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We’ll be live tweeting @FMO_NU’s State of the Black Union ft. Angela Davis starting in 15 minutes!!! Follow this thread
so we definitely got a little overeager 
it’s actually starting in less than 30 minutes. you have time to grab your popcorn!
it’s actually starting in less than 30 minutes. you have time to grab your popcorn!
let’s gooooo, students start with the history of @FMO_NU dating back to Black student activists fighting for an autonomous space, calling out Northwestern’s history of violence that continues today #AngelaDavisxFMO
bless @FMO_NU for calling out admin’s continuous lack of action in responding to our calls for divestment from law enforcement and investment in Black students. a critical point is made 
we will not stop protesting until we get cops off campus #AngelaDavisxFMO
we will not stop protesting until we get cops off campus #AngelaDavisxFMO
“this is an event for Black students by Black students so it’s crucial that Black student voices are heard” #AngelaDavisxFMO
Angela Davis starts by thanking Black students for their activism, specifically the abolitionist work. She says piecemeal reforms will never effectively address the damage done by structural racism #AngelaDavisxFMO
“The history of efforts to reform the police is a fundamental aspect of the history of these institutions. Reform efforts can be seen as the glue that hold the institutions together.” #AngelaDavisxFMO
Davis says reform doesn’t address the fundamental structural issues that prisons presume to address #AngelaDavisxFMO
Davis making the point that the struggles of Black people are intertwined with the struggles of marginalized people everywhere. For ex., opposing police also means opposing ICE. Let’s make our framework of abolition as broad as possible, international even #AngelaDaviaxFMO
Crucial point that imprisoned people were the first to introduce concept of prison abolition in the 20th century. “We cannot underestimate the intellectual contributions that people in prison have made. We would not be in an abolitionist movement without them” #AngelaDavisxFMO
“Eliminating racism entails abolishing its structural incarnations.” Davis making the point that DEI and “representation” is not going to get us to liberation. We need to dismantle the systemic embeddedness of racism in all of our institutions #AngelaDavisxFMO
Davis says “Racial capitalism is always going to generate new forms of structural racism” Abolition, thus, requires anti-capitalism #AngelaDavisxFMO
“Police + prisons are intimately connected.” You cannot abolish one while maintaining the other. #AngelaDavisxFMO
ABOLITION IS ABOUT REIMAGINING. WE CREATE NEW FOUNDATIONS, NEW SOCIETIES #AngelaDavisxFMO
“Our mistake when Obama was elected was to relax and assume he was going to take care of everything. Now we know, we can’t let up” #AngelaDavisxFMO
professor kihana miraya ross giving a shoutout to all the students struggling and fighting day in and day out for abolition on campus. emphasizes that afam is so proud of our work #AngelaDavisxFMO
Q: When people think about abolition, they think about what is ending. You talk abolition as something that’s about creating, reenvisioning etc. Can you say more about this? #AngelaDavisxFMO
“We use the term abolition bc of the resonance with the struggle to abolish slavery.” Connecting to DuBois’ argument in “Black Reconstruction” that being released from the chains of slavery was not enough. The work of abolition was not completed #AngelaDavisxFMO
Davis says that the different iterations of the Black freedom struggle throughout history were abolitionist movements in that Black ppl were fighting to reimagine society such that Black ppl had full rights. Reform has never solved the problem. #AngelaDavisxFMO
“Police don’t solve problems, they generally make matters worse” #AngelaDavisxFMO
Q: How do we hold folks accountable in a non-punitive, non-carceral way, especially those who may be resistant? #AngelaDavisxFMO
“We have to imagine new forms of justice” & be willing to engage in the *process* of developing new paradigms...imagining justice that will help repair our relationships, transformative justice. Ideology of retribution is deeply embedded even in our own emotions #AngelaDavisxFMO
Q: How do we balance using tools from our current system with struggle for abolition? What advice does Davis have for abolitionist struggle at northwestern? #AngelaDavisxFMO
Davis suggests folks check out this chart about reformist and abolitionist strategies from @C_Resistance to identify difference between steps that keep us stuck and those that keep us moving #AngelaDavisxFMO
Q: How did you keep your spirit going in times of incarceration and in the face of brutal repression? #AngelaDavisxFMO
“It’s right to be afraid”, Davis says we can’t banish fear from our horizon but we don’t have to be immobilized by fear, we can continue to act #AngelaDavisxFMO
Davis says “I don’t have intrinsic courage but I always felt I was part of a broader community.” She talks about being seized by fear at times but she realized that even when she was in solitary confinement, she was not alone “people were standing with me” #AngelaDavisxFMO
“That’s what organizing is about. If you are afraid, you are afraid together.” Being together makes makes us stronger #AngelaDavisxFMO
Q: How do we practice abolition on a day to day basis, especially in our relationships? #AngelaDavisxFMO
We need to think about how “these institutions work through us, through our own emotions...we’re all subject to the influence of the state, we do the work of the state without even realizing it. it’s the punitive impulse when someone does something harmful” #AngelaDavisxFMO
We have to recognize how our reactions are determined by a racist capitalist hetero-patriarchal state. None of us are immune to carceral logics #AngelaDavisxFMO
Davis uplifting struggle of trans people, says “If we support our trans comrades we push all of us in the right direction” #AngelaDavisxFMO
“We have to extricate ourselves, liberate ourselves from the way the state has informed our own emotional makeup” #AngelaDavisxFMO
Q: Whats it like to be in a political movement in which abolitionists conversations are more common? #AngelaDavisxFMO
“We knew the moment would come but many of us didn’t think we would be alive to experience it. We always have to act as if it’s possible to radically transform the world. Even if we might never get to experience it.” #AngelaDavisxFMO
“Had people not done the organizing all along...at the grassroots level to change people’s minds...we might not be in this moment where suddenly people grasp the arguments organizers have been making for generations” #AngelaDavisxFMO
Davis says the work of grassroots organizing is often thankless and underestimated but so important #AngelaDavisxFMO
Q: What can folks do to support current and former political prisoners? #AngelaDavisxFMO
Davis talks abt her codefendent, Ruchell Magee, and well-known activist Mumia Abu-Jamal. Says we need to call for an end to Mumia’s incarceration. Davis also talks about Herman Bell #AngelaDavisxFMO
Question from Northwestern students protesting out in the streets right now: How do you feel about phrase defund the police? #AngelaDavisxFMO
We saw a beautiful image of folks out in the streets and Davis thanks us for being out there #AngelaDavisxFMO
Davis says our campaign to get police out of Northwestern is so important. “We need police out of our schools. This is an abolitionist demand.” #AngelaDavisxFMO
To reiterate, Davis said GET COPS OFF CAMPUS NOW. Are you listening @NorthwesternU ??? #AngelaDavisxFMO
About this election, Davis says “we need to put pressure on all elected officials who have to move toward abolition” #AngelaDavisxFMO
“Academic institutions are designed to persuade those who use them for the purpose of acquiring education to imagine themselves as better than those who haven’t had the opportunity. But knowledge gets produced in different places.” #AngelaDavisxFMO
sidebar—the president of northwestern is in the audience. @FMO_NU students asked him to submit a question abt something he’s learned during this talk, remember last mtg he said he learned abt abolition via netflix...haven’t seen him submit anything yet 
#AngelaDavisxFMO
#AngelaDavisxFMO
Davis suggests work of Mimi Kim regarding ways that restorative justice provides a path beyond the punitive methods currently used to address at gender violence #AngelaDavisxFMO
“When we argue for criminalization, we know who the targets are and who will suffer.” The question is “how do we create a world in which gender violence doesn’t give expression to heteropatriarchal legacies” #AngelaDavisxFMO
