Myth of the Black Rapist, she talks about author Susan Brownmiller's reactionary and racist views.

Davis suggests that Brownmiller TCHIIY 'defending the particular of white WOLLICH. regardless of its implications. ANGELA DAVIS WOMEN RACE & CLASS Socialist Challenge 3 December 1982

page 12 of the scan

Socialist Challenge

← The "SUS! laws are for black men. The prostitution laws are for black women.' Prostitutes protest police harassmentOne day DHSS strike called →

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