Get In Loser, We’re Abolishing The Police 😎
Dear community,
This week’s newsletter references the Prison Industrial Complex and Police Brutality.
In the action items, we’ve included information about a fundraising campaign we will be running this week.
Before we dive in, tomorrow is the one month anniversary of the initial protests of George Floyd’s murder, and I’ve seen a marked difference on social media in the amount of time and attention being paid to the Black Lives Matter movement. We cannot let this happen. We must continue to leverage our platforms, our resources, and our energy towards liberation, especially those of us with the privilege to be thinking about other things. So please, read on, continue to engage, donate, speak up and out, and never, ever stop fighting.
Okay! This week we are focusing on a conversation that has only recently come into the mainstream but has actually been around for a very long time: Prison Industrial Complex Abolitionism!
Chants, hashtags, and memes have been made surrounding the idea of “Defund the Police,” but many people are asking: what does that really mean?? Well, this idea of defunding or divesting is rooted in the long fight for PIC (prison industrial complex) abolition. Instead of reforming the institutions, an effort that has been tried many times to little success, abolitionists propose that the solution is not fixing a system that is working exactly how it was designed, capturing and controlling Black and Brown bodies. Therefore, the system needs to come all the way down.
Let’s zoom out for a second. What are some of the problems with the PIC in the first place? Dr. Angela Davis puts it like this,
“Prisons do not disappear social problems, they disappear human beings. Homelessness, unemployment, drug addiction, mental illness, and illiteracy are only a few of the problems that disappear from public view when the human beings contending with them are relegated to cages.”
Policing, and the role that the police play in our communities, is the gateway to the PIC. It’s often the first entry point for folks into the vicious cycle of incarceration. This system and cycle have broad sweeping ramifications such as:
Murders of black and brown bodies, disproportionate incarceration of people of color (particularly Black and Latinx folks), disruption of families, voter disenfranchisement, housing discrimination & homelessness and Prison Gerrymandering.
So what do we do in the face of this enormous beast? The answer for many activists has long been abolition.
As Angela Davis describes, this framework and belief is rooted in Black Feminist Thought.
Intersectionality and Black Feminism posit that we only truly understand and therefore dismantle violence by understanding the ways in which multiple systems of oppression interact and create multi-faceted violence. For example, how do interlocking issues of sexism and classism give way for conditions that may push a poor mother to steal food for her children? When we take a look at a much bigger, intersectional picture, we start to understand that harm is often not done by the individual but rather within a context of injustice, and one deeply steeped in racism.
In Davis’ words, “threats to security, come not primarily from what is defined as crime, but rather from the failure of institutions in our country to address issues of health, issues of violence, education, etc.” So when we don’t recognize and focus on fundamental issues like poverty and failing healthcare and educational systems we are not actually remedying violence, we are perpetuating it.
Abolitionism has long been and continues to be led by Black women, including Dr. Angela Davis herself, as well as other greats like Dr. Ruth Wilson Gilmore and Mariame Kaba.
More than anything, the way I understand and identify with abolitionism is that it’s a reimagining. A reimagining of what the entire world looks like. As Ruth Wilson Gilmore said,
“Abolition requires that we change one thing: everything.”
This may seem daunting, we once found it to be, but as many abolitionists have said, it’s actually a truly beautiful process, one that requires a deep, meditative reflection on the society we have and the one we wish we did. What would it look like to have no need for police? What would it look like to have no need for prisons? What does justice truly entail? What does safety mean? Who keeps us safe? Who makes us unsafe? The list goes on.
The way we have been socialized, especially as white people, means that abolitionism is often met with doubt and a plethora of questions such as…
What about murderers? Rapists? Psychopaths? Etc.
Abolitionists respond by asking in return, who is causing us the most harm in society? This is the nexus of abolitionism: harm prevention. But in order to do so, we must acknowledge who is truly doing the harming. Is the onus on the individual or much more powerful actors like the state?
One of my favorite Mariame Kaba quotes is this: “I am committed to fostering the conditions that would make prisons, policing, and surveillance obsolete.” Defunding the police is one part of a much bigger abolitionist strategy, one that includes investing in the alternatives we want for our communities and for those around the world. Start by imagining what it would look like to have adequate mental health care services, robust public works systems, schools that encourage reflection and transformative justice rather than punishment.
So, let us center Black women’s leadership, listen to and learn from these amazing guides, and turn both inwards and outwards in discussion of what the world we want truly looks like.
As always we are here for conversation at learnunlearnbookclub@gmail.com.
In community,
Lori
P.S. A massive thank you to all who filled out our survey! We will be synthesizing them and sending out community guidelines and schedules for meetings next week.
This week…
We are taking action by...
Learning about Critical Resistance and downloading their Abolition Toolkit as well as finding other ways to help in our own communities.
Writing incarcerated folks!
We are sending messages of love and support to incarcerated survivors of violence through Survived and Punished (We are huge fans of this campaign, so check them out regardless!) or Write a Prisoner
This is an amazing way to directly help people who need support!!
We are also running a mini-matching fundraising campaign for Survived and Punished this week. Survived and Punished “organizes to de-criminalize efforts to survive domestic and sexual violence, support and free criminalized survivors, and abolish gender violence, policing, prisons, and deportations.” We have both committed to match up to $100 for a total of $200 coming from Learn Unlearn. Feel free to make a donation directly and send a confirmation to our email (learnunlearn@gmail.com) or to my (Lori) instagram (@lothomsco), or send money via PayPal to me and I’ll donate it on your behalf as part of our lump sum. Please donate or transfer by the end of the day Tuesday, June 30th in order to be included in the matching campaign.
Donating to Project NIA which “works to end the incarceration of children and young adults by promoting restorative and transformative justice practices.”
And learning about mutual aid and donating to #MAP4Youth
We are reading...
The #8toAbolition campaign’s demands, reforms resources, and guidelines, outlined in this PDF
Are Prisons Obsolete? By Angela Davis (Available at Lit Bar, Busboys and Poets, and other Black owned bookstores.)
Yes, We Mean Literally Abolish the Police by Mariame Kaba
Is Prison Necessary? Ruth Wilson Gilmore Might Change Your Mind
And in continuing to educate ourselves about the intersections of gender, policing, and incarceration, I am going to add Captive Genders to my reading list. (Available at Semicolon Bookstore, Elizabeth’s, and other Black owned Bookstores.
We are listening to...
This episode of Call Your Girlfriend with Mariame Kaba, exploring Police and PIC abolition.
American Police on Throughline by NPR (I learned so much about the origin of policing here!)
Political Prisoners (shoutout to my friend Kuku for producing this episode and teaching us so much about prison gerrymandering!)
All podcasts linked have transcripts for those who may need or want them!
We are watching...
13th - Available on Netflix (If you haven’t already seen this, we highly highly recommend watching it -- especially with family and friends -- to learn and discuss more about the PIC)
Just Mercy (which has been made free to watch!)
We are talking about...
How are we upholding the concept of policing in our heads, hearts, and behaviors, outside of the institution of the police?
A note from Jess: Many people have pointed out that the goals of abolition and calling for Breonna Taylor’s killers to be arrested are at odds. I also called for their arrest, almost as a reflex. This week, I’m really holding that reflex of mine, and asking Lori and other feminist abolitionists in my life -- what does it look like to demand justice for Breonna Taylor and others killed by the state, while also pushing for a world without prisons?