'Women, Race & Class' by Angela Y. Davis | Book Discourse 

Thanks, BP. I really appreciate you doing this work. I'm an autistic comedian (white incidentally), and racism and fascism are particularly important to me... I grew up in mostly white neighborhoods, went to mostly white private schools, etc. so with my autism and my social anxiety I've never had many non-white friends and that's troubled me because I feel like it's hurt my ability to understand the experiences and struggles of non-white people. And a lot of my personal social anxiety has to do with being worried I might accidentally hurt or offend people by saying or doing something I didn't realize had racist connotations. So now in my 40s I'm still trying to reach out and get to know people of color and it still feels pretty slow going, because as I said in my cancel culture video, I can't just show up to a black church like, "I'm down with Dr King's dream!", that would be creepy. So for the most part I'm limited to following black creators on RU-vid and social media. I know this is kind of a long-winded explanation, but I wanted to share some personal info about my appreciation for your work. 💖

I recently discovered this awesome channel. Can't wait to watch all these videos over summer vacation!

Favourite black intellectual on this site, really adore you videos, thank you for everything you do

We're also not acknowledging the role of White/Upper class women, in holding up the mythology of male innocence. It's about power, the power that those women get from the men they bind themselves to.

glad to see you’re doing okay during these times. Thanks for the video as always!

It's been a few days since i discovered here. Feeling very lucky, thanks for your contributions about things. I hope you never stop talking, telling and uploading. Loves from istanbul❤️

I really appreciate your videos. You break down concepts in such an accessible way, and the books you read and share are consistently dope. Thank you.

Good video. I enjoy these discussions and would never have found these books otherwise.

You’re a really nice speaker...! And the nice vibe you give off, really just makes your videos such a refreshing watch. Thank you and I hope you’re doing well even during these hard times

Really love your analysis of Davis’ work! Subscribed! I have the extreme privilege of seeing Angela Davis speak at an event later today, and this was wonderful to listen to while getting ready for the event.

Thank you for discussing this book. I seen it and never picked it up but I will now.

I can’t believe you churn out these 40 minute videos like every month

Thank you so much for simplify in your explanation all these correlated issues❤!

Just finished this book, this really helped!

i just borrowed this book, "against our will", and "caliban and the witch" from the library today!! looking foward to begin to read gender/feminist theory.

Top notch discourse :)

Love your channel man. Not only would I love to see a review on Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s ‘The Idiot’ but I think you’d really enjoy it as well!!

great job contextualizing

Thanks for the discussion!

Eye opening

Indeed feminism should always be about all people. It's very important to bring attention to the many facets, race class gender and politics that can be improved by feminism. The more people who understand the more who will realise they stand to benifit from it

if only i had a professor like this

A nice vid, it serves as a pretty good intro to the book. I am interested in the book now. I will give you a bit of a push back: a very emotional subject, but I am left feeling like you did not dig into the material and confront it. For example, why not have a Matriarchy? More women graduate college, and military stuff is less and less reliant on muscle power... so! Why not? If racism was bad for Capitalism it would've been stomped out long ago. The same with sexism. Put simply: people really don't like it, yet it continues. Consider that the literacy rate world wide is 86%. This is a difficult skill to acquire and takes many years of practice, nevertheless, we've accomplished much. Why hasn't the same been done with sexism and racism? Compared with the proportion of women who've been assaulted or perturbed by sexism, we can only conclude that the system benefits from the oppression of women somehow, as it is so rampant. Why? Why don't we have a world wide effort to stop sexism the way we do with literacy and hunger? But, even further, why don't we end world hunger and illiteracy entirely? Like with unemployment always being present in some form, Capitalism's markets only do so much to ameliorate things. Someone must pick the fruit in the field... do they need to know how to read? An accountant must write down the hours to be paid, but do they need a doctorate? Food must have market value, so it is withheld until the price is high, and not everyone is be able to afford it every day... And so on. Here, I feel like Class outweighs the rest: our mode of production relies on the worker remaining ignorant of certain realities, which are used to oppress. We do not question why the Capitalist takes home the lion's share of wealth in our society, because there is always a social construction preventing us from understanding this. A social construction which blooms out of the mode of production and the arrangements taken to ensure it continues. Someone must pick the cotton, and then send it to the satanic mills of England to produce cloth... but who? Whomever is vulnerable enough in the eyes of the Capitalist. Other Capitalists were comparably armed, and immediate family/cultural ties made this problematic, so they looked elsewhere. This... equation... could of worked between any group of people. The Capitalist simply thinks "if I do not enslave those people, my competitors will, and then offer a lower price, and I will lose market." Fortunately, workers did not like competing with slave labour, and a war was done to put limits on this exploitation. But it continued under new forms. We, who are social beings, must stand up and say: "No." Furthermore, upon study of the dynamics of production, we must then say: "We can do better." Did racism and sexism exist before Capitalism? Yes. But they've been harnessed by Capitalism, fed elaborate ideologies and steroids (all women like pink, all men like blue or the horror of eugenics), and they pull society into ways that benefit Capital. Now, they are hastily being abandoned! However, before we rejoice, we must ask: what replaces them? And will we end discrimination and sexism the way we've done with illiteracy and hunger? Partly and incompletely? Maintain them in some way to justify inequality? We will not extinguish racism or sexism, or any other -ism, as long as Capitalism can benefit from them somehow. We will always be on the defensive. This is what I predict. And what replaces them? Once again, we must say: "No." This time to intellectual Capitalism. Patents are bought, and "siloed" by corporations. Does Apple sue Microsoft for the use of this or that patent? No, as the counter suit would be just a devastating. Only small firms and lesser competitors are bludgeoned in this way. I think an idea belongs to the ones who can think it. Perhaps not everyone can design a bridge, but those than can should be free to do so without the fear that someone who has NO IDEA how to build one saying: "I own the patent to bridges". I'm not dismissing how one constructs one's identity, what I'm trying to say is that, time and time again, we run into the problem of private ownership. Does a bird patent, and then sell, its birdsong? Does it say: "I really needed to eat today, and had to sell my song... I'll just try and come up with another one." No, that would deprive it of a fundamental aspect of its life. Well, that's what I thought. It is with interest that I note that the author did not say Race and Gender was more important than Class in the title of the book. I'll keep that in mind going forward. Class reductionism ain't it either! But she did not say they were less important. They are presented on an equal footing. TL; DR: A little Capitalism is just like a little racism or sexism. It's bad. Thank you for the vid! -- RU-vid should be a Coop! We all contribute Uploads, Likes, Reports and Analytics! One for all, all for one! -- Watch Trouble in Town by Coldplay with ads! All proceeds go to a good cause!

It's been a while since I have watched your videos. It is my hope that you don't take this as being told which books to read and review, but I would love to hear your thoughts on the slave narratives by Harriet Jacobs, Mary Prince and Sojourner Truth, "Up From Slavery" written by Booker Taliaferro Washington and "The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas." I saw the first video of yours in 2014 and I still enjoy your work. God bless and peace be unto you.

You should read society of the spectacle by guy debord.

I think a good follow up to this book is Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates. I can’t remember if you’ve done a review of it yet. I wonder what you thoughts on where patriarchy and racism and these systems of oppression originally came from? Personally, I feel that capitalism is the root cause, because it relies on the free/cheap labor it extracts from women and black people. I wouldn’t be surprised if Davis agrees. But if I remember correctly, you are not anticapitalist, so what’re your thoughts?

The comments that say "wanna be friends" from accounts called Logan (and some others) are some kind of hack. Search on RU-vid, there are other videos about it were they show info on the hack. These commentors are bots and yhey take control of your account somehow. They say just by replying it gets you but I'm not sure how that's true. The hack has managed to steal thousands of accounts though.

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