Monday, March 16, 2015

Remembering The Revolution

Angela Davis, March 30, UMass Fine Arts Center

As both the town's token conservative and proud UMass/Amherst graduate I'm comfortable saying I support my alma mater bringing in Angela Davis as a speaker to finish off Black History Month with a bang (although a month late).

Even as a fiscal conservative, I do not have a problem with her $16,000 appearance fee.  After all Angela Davis is a historically significant figure, albeit a niche time period:  The counter culture, anti-war, when-hippies-were-in-full-bloom chapter in American history.

The best advice for aspiring writers is to "write what you know," so what better way to learn about that interesting time period than to hear it first hand from a noted participant? 

I suppose if she had been convicted for the murder of four individuals I might think differently.   Although, our justice system is built on the premise that if you do your time -- aka "pay your debt to society" -- then you have earned a fresh start.

Even if you did make the FBI's "Ten Most Wanted" list.

A University is supposed to be an open market for the free exchange of ideas -- even those we find repugnant.  Popular speech doesn't need protection.

It's the voices from the margin that require the First Amendment to prevent their soap box from being pulled out from under them.   

Although at UMass, it seems the more conservative speakers are the ones who get bullied and shouted down. 

20 comments:

Walter Graff said...

Of course they do. The Patriots don't have such a following at Giant Stadium either. Just the way ideology works. Great to have different opinions and even better to allow all sides of a story to be represented.

Dr. Ed said...

People had no problem when I was silenced, and I hadn't killed anyone.

When I have my free speech, she can have hers. Until then, well, UMass is revealing its true colors.

Or is UMass saying you gotta kill four people before you have free speech rights???

Anonymous said...


Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, a survivor of the Stalin's Gulag prisons, commented: "Angela Davis was set free, as you know. Although she didn't have too difficult a time in this country's jails, she came to recuperate in Soviet resorts. Some Soviet dissidents, but more important, a group of Czech dissidents, addressed an appeal to her: "Comrade Davis, you were in prison. You know how unpleasant it is to sit in prison, especially when you consider yourself innocent. You have such great authority now. Could you help our Czech prisoners? Could you stand up for those people in Czechoslovakia who are being persecuted by the state?" Angela Davis answered: "They deserve what they get. Let them remain in prison. That is the face of Communism. That is the heart of Communism for you."

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0204171/bio

Dr. Ed said...

Larry, consider this hypothetical: If I bought a 17-year-old girl a shotgun and several handguns, if the two of us sawed the barrel off that shotgun (itself a Federal offense) -- and bear in mind that I'm probably both purchasing alcohol for her and sleeping with her --

And if the 17-year-old then takes my guns into Judge Payne's courtroom, drags him out into the parking lot and shoots him, with herself getting shot as well --- both dying along with 6 other people.

If I'd done that Larry, would you consider me a champion of "social justice" or something else? (Why wasn't she subsequently tried for "endangering a minor"? Yes she wsa found "not guilty" -- as was OJ Simpson -- in this country, justice is bought...

Bringing Angela Davis for Black History Monty is like bringing OJ Simpson for Women's History Month.

Brinaging Angela Davis to speak about "social justice" is like bringing David Duke to speak about "social justice."

You talk about the drunken hooolians disgracing a UMass degree == this is a lot worse.

Anonymous said...

DR. Ed maybe you are very uninteresting person therefore no one cares to listen to what you have to say just a thought.

Anonymous said...

Ed, once again, this is not about you.

Dr. Ed said...

Clearly someone does not know the meaning of the word "hypothetical."

OK Schmuck, YOU are sleeping with a 17-year-old of any gender, you buy him/her/it a whole bunch of guns which he/she/it uses to drag a judge out of his courtroom and kill him.

Can it be about YOU?

Oh, and would anyone know who Angela Davis was if she hadn't committed any crimes?

Anonymous said...

"People had no problem when I was silenced, and I hadn't killed anyone.

When I have my free speech, she can have hers. Until then, well, UMass is revealing its true colors."

Really, Ed, this is not about you attempting to be the perpetual victim?

Nina Koch said...

It's interesting how someone who purports to hold conservative views, which center around the importance of individual responsibility, can spend so much time blaming other people for his problems.

(So glad I have my filter.)

Anonymous said...

Praising UMass for allowing all perspectives to be heard because a hard core statist like Davis speaks, in her echo chamber that is modern academia, is either a disingenuous gesture or an ignorant one. For actual defenders of free speech (hint: it's not communists/socialists) Davis' right to speak is not the issue; of course this enemy of liberty has her rights as I do. The issue is the dumbing down of education to the extent that anyone today seriously considers statist/collectivist ideals as a viable and moral option while anyone voicing classical liberal ideals is branded a racist, tea bagger, etc... and shouted down. Maybe that's why UMass welcomes this radical tool.
~Bill R

Anonymous said...

Ok. When will that happen? Ever?

Anonymous said...

Please bring in speakers with whom the majority of sheep do not agree. People on the right make up about half the nation.

Anonymous said...

Some revolution.

Anonymous said...

Angela Davis. Why do we pay heed to criminals? Funny world.

Anonymous said...

I suppose were he still alive, we could have allowed Ted Bundy to be heard. All perspectives indeed. Ridiculous.

Anonymous said...

What revolution?? The one that never came? Or the ones we think will come? Nothing happening here. Nothin' ever does.

Larry Kelley said...

Move along. Nothing see here.

Anonymous said...

Davis is/was a Communist. But let's give her a listen . Why????? And I know she was found not guilty, (the finding is never 'innocent,' but fleeing and going into hiding is evidence of consciousness of guilt...

Anonymous said...

Yes fleeing and going into hiding are both considered evidence of consciousness of guilt. Why not scream from the rooftops "I had nothing to do with this!"

Anonymous said...

So what I don't understand is why there was a massive protest at UMass in 2013 when Karl Rove spoke, yet no one bats an eyebrow when Angela Davis, a former Communist Party member and affiliate of the Black Panther party, comes to speak at UMass.