Today’s newsletter is not about science. It’s about abolition. I hope you’ll keep reading.
At some point over the weekend, the protests sparking up across the United States stopped being about justice for George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, or any of the hundreds of other individual Black people killed by police. The crowds gathered in Minneapolis, Atlanta, Brooklyn, Dallas, LA, and cities across the country are demanding an end to the concept of policing as it is carried out in the contemporary United States.
#BlackLivesMatter #DefundThePolice
If this is the first time you’ve encountered the language of “Defund the Police,” or its cousin, prison abolition, you may be perplexed. What do these terms mean? How could that possibly work? I was confused, too, the first time I encountered the concept of abolition, but rest assured that the theorists, educators, and organizers calling for abolition have been thinking about these questions for a long time. They have answers, if we’re willing to listen.
If you’re still reading, let’s assume you are. I’m sharing a few of the resources that I learned from when I first wanted to learn more. It was 2017, and civil rights attorney Larry Krasner was running for District Attorney in Philadelphia. Activists in Philadelphia—many, many people I trusted—had coalesced behind Krasner’s candidacy. I had of course heard of “abolition,” but I was nonetheless surprised to hear a candidate for the District Attorney’s office saying, more or less, that it would be his goal to see as few people as possible go to prison. This was a novel statement for a prosecutor, and I didn’t understand it. So I did some reading.
Let’s start where I did: with Bresha Meadows, a young woman whose name became a hashtag in 2016/7. Did you know that 54 percent of girls in U.S. juvenile correctional facilities have been sexually abused, and that many of them are incarcerated for attempting to protect themselves or those around them? I invite you to watch this video on her case produced by Survived and Punished, a phenomenal organization devoted to decriminalizing efforts to survive domestic and sexual violence.
Ready to learn more? Here’s a fantastic essay, “Free Us All,” by longtime organizer and educator Mariame Kaba. I particularly recommend it because it begins with the “how does this work?” question:
As an abolitionist, who believes that we must create the conditions for dismantling prisons, police, and surveillance, I’m often asked how to build new institutions that will ensure actual safety. My answer is always the same: collective organizing.
This essay, and another one co-authored by Kaba entitled “What Abolitionists Do,” are full of links with resources on what abolition means and what comes next. I encourage you to open up new tabs for all the links in both articles and carve out time to read/watch every single one. The weekend I spent doing this in 2017 radically changed my perspective on what justice looks like and who it’s for.
If you’ve done this, and you’re still wondering who will “keep” “us” “safe,” take a step back and revisit some classics from Black feminist thought. Spend some time with the Combahee River Collective Statement, issued in 1977, and Audre Lorde’s classic essay, “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House,” delivered as a lecture in 1979. In their different ways, both of these pieces are asking their audiences to reconsider what liberation looks like. Read them, sit with them, then go back and read those essays on abolition again.
Who is the “us” the police are protecting? What does “safety” look like?
There are so many more resources out there. If these concepts are brand new to you, please take some time to explore them and educate yourself before saying “It’s not possible.” Donate to a bail fund. And when you’re ready, seek out ways to support organizers who are already doing this work wherever you are.
#BlackLivesMatter #DefundThePolice