Angela Davis commits to Joe Biden, says he can be “effectively pressured”

The Marxist philosopher and former Black Panther, Angela Davis, says she will vote for presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden come the November presidential polls.

Davis spoke in an interview with RT and explained that her support for Biden rather than Donald Trump is because the former can be “effectively pressured”.

“I don’t see this election as being about choosing a candidate who will be able to lead us in the right direction. It will be about choosing a candidate who can be most effectively pressured into allowing more space for the evolving anti-racist movement,” Davis argued.

Davis supported Bernie Sanders in 2016 against Hillary Clinton in the Democratic presidential candidate race, citing such merits as Sanders’ views on Palestine, healthcare, and minimum wages. Indeed, Davis’ political opinions are not radically different from Sanders’.

But the former Black Panther, who shot into international fame through her eloquent and philosophical media defense of the Panthers in the 1970s, sat out the race in 2020.

Now she hopes former Vice-president Biden will win in November.

“Biden is far more likely to take mass demands seriously. The election will ask us not so much to vote for the best candidate, but to vote for or against ourselves. And to vote for ourselves I think means that we will have to campaign for and vote for Biden,” Davis added on Monday.

More on Davis

Davis, 76, emerged as a prominent counterculture activist in the 1960s working with the Communist Party USA, of which she was a member until 1991.

She was involved in the Black Panther Party during the Civil Rights Movement. She co-founded Critical Resistance, an organization working to abolish the prison–industrial complex.

Till date, she is respected as one of America’s most authoritative intellectuals on leftist politics and race-related issues.