Angela Davis keynote address at the 2011 Herbert Marcuse International Society Conference

On October 28, 2011, Angela Davis delivered the keynote address of the Herbert Marcuse conference in West Philadelphia at the Irvine Auditorium. Davis has been a mover and shaper of social movements within the United States since the 1960's, and her critiques of American society are just as relevant today. She is the founder of Critical Resistance, an organization based in Oakland working to abolish in the prison-industrial complex. 

Davis offered her own wisdom and reflections for the Occupy movement. I recommend listening to the entire podcast, but here is an excerpt:

I was talking about the problem of language. How can we demonstrate awareness of the word - the term, 'Occupy', 'Occupation' - the damage that word has done historically.

Of course, Occupy Wall Street, Occupy Philadelphia, Occupy Oakland, there are all of these movements saying 'No!' to the colonial occupations of the Americas. And must say no, and express solidarity with native people who are still experiencing the consequences of that genocidal occupation. 

I recently returned from Palestine. Palestine is occupied territory. And settlers have further occupied occupied territory, and they are protected by young kids in the military carrying huge rifles strapped across their chests. And so the point that I am making is that the Occupy Movement can and must redefine the meaning of the very term they chose to designate themselves - by creating solidarity not only among themselves, but with communities suffering under the violence of military occupation.