A review by stwriter92
Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement by Angela Y. Davis

challenging hopeful informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

5.0

Reading Sim Kern’s The Free People’s Village gave me many other books to read and this was one of them. This, paired with my desire to understand more about the genocide currently taking place in Gaza, the West Bank, and occupied Palestine in general encourage me to grab this on Libby. This book was definitely one of the most eye-opening books I have read. It forced me to reconsider everything I thought I knew about the struggles for freedom

This book is really a compilation of interviews, speeches, and essays by activist and scholar, Angela Davis. Freedom is a Constant Struggle highlights the interconnectedness of the struggles against injustice around the world. I feel that when we learn about injustices, we learn about them in a vacuum. Rarely is injustice taught to use through the lens of how it connects to other injustices taking place. Angela Davis urges readers to view injustices on a global and historical lens, pointing out how all injustice in the world is connected and how fighting for one freedom implies fighting for all freedom. 

The book emphasizes the need for mutual aid and and danger of neoliberal individualism. To see oneself as the center of the movement is to sabotage the movement. Revolutions must center on ideas and goals rather than individuals. I have seen this in what I have learned of the Palestinian freedom movement since looking into it on a deeper level. It also brought me to question the role of the American government (something I have done for a long time now) and its intentions. Its treatment of such revolutionaries as Malcolm X, Nelson Mandela, and Assata Shakur shows me that white America will only accept the protests of the global majority if they stick to a narrow set of prescribed rules (respectability politics, basically). Those that step outside of these parameters will be seen as enemies of the state. I didn’t even know that Nelson Mandela, now hailed as a hero who fought against South African apartheid, was on the US terrorist watch list until 2008! 

Also, seeing how the struggle of the Palestinians and the struggle of movements like Black Lives Matter are connected, especially when it comes to police brutality, was fascinating and frightening. I think that this book has made me even more of an anti-capitalist than I already was. This book is still and, I believe, always will be relevant. It should be required reading for all people.