Manifesto: A Freedom Imaginary: Envisioning a New World
Late performance studies scholar Jose Munoz discuss new world making. He describes how queers, folks of color, and others who do not fall in line with dominant society create alternate worlds in order to cope from the daily realities of being different within this society. Under similar auspicies Angela Davis has tasked us with doing the same, except envisioning freedom, with her Abolition of Prisons and the Prison Industrial Complex. In my class on Angela Davis we were tasked with writing a Manifesto Speech drawing upon her scholarship. Here it is:
I want to first acknowledge that we are on Tongva land and that we must pay homage to those who came before us. I like Martin have been to the mountain top and envisioned a new world. A world in which Black Lives Matter is not a movement nor seen as resistant, but a group of people whose life is valuable. A world in which black women are not punished for wearing their hair in its natural state. A world in which essentialist feminism is not white supremacy in disguise. A world in which the cage is not a mechanism for the state to financially benefit off the bodies that are housed within it. A world in which placelessness is not written on bodies. A world in which justice is not predicated on black exclusion and the normalization of black death. A world in which indigenous burial grounds are not the site for capital and imperial expansion. A world where a white supremacist privileged cry baby is not voted into office.
Instead I envision a world that allows men to cry and show emotion. A world that doesn’t critique women for choosing how to express themselves and how they take autonomy over their bodies. A world where prisons are obsolete. A world in which love is first and foremost. A love, like James Baldwin articulates, that holds one accountable. A world in which people are seen for their humanity. A world where differences are truly celebrated and embraced. A world where community is central to the function of society. A world where care is not contingent on women, but something that everyone partakes in. A world where capitalism has been transcended. My challenge then to my fellow scholars and activist scholars to move this possibility from the realm of the imaginary and into reality. How do we do that? What type of revolution do we need to undertake in order for that to happen?
