Category Archives: Abolition Of Work

By Adam Seagrave

One of the most underappreciated figures in the nations history, John Brown, has been introduced to Americans by the recent Showtime series The Good Lord Bird, based on the James McBride novel of the same name.

Too often dismissed as a failed zealot, Brown was an unconventional anti-slavery leader who blazed a trail that Abraham Lincoln would follow just a few years later.

Commentators then and now are more likely to see differences between Lincolns and Browns approaches to civic leadership. Lincoln was cautious and deliberate; Brown was a revolutionary on fire.

Though this contrast is instructive, theres another way to look at both men. In the end, they were both moral crusaders who exercised uncompromising moral leadership.

John Brown was a leading white abolitionist who engaged in many peaceful efforts to free and assist enslaved African Americans before the Civil War.

But his methods eventually shifted. In 1856, a 55-year-old Brown joined two of his sons in the Kansas territory and led anti-slavery paramilitary forces to victory in the violent period that became known as Bleeding Kansas.

In 1859, Browns abolitionist efforts culminated in a raid on a federal armory at Harpers Ferry in what is now West Virginia. This was the first step in Browns broader plan to emancipate slaves throughout the South. The attempt was unsuccessful, and Brown was captured, tried and hanged shortly thereafter.

In a speech delivered at Harpers Ferry more than 20 years later, abolitionist Frederick Douglass claimed that John Brown began the war that ended American slavery and made this a free Republic.

Defending his positive view of Browns turn to violence, Douglass explained that Brown was an agent of Gods retributive justice. Douglass argued that a higher logic what Brown referred to as the law of God provided a special justification and vindication for Browns actions.

As I have explored at length elsewhere, such higher-law arguments to justify actions are more than mere rhetoric in the service of political causes. They have been carefully developed throughout the history of political thought by some of the most profound thinkers from around the world, and from ancient times to our own.

Brown possessed or, perhaps better, was possessed by a clarity of moral principle that simply ruled out inaction or compromise in the face of grave injustice. One of Browns refrains was Whenever there is a right thing to be done, there is a thus saith the Lord that it shall be done.

When questioned about his motives by federal authorities following his capture, Brown said simply: We came to free the slaves, and only that.

In stark contrast to the great American political leaders of his day, Brown shunned compromise and accommodation and instead was driven by an unwavering commitment to moral principle.

The greatest American political leader of the mid-19th century was Abraham Lincoln, who was elected to the presidency the year following Browns famous raid. If Brown began the war that ended slavery, Lincoln is the man who finished it.

The inextricable link between the two anti-slavery leaders was forged, in fact, years earlier and hundreds of miles away on the plains of Kansas. The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 and its repeal of the Missouri Compromise was like a fire bell in the night for both Brown and Lincoln. By allowing slavery to be legalized by popular vote in new states north of the Missouri Compromise line, this law sparked a flood of settlers to the Kansas territory who were determined to tip the scales either for or against slavery.

Given the highly polarized nature of the issue of slavery by this time, many of these new settlers were prepared to engage in violence to influence the outcome of the vote. The ensuing conflict drew Brown into direct, violent confrontation with proponents of slavery for the first time.

And the federal governments new openness to slaverys extension beyond the existing states transformed the issue of slavery from being a minor question in Lincolns mind to the centerpiece of his political thought and career.

While debating political rival Stephen Douglas a few years later, Lincoln stated the importance of moral principle to his campaign with Brown-like simplicity and clarity:

The real issue in this controversy is the sentiment on the part of one class that looks upon the institution of slavery as a wrong, and of another class that does not look upon it as a wrong.

In other words, according to Lincoln, abstract legal doctrines relating to states rights or the nature of the constitutional union were, at best, secondary. Opposite opinions about the morality of slavery drove the controversy that would result in the Civil War.

And yet, in his Cooper Union Address in 1860 the speech that would catapult him to the presidency Lincoln was at pains to distance himself from Brown.

John Brown was no Republican, said Lincoln, the partys leader. He was a deluded madman who convinced himself that he was commissioned by Heaven to liberate the enslaved.

Lincoln presented himself as the clearheaded, prudent statesman who would work within the legal framework to combat the moral evil of slavery; Brown was the dangerous radical who would indiscriminately destroy both.

Yet five years later, as Lincoln unknowingly entered what would be the final weeks of his life, his differences with Brown appeared to narrow.

Lincoln had fought tirelessly in January 1865 for the passage in the House of Representatives of the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery, using every tool at his disposal to influence reluctant members.

In the first week of February, Lincoln approved Congress resolution to move the 13th Amendment forward to ratification and rejected a Confederate peace proposal. As the Civil War raged on and thousands of additional lives were lost, Lincoln seemed to focus his energy not on securing the peace, but on abolishing slavery.

Lincoln had achieved just what Brown had attempted in Kansas and at Harpers Ferry: abolition through violent conflict with slaveholders.

Lincolns second inaugural address the following month, moreover, framed the Civil War in precisely the same terms Brown had used to justify his actions. In this speech, Lincoln casts himself as a mere agent in the service of Gods providential plan to punish the evil of slavery.

With the 13th Amendment on its way to ratification, all that remained was the fulfillment of divine justice, Lincoln said a mystical moment of equilibrium when all the wealth piled by the bond-mans two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword.

In his final words on the defining event of his political career, the distance between Lincoln and Brown all but vanishes. Browns thus saith the Lord echoes clearly in Lincolns concluding prayer: the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.

Lincoln appreciated the prudent statesmanship of pre-Civil War politicians such as Henry Clay, but the defining quality of Lincolns leadership was forged of less pliable stuff. Lincoln was ultimately more crusader than compromiser.

In this way, he and John Brown share a model of moral leadership that is still worthy of study, even in the 21st century.

Adam Seagrave is an associate professor of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership at Arizona State University. He wrote this piece for The Conversation, where it first appeared.

See the original post:

John Brown was a violent crusader, but he blazed a moral path Lincoln followed to end slavery | Opinion - Pennsylvania Capital-Star

Prison abolitionist Mariame Kaba urged like-minded social activists to embrace the spirit of generosity, collective power, and mutual aid during the all-virtual 37th annual Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Convocation.

Kaba aims to change the national conversation around racialized and gendered systems of violence organized through the prison industrial complex (PIC), which includes prisons, policing, and surveillance. She said that she was moved to fight for abolition when I realized that prison in fact normalizes and reproduces violence rather than ending it.

Kaba, an educator, organizer, author, and activist, is the founder and director of Project NIA, which works to end youth incarceration. She is also a researcher at Interrupting Criminalization: Research in Action at the Barnard Center for Research on Women, a project she cofounded with police misconduct attorney and organizer Andrea Ritchie in 2018.

The convocation had an unprecedented all-virtual format because of COVID-19, which served as a jumping-off point for Kabas lecture and dialogue with Associate Feminist Studies Professor Gina Dent.

Those of us here today have survived 2020, a year defined by a global pandemic and expanding economic crisis and some of the largest racial justice protests the U.S. has ever seen, Kaba said. What a time to be alive, as the young folks like to say.

During her lecture, Kaba traced her activism to uproot racialized violence back to when she was a teenager living in New York City. But she emphasized that her mission was not just about dismantling the PIC. It was also about helping local communities targeted by the [PIC] to be stronger, healthier, and more self-determined. Im a PIC abolitionist because I want to dismantle a system predicated on death, and to build one focused on life and safety.

Much of her lecture emphasized the importance of creating, building up, and maintaining a world where we have everything we need: food, shelter, education, health, art, beauty, clean air, and more; as an abolitionist, Im trying to prefigure the world in which I want to live. Our work isnt just a movement against cages and cops. Its a movement for different ways of living together.

In her remarks, Kaba referenced the legacy and impact of Martin Luther King Jr., lingering in Kings spirit of mutual aid during the Montgomery Bus Boycott from December 5, 1955, to December 20, 1956.

In 1956, Montgomery police arrested King on the grounds that he had beenjust barelyspeeding, going a measly five miles over the speed limit.

He knew the real reason he had been harassed was he had been using his car to help participants in the boycott, Kaba said. During his time in solitary confinement, he penned his famous Letter From a Birmingham Jail.

Kaba used that painstakingly organized carpool or rideshare system, which brought an end to the segregated bus system in Montgomery, as a shining example of the mutual aid needed in the fight against the PIC.

I share this example because people dont make the connection between the boycott and mutual aid, a term that keeps coming up in news stories over the past year or so, when self-determination helped communities survive the pandemic and stand up to anti-Black violence.

When cities locked down this spring across the world, people took it upon themselves to deliver groceries to the elderly and immunocompromised, Kaba noted. Organizers stocked networks of fridges and pantries with free food and distributed hand sanitizers. In June, during a protest against police brutality, volunteers handed out water, warm food, masks, and massages. A few weeks later during the West Coast wildfires, mutual aid groups handed out water and offered free food to firefighters [and fire victims].

That same spirit of cooperation for the sake of good [and] creating reciprocal relationships with care can also help abolitionist activists prevail in the long term, she said. The key things to remember about mutual aid is it empowers communities to meet needs like housing, healthcare, food, and transportation. It is premised on solidarity, not charity. It rejects saviorism, hierarchy, and authoritarianism. Mutual aid exposes the failures of the current system and shows an alternative.

Kaba emphasizes that the fight for justice is a collective struggle. When skeptics suggest that marching doesnt accomplish anything, Kaba is quick to remind them that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 happened in the wake of mass demonstrations against racism.

So make sure that you find your people, that you work with others to change the world," she said. "Dont be a lone ranger!

After her remarks, Kaba had a dialogue with Professor Dent, who praised her work.

I want to tell you how proud and happy I am to have you with us, Dent said. You are always an incredible organizer.

Dent noted that Santa Cruz and the Bay Area are important places for the development of the prison abolition movement. She praised Kaba for the advocacy work she has done on behalf of more than 100 Black men who were subjected to torture by police to extract confessions. Kaba has advocated for reparations for the torture survivors.

The reason Im asking about this is because many people are looking for the kinds of [advocacy work] you are providing for us tonight, Dent said. These examples show us what we can do now. Abolition isnt something in the future. Abolition is something were living now and working on.

Kaba has cofounded multiple other organizations and projects over the years including We Charge Genocide, the Chicago Freedom School, the Chicago Taskforce on Violence against Girls and Young Women, Love & Protect, the Just Practice Collaborative, and Survived & Punished. She is a member of the Movement for Black Lives Policy Table.

Kaba offers a radical analysis that influences how people think and respond to how violence, prisons, and policing affect the lives of people of color.

She is the author of Missing Daddy, in which a child narrator explores the emotions she feels surrounding her fathers incarceration. Her forthcoming book, We Do This Til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice, will be published this month.

Under normal circumstances, the convocation is held in downtown Santa Cruz. It celebrates the life, dream, and enduring vision of Martin Luther King Jr. High-profile speakers who have addressed the crowd at the convention include Yolanda King, activist, actress, and daughter of Martin Luther King Jr.; the late actress and activist Cicely Tyson; Harvard University professor Cornel West; author and social activist bell hooks (Ph.D. 83, literature); and poet, commentator, activist, and professor Nikki Giovanni.

More here:

Hope, mutual aid, and abolition - UC Santa Cruz

Note: All notices for events must be emailed to vcarey@delcotimes.com by Thursday at noon. We will not accept faxes or hard copies. All notices will appear online. Print is based on a space-available basis. Thank you.

Moore College of Art & Design: Innovation, vision, and the ability to inspire are all qualities of leadership. These elements define the purpose of Moore College of Art & Designs virtual 2021 Leadership Conference for Women in the Arts, 1916 Race Street, located on The Parkway, Friday, March 5, 2021, from 10 am to 4 pm. This online conference is free, but registration is required. For more information and to register, visit moore.edu/2021womeninarts. The conference will explore current topics related to college women who are, or who are interested in being, leaders in art and design fields. The featured speaker is Sael Bartolucci 07, an artist, designer and collector. Engaging and informative 25-minute breakout sessions featuring Moore alumni and current students will focus on soft skills and leadership development. Conference themes include creativity, resourcefulness, self-awareness, critical thinking, networking, problem-solving, public speaking and listening skills.

The Bryn Mawr College Dance Program: presents dancer and choreographer Nia Love and poet and critic Fred Moten in an embodied, textual, and theoretical dialogue at the intersections of their expansive work in abolition, fugitivity, and black radical traditions, hosted and curated by Assistant Professor in Dance Lela Aisha Jones March 25, 6-7:45 p.m. Described as a glitch in the matrix by Love, and in true shoot the ish form, these celebrated artists/scholars/critics/theorists will move through interdisciplinary call and response in dialogue and movement. Host and curator Jones notes, This event aims to transport us to a time when folks still sit on multimodal porches to bask in the awe of collective brilliance that emerges from dismantling formalities and engaging in blackness uncaptured. The Porch is part of the Nia Love: Centering Critical Blackness residency in the Bryn Mawr College Dance Program which received major support from the 360 Program and is in collaboration with the Performing Arts Series and the Mary Flexner Lectureship, which will present Moten in lectures on March 16 and March 23. Free and open to the public. Reservations are required at http://www.brynmawr.edu/dance. For more information, email reservations@brynmawr.edu or call 610-526-5300.

The Guest Teacher Training Program: To continue addressing the teacher shortage crisis affecting local school districts, DCIU is accepting applications for its guest teacher service which helps eleven participating Delaware County school districts with obtaining substitute teachers. A new guest teacher online training is scheduled for March 8-11. The program provides substitute teacher training to people who have a bachelors degree (in any content area) but do not have a Pennsylvania teaching certificate. Upon completing the program, participants will receive an emergency permit by the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE), enabling them to substitute in any participating district and career technical institute on a day-to-day basis. The mix of live and at-your-own-pace training sessions will provide strategies for effective instruction and management of traditional, non-traditional and special education classrooms, as well as professional responsibilities. Please go to dciu.org/guestteacher to register and find out more about the application process and required paperwork. For questions, please contact Deb Terpstra at dterpstra@dciu.org.

The Kimmel Cultural Campus: celebrates the accomplishments, heritage, and artistic contributions of African Americans through a variety of digital Black History Month programs throughout the month of February. Digital events shine a spotlight on the music of the Civil Rights Movement as well as modern-day struggles for equality, the cultural enlightenment of the Harlem Renaissance, and offer audiences of all ages a Hip Hop Recess that moves the body while offering morsels of history about Hip Hop, the dynamic dance form from the 1970s. The Kimmel Cultural Campus will also feature inspirational quotes from African American artists and cultural leaders on its social media channels. The quotes have become the Kimmels most popular and shared posts in recent years. This year, because of the pandemic, we will feature a refreshed version of quotes from previous years with updated information on what the artists have been doing during COVID19. Among the featured artists are Philadancos Joan Myers Brown, R&B legend Patti LaBelle, Jazz great Wynton Marsalis, and Opera tenor Lawrence Brownlee. Additionally, the Kimmel curated playlists on our Spotify music channel have been a huge hit. Be sure to check out our special Black History Month Playlist celebrating generations of African American artists and musicians. Here is a complete lineup of the digital performances being highlighted by the Kimmel Cultural Campus. These events are streaming on various platforms. For more detailed information go to http://www.kimmelcenter.org.

Directors Gathering: the Philadelphia-founded membership organization that, through the power of community, provides development, connections, and process-based opportunities for regional theatre directors, is pleased to announce their annual (DG) JAM. The annual event, featuring a celebration of early career director-driven work, will provide directors the opportunity to share their artistry and process with (DG)s membership and extended community via a digital platform. This years (DG) JAM, which takes place on February 27, 2021 and curated by Briyana D. Clarel and Katrina Shobe, highlights six Black directors, all prominent visionary voices throughout Philadelphia. Featuring Directors Alexandra Espinoza, Ang Bey, Brett Ashley Robinson, Briana Gause, Nikki Brake-Sill, and Vanessa Ogbuehi, (DG) JAM is a virtual celebration of director-centric work in progress. The event will be held via (DG) Zoom and hosted by (DG) JAM partners and co-curators Clarel and Shobe. Audiences will get to enjoy pieces in progress by the six (DG) JAM directors, providing a rare opportunity to witness their work. The directors have received a multitude of resources, including a mentorship day and pre-JAM gatherings to discuss current projects, future ideas, experiences, and more. The public is invited to register for the free showcase event, which takes place on February 27, 2021 from 5-7 p.m.. Registration is available at https://www.flipcause.com/secure/cause_pdetails/MTA2NzQx.

Delaware County Women Against Rape (DCWAR): offers free and confidential counseling in person and through our 24-hour hotline to victims of sexual assault. The agency provides medical, police and court accompaniment. DCWAR also facilitates support groups for Adult Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse, Adult Survivors of Sexual Assault, and Teen Survivors of Sexual Assault. Educational programs are available to schools, professionals and community groups. Any questions or for services please contact our 24-hour hotline at 610-566-4342.

Delaware County Women Against Rape and Crime Victim Services: offer police/court accompaniment, advocacy and free confidential counseling to victims of serious crimes including robbery, burglary, assault, arson and the surviving family members of homicide victims. Any questions or for services please contact Delaware County Women Against Rape and Crime Victim Services at 610-566-4386.

Ridley High School Class of 1980: Reunion date change: November 13, 2021 - 40th Reunion - Springfield Country Club. Send updated contact information to idleyHighSchool1980@gmail.com. Join our Facebook page RIDLEY HIGH SCHOOL CLASS OF 1980. Discounted hotel rooms available at Courtyard Marriott Springfield if you mention RIDLEY HS CLASS of 1980.

Girls in Science and Technology (GIST): is a fun, educational program that provides girls with hands-on experience in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) at the American Helicopter Museum and Education Center. It also provides them with female role models studying and working in STEM disciplines. One-hour online sessions will be held approximately every other Saturday from October 10-March 20. Time: 2-3 p.m. Topics covered: astronomy, physics of flight, energy, chemistry, mechanical engineering, coding and robotics Aimed at: grades 3-8. For more information, see the GIST webpage or contact the Museum at 610-436-9600 or info@americanhelicopter.museum.

Scholarships available: In this time of disruption due to COVID-19, its more important than ever to celebrate young people making a difference through volunteer service. Through November 10, Prudential Financial and the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP) are calling on Pennsylvania youth volunteers to apply for scholarships and national recognition through The Prudential Spirit of Community Awards. Pennsylvania students in grades 5-12 are invited to apply for 2021 Prudential Spirit of Community Awards if they have made meaningful contributions to their communities through volunteering within the past 12 months virtually or otherwise. The application is available at http://spirit.prudential.com.

Read the original post:

Here is this week's community calendar - The Delaware County Daily Times

The study of slavery in Canada, that is the enslavement of Africans and their descendants, is under-researched, and largely marginalized within examinations of slavery in the Americas.

So read the call for papers Afua Cooper sent in fall 2020, beginning her work assembling a foundational volume (or two) of essays on slavery in Canada.

So far, she says, the response has been amazing.

Shes discovered that in some areas, the material runs deep but it also runs wide, spanning a variety of disciplines. By bringing together an assorted group of scholars and community experts, the collection will not only capture unique perspectives but also reflect the incredible scope of the subject.

I have received responses from historians, archivists, museums and historical societies from across Canada, says Dr. Cooper, a professor in the Department of History. As well as from scholars in disciplines such as archaeology, law, literature and politics. Ive also heard from artists the idea of looking at the legacies through art is really exciting.

Dr. Cooper has been thinking about this collection for quite a while. She recalls feeling discouraged during her graduate studies when peers and mentors would dismiss or disregard the idea of slavery in Canada, recommending instead that she look to the U.S. or the Caribbean.

But she persevered and is thrilled to see that the interest and inquiry is starting to grow.

And recently, when chairing the Scholarly Panel on Lord Dalhousies Relationship to Race and Slavery, Dr. Cooper found evidence that there was more to this story than one could find in a Canadian history textbook.

Working on the Lord Dalhousie report unearthed all these connections, she recalls. "Every page you turn, every archival document you look at here are the links, here are the New England merchants, West Indian merchants, ties to people from Suriname in South America. It was just volumes and volumes of documents.

Dr. Cooper has four key hopes regarding the collection. First, that it will add several new layers to our knowledge about enslavement in Canada. Second, that it will connect Canada to the wider world by both integrating the Canadian relationship with enslavement into the global study of slavery, and by changing how we talk about and teach slavery in Canada.

As she explains, Canadian history is often taught as if Canada was off away by itself, away from everyone else. But in the 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th centuries, people here didn't think of themselves as being sealed off from the rest of the world. They were participating in global activities in terms of trade, in terms of commerce, in terms of people moving back and forth, and enslaved people were part of this global activity and commerce.

Dr. Coopers third hope is that this will solidify the field of Black Canadian Studies. And finally, she hopes to show how the enslaved people in Canada resisted and challenged their bondage.

That's really important because we're talking about an early form of civil rights activism. There are many, many cases we have across the five older colonies during the period of New France and the British North American period, in which enslaved people took their owners to court for their freedom. Most times they were not successful but to think that they had the audacity to do so. For me, it's an early form of civil rights activism that we don't know about. And these stories just need to be known.

Dr. Cooper expects to receive essays by April 30, 2021. Dal News looks forward to following the collections progress.

Follow this link:

Slavery, freedom and abolition in Canada: Starting the collection - Dal News

Mariame Kaba doesn't like to think about the past. She's always looking forward, working to give birth to projects and grassroots organizations meant to serve the moment. "I'm not a reflective person and that's important for me," Kaba says. "I like to talk about my ideas for the future. That's who I am."

The longtime organizer, activist, author, and abolitionist is a household name in the Chicago liberation movement and helped launch a plethora of projects and collectives focused on transformative justice, ending violence, and dismantling the prison industrial complex (PIC) that have since developed into a world of their own. With a slow and clear cadence grounded in admirable confidence, she says that's exactly how she wants it to be.

"Organizations are dynamic and that means they should die," she tells me. "They come and go, and you come and go. You are part of them for as long as they serve the moment and the time and the work, but you don't hold onto them just because they exist."

This lifestyle of always looking forward isn't meant to be dramatic or radical. It's a grounding practice rooted in Kaba's identity and is why her passion for collaboration and growth flows so easily from one cup to the next. And yet, her newest book looks backward to the abolitionist's decades-long fight for justice to meet the present moment.

We Do This 'Til We Free Us (Haymarket Books), which releases February 23, is a collection of talks, interviews, and past work that can serve as an initial primer on the PIC abolition and community building rooted in transformative justice. Although Kaba says she resisted publishing the book for some time, the summer uprisings of 2020 were a timely push.

"I spent most of my life as a young [activist] building what I see as containers for collective action," she says. "I hope that this book helps young folks and others who are building those containers find language for what they are doing and also gives them some fuel and inspiration because it's hard work."

Kaba knows how to give fuel and inspiration to her colleagues, too. Since 2018, she's been in partnership with Andrea J. Ritchie, an attorney, author, and activist focusing on policing and criminalization of women and LGBTQ+ people of color. Together, the duo created an initiative called Interrupting Criminalization: Research in Action during their time as researchers in residence at the Social Justice Institute of the Barnard Center for Research on Women. Cofounded with researcher Woods Ervin, the project aims to interrupt the growing criminalization and incarceration of women and LGBTQ+ people of color for acts related to public order, poverty, child welfare, drug use, survival, and self-defense, including criminalization and incarceration of survivors of violence.

Ritchie has known Kaba for more than ten years and says she's blessed to cofound the project with her and work with someone she calls a visionary leader. The amount of energy she puts into her work is rooted in Kaba's vision of a liberated futurewhere safety is real, where survivors of violence can move past their trauma, and where there is less violence, her colleague says.

"[Kaba] is one of the most brilliant, incisive visionary leaders of my generation, of this moment, and also one of the funniest, most practical and kind, even though she likes to hide it," Ritchie says with a laugh. "Her love of Black people, survivors, migrants, working people, disabled peopleher entire body of work is about what love looks like in action."

After more than 20 years of organizing in Chicago, Kaba moved back to her native New York City in 2016, but she leaves her mark on the city of big shoulders. If you haven't heard her name, you likely know the organizations she helped birth. She is the founder and director of Project NIA, a grassroots organization with a vision to end youth incarceration. She cofounded the Chicago Freedom School, the Chicago Taskforce on Violence Against Girls and Young Women, the Chicago Alliance to Free Marissa Alexander, and the Rogers Park Young Women's Action Team. She runs the popular blog Prison Culture, which looks at the PIC structures around the country and its effects on society.

Kaba was also behind We Charge Genocide, an intergenerational effort that documented police brutality and violence in Chicago and sent youth organizers to Geneva, Switzerland, to present their report to the United Nations Committee Against Torture. She's an advisory board member of Chicago Torture Justice Memorials, a group that worked to get the city council to pass a reparations law providing restitution to the victims of Jon Burge, the police commander who, along with officers he trained, tortured more than 100 suspects, most of them Black men, from the 1970s through the early 1990s.

She is also a founding advisory board member of the Chicago Community Bond Fund, which provides bonds for people charged with crimes in Cook County who cannot afford to pay bonds themselves. But in January, local abolitionists and organizers celebrated a victory years in the making: The Illinois General Assembly passed the Pretrial Fairness Act, a key component of the Illinois Legislative Black caucus' criminal justice omnibus bill, which ends the state's use of money bond and plans to transform the state's pretrial justice system. It seems like Kaba works 20 full-time jobs, but that's how she likes it. She says she's learned how to live fully in the world by doing things she cares about, such as knitting and going out to dinner with friends pre-pandemic. But her work is a large part of that, too. These achievements in local liberation and restorative justice movements over the years make Kaba a memorable figurebut she takes credit for none of it on her own. Kaba's motto, known by her friends, colleagues, and anyone familiar with her work, speaks to her values: "Nothing that we do that is worthwhile is done alone."

"The idea that we need other people in order to be able to win the things we want to win and to put your talent and ideas togetherthat is something that was reinforced for me working in Chicago," she says. "You will meet people beyond your specific interests and that's incredibly powerful and generative because you are forced to look beyond your very narrow spoke."

Kaba, who began her organizing career in the late 1980s in NYC before moving to Rogers Park as an early 20-something, says Chicago's nature as an organizing city and the collaborative spirit from people she worked with here greatly shaped her into the activist she is today. "I came as someone who was struggling to understand myself in the world and where my place would be, and I left Chicago understanding myself much better as an organizer and as a Black woman."

The diversity of the Chicago organizing community, part of the city's identity, was a positive change compared to the siloed organizing scenes of NYC, she says. If you attend any rally, protest, or justice movement in Chicago, you'll meet organizers standing up for labor issues, climate change, housing issues, religious institutions, LGBTQ+ rights, and morethis I saw to be particularly true over the summer while out reporting on the various social justice movements that were largely led by young folks. That overlap, which includes the use of creativity and art to assist political movements, makes Chicago stand out compared to other cities, she says.

Tony Alvarado-Rivera sees that intersectionality as critical to Chicago's movements. Alvarado-Rivera is the executive director of the Chicago Freedom School, which was founded in 2007 and teaches youth how to use their unique experiences and power to create an equitable world through leadership, activism, and movement building. He says Kaba's spirit still lives on at CFS and its youth learn about her work through its programs, staff, and personal visits from Kaba.

The recent youth uprising makes Kaba's newest book expedient and captures the school's valuessuch as abolishing prison systems and the police, and creating mutual aid and community safety networksthat have been in practice for over a decade, Alvarado-Rivera says. "It's beautiful to be able to be free about these ideas and see people wanting to learn more about abolition and organizing with young people in ways that are empowering and recognizing that youth have been at the forefront of these movements."

Alvarado-Rivera is forever grateful to Kaba for helping plant the seed that has grown to be CFS and her support that has "allowed people to be connected and believe the vision will live on."

Kaba says what makes her happiest is seeing the youth, like those at CFS, take over and expand on work that's meaningful to them, especially policies that directly impact them. The collectivity she formed while carving out a place for herself to grow and constantly be curious she learned from other organizers before her in the movement. It's cyclical, she says, as is the influence she's had onand felt fromothers.

"To me it feels lucky and blessed that people feel that what I have done in terms of work is useful to them," she says. "That's not false humility. It's because I'm grounded in understanding history."

One example she gives is the youth behind the #NoCopAcademy movement from 2017, many of whom she worked closely with. Even though the city council approved the massive, $95 million new facility set for West Garfield Park, activists called the experience a win and a lesson in Chicago civics. Kaba looks to those youth with admiration.

"It's that that I feel most proud ofjust how they have taken things they have learned and made it their own thing," she says. "It makes me so happy to see that work because that's what it's all about: what gets generated that's new from what it is we seed."

Asha Edwards, a 20-year-old youth activist and abolitionist with Assata's Daughters and We Are Dissenters, was an active member of the #NoCopAcademy campaign. The south-side native, who currently studies sociology at the University of Illinois at Chicago, looks to Kaba as an inspiration and mentor. She is incredibly thankful to the veteran organizer for providing her with the necessary resources, language, and materials to end the PIC and the importance of organizing by way of her books, lectures, and social media.

"She made me believe in abolition," Edwards says, who remembers learning about Kaba in high school. "With her knowledge and how she created a successful platform to understanding abolition, I started to think about, 'How do I address conflict in my own relationships?' or 'How can I get to the root causes of what leads to violence?' And believing that prisons don't do that."

The young activist remembers meeting Kaba at an awards ceremony shortly after the #NoCopAcademy campaign and getting a big hug from her, as well as useful quotes and lessons on how to undo oppressive systems during a 2020 abolitionist training. Having these direct experiences with Kaba gives Edwards a sense of hope for the future. Addressing harm is the hardest aspect for her when thinking about abolition, but Kaba's tools makes the task seem possible, she says.

Others who have been touched by Kaba's work and her newest book say her values of collaborative action and mutual aid have positively driven social change, and are lessons that will be passed down to the next generation. Notable Chicago writer, scholar, professor, and cultural organizer Eve L. Ewing, who met Kaba through mutual connections and her work around prison abolition, calls her an amazing writer who knows how to invoke the wisdom of people before her through her writing. We Do This 'Til We Free Us is a needed resource for those looking to be more politically and civically engagedand who want to be changemakers, she says.

"I imagine my kids or grandkids being in the back of a classroom and getting a tattered copy of this book that they got from the library or stole from somewhere," Ewing says. "That's the kind of book it's going to be: an insurgent book that people will be calling on and speaking to for a very long time."

Ewing is currently writing a new book and isn't taking any interviews, but she made an exception to talk to me about Kaba's impact, a testament to the true power of her influence. Ewing says the abolitionist has inspired her to think about working together and drawing on people's strengths to create the best possible outcome. Activism should be representative of the collective responsibility we all want to lead.

"If we dream of a society where everyone is collectively responsible for one another but our 'activism' is driven by wanting to jump out front and be the hero, I think that's sad and not a great path to be on," she says. "Mariame really shows and embodies what it looks like and to truly work collectively in humble partnership with other people."

Kaba's humility in her work, and her organic ability to practice nonattachment to the movements she creates, feels like a life lesson we can all carry. It's a reminder to live passionately and presently in a world that can feel increasingly stressful and traumatic at times. As she told me, it's not going away. It helps to pump love and constant curiosity into your days, whether that's through watching Hallmark Channel movies, reading, making art, or fighting for liberation, if you're Mariame Kaba.

"You have to figure out a way to live in the world, that's life," she says. "I don't have to carve out my hobby time. I just have to livelive fully." v

View post:

Nothing that we do that is worthwhile is done alone - Chicago Reader

By Victoria Collins

The work of abolition calls us to imagine something new, but this imagining is not done all at once. To abolish the police as an institution we have to understand, then dismantle, the mechanisms and structures created and used by policing at-large. One of those mechanisms is our public education system, which utilizes policing as a way of being and thinking in and outside of the classroom.

The idea of policing hinges on the notion of safety. More pointedly, it hinges on the notion that we are dangers to ourselves and require overseers to attend to our own well-being. Police are embedded throughout Black and brown communities under the guise of protection and have been for so long that many cannot imagine our communities without them despite their consistent abuses against us. As is true for most Americans, I was taught that the police were agents of good meant to protect and serve us and provide a helping hand when needed. But time would melt away the faade.

Like many millennials, I saw the death of Trayvon Martin and subsequent acquittal of his killer as the last straw, the final piece of proof in this American pudding that proved that it was molded and expired. I watched summer after summer as Black peoples bodies were left to smolder on the pavement after being killed by those who had existed within the embedded claim, to serve and protect. I entertained the thought of reform until reform revealed itself to be an incomplete solutiona solution that still did not solve for the violence policing produces, and this brought me to the almost unfathomable: abolition.

The ubiquity of policing in our communities and schools makes policing seem harmless, and even necessary. The presence of police in school hallways has become a widespread practice since the 90s. School Resource Officer programs became even more prevalent in the aftermath of Sandy Hook. Many young students today often regard officers as friendly and helpful, or as my peers and I did when we were younger, as just part of the ecosystem.

When I was in grade school in rural Mississippi, my classmates and I joked often that our school felt like a prison, with its barred entrances, yellowed lighting, strict schedule, and rigid code of conductwithout even realizing the full implication that a statement like that carried. None of us had ever been to prison, but we held assumptions that were informed by movies, music, and popular culture. As we grew up, our proximity to prisons grew closer. By the time we got to high school, many of us knew, or knew of, at least one person in our lives who had been to prison. It was just one of those things that happened to bad people, we were told. Not thinking ourselves bad people, my peers and I tried like hell to stay out of the way of that reality. Despite how hard we tried, it found some of us and just narrowly escaped othersincluding myself.

With one way in and one way out, vigilant administrators prowled the halls looking for kids who werent where they were supposed to be. Marked by the looming presence of the District police chief, my school experience was characterized by the enforcement of indirect and direct policing measures and procedures that my peers and I followed, more or less, without question. We were told, like most students are told, that these measures were put in place for our safety, and in a world of mass shootings where none of us could yet fend for ourselves, we held tightly to those things that they said made us safe from the world around us.

Policing, as an institution, has transformed and manifested itself in a variety of waysfrom slave catchers to safety security agents, to Amy Coopers and Karens. From entities to individuals, the mantle of safety gets taken up by a variety of hostspublic officials, civilians, teachers, and studentsand is informed by the white, cis-heteropatriarchal standards that inform every other aspect of American social and economic structure. In my current neighborhood in the South Bronx, a precinct looms not even two blocks away.

The violence that is levied against students when police are constantly present is tangibly and viscerally felt. Black and brown students are disproportionately subjected to this violence. Studies have shown, in Texas, that the increase in police officers in public schools led to a six percent increase in suspensions and arrests among Black students.

The students of a youth organizing group in the Bronx, known as Sistas and Brothas United (SBU), are speaking out and bringing attention to the dilemmas they face that are a direct result of having police in their schools. In the wake of uprisings following the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, SBU organized to question how police brutality finds its way into their lives. In a series of socially-distanced banner drops, students, public officials, and community members marched to several public schools across the South Bronx to protest in the name of police free schools. But this isnt an issue endemic to the Bronx, and the efforts of Black, brown, and queer student organizers in the Bronx is part of a larger organizing effort for police-free schools nationwide.

Schools should be places of refuge and community for young learners. This is the very principle that undergirds the idea of education: learning in community. It has been the consensus of Chicago mayor, Lori Lightfoot, and many others, that schools need security and that without this security, classrooms will become unsafe, unruly, and unproductive. However, the true impediment to learning is the indirect policing measures that would dictate that the school and the classroom be orderly spaces. For those who are educators, it is up to us to model a more radical pedagogy of liberation for students to feel alleviated from the violent tactics of fear and intimidation that they currently know.

Finding solutions outside of increased policing requires creativity, imagination, the dismantling of carcerality and white supremacy, and an investment in community resources. As Audre Lorde wrote in Sister Outsider, For the masters tools will never dismantle the masters house.

The work of abolition happens on many frontsnot only in prisons, but in communities and in classrooms also. Educators and administrators are called to imagine a world and to imagine their schools and communities without police. Though it is not an easy task, it can be done and has been started by sister-teachers like bell hooks and June Jordan, who said in a 1978 speech that education must be about the truth, or we should forget about it. And I believe that the most important and the most valuable truth on earth is that we are alive, we are the living. That is to say, that we are the truth. Therefore, as [students] enter high school and undertake different courses, I hope that [students] will remember this truth: the truth of your absolute value as a human life. Use this truth in measuring the education offered to you. A responsibility then falls on students to demand more of their teachers and administrators. And this also is the work of abolition, for each of us to demand more of our care, of our humanity, and of one another, in order to build a world and communities of learning where everyone can be free.

Victoria R. Collins (she/they) is a queer, Black writer and teacher born and raised in in the Hub City of Hattiesburg, Mississippi. In the tradition of generations before them, they made their migration to New York City. Victoria earned their MFA in Creative Writing from The New School, and settled in the South Bronx, where they work as a teacher, tutor, and freelancer. They write primarily about their experience of being southern, queer, and Black in twenty-first century America.

Victorias writing centers stories that focus on the experiences of the working class, gender identity and politics, and family. Their writing has appeared in Bustle, Hippocampus Magazine, Raising Mothers Magazine, and the Unreliable Narrator issue of Fatal Flaw Literary Magazine.

(@vicwritesthings, IG & twitter)

JOIN WEAR YOUR VOICE ON PATREON Every single dollar matters to usespecially now when media is under constant threat. Your support is essential and your generosity is why Wear Your Voice keeps going! You are a part of the resistance that is neededuplifting Black and brown feminists through your pledges is the direct community support that allows us to make more space for marginalized voices. For as little as $1 every month you can be a part of this journey with us. This platform is our way of making necessary and positive change, and together we can keep growing.

Read more:

Abolition Means Removing Policing From Our Teaching and Thinking - Wear Your Voice

But by the time executions are carried out, none of that randomness is visible. Everything appears to be in order. And appearances matter, because execution is theater.

In the squat brick building in Terre Haute where the federal government puts people to death, separate chambers surround the gurney where the inmates are put on display so observers can watch the killing. One room is for victims families, one is for lawyers, and one is for the media. When I witnessed in December the execution of Alfred Bourgeois, who killed his 2-year-old daughter, I felt I was meant to feel the grisly affair was sterile, routine, orderly.

And so were you, the audience for whom this performance is staged, the unspoken patrons who fund these killings with your tax dollars.

*

Mr. Biden can end this charade.

Eliminate the death penalty, reads the boldest proposal on his campaign website, filed under the heading of justice. The text goes on to acknowledge death row exonerations as proof of unacceptable risk and states that, as president, Mr. Biden will work to pass legislation to eliminate the death penalty at the federal level, and incentivize states to follow the federal governments example.

He now has his opportunity. Democratic lawmakers have put forth a bicameral proposal that would turn Mr. Bidens campaign promise into policy and abolish the federal death penalty. Meanwhile, dozens of House members, led by Representative Cori Bush of Missouri and Representative Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, submitted a letter to Mr. Biden asking that he commute the remaining 49 federal death sentences to life in prison.

And he should. Those commutations, if coupled with a decision by Mr. Bidens attorney general to direct federal prosecutors to stop seeking death sentences, withdraw notices of intent to seek death sentences, and terminate federal appeals in capital cases where courts have granted defendants relief, would forfend another rampage like Mr. Trumps for some time.

Only signing an abolition bill like the one gaining momentum in Congress will prevent it for good.

When I asked Michael Gwin, Mr. Bidens rapid response director, what action the president planned to take on the federal death penalty, Mr. Gwin replied: The president made clear his abhorrence of the heinous execution spree we just witnessed under the previous president. He has also noted that the risk of executing the innocent is too high, with over 170 people on death row exonerated since 1973. He believes the application of the death penalty is deeply flawed and will have more to say about this issue in the future.

Read the original:

Opinion | The Government Has Not Explained How These 13 People Were Selected to Die - The New York Times

In The Swaddles interview series Tell Me More, we discuss crucial cultural topics with people whose work pushes societal boundaries.

Saumya Dadoo is the founding editor of Detention Solidarity Network and an incoming doctoral student at MESAAS, Columbia University. Her work focuses on prisons, colonial history, and gender & sexuality. She has worked at research and advocacy organizations in India, including the Centre for Law and Policy Research and Majlis Legal Centre. The Swaddles Aditi Murti spoke with Saumya about prison reform, abolition and what constitutes a carceral state within India.

The Swaddle: Does India have a unique relationship with punishment, or do ideas around it originate with colonial laws?

Saumya Dadoo: At the core of it, systems of punishment, rest on existing dynamics of power and work in favor of maintaining social inequality. What is specific to the Indian context regarding the harm committed in our communities is that our society is based on Brahminical patriarchy. If we think of punishment as a form of harm, and if we then think of it as a form of harm thats legally justified or not justified For example, harm committed by the state is justified its Brahminical patriarchy thats allowed cisgender upperclassmen to commit harm, get away with it, And, justify the harm that theyve committed with this righteous moral stance. Its difficult to extricate or differentiate between some form of native Indian ideas of punishment from colonial history. Colonialism brought in new dynamics of power and had new objectives shaped by racialized capitalism that converged with Brahminical patriarchy and shaped the modern state, law, and governance. During the colonial period, the British were experimenting with new ideas of punishment in England and in their colonies.

Even though prisons are taken for granted now, prisons, or even the idea to deal with harm by not physically punishing someone (eg. cutting off their arms) but by constructing a space meant for disciplining, towards rehabilitation, was new.In the prison context, very little has changed from when they were set up in the colonial period. In the context of punishment, we can see the impact of colonial laws in modern times. Colonial laws in whole, like sedition, or vestiges of these laws, like we see in anti-terror laws or in the Habitual Offenders Act that was once the Criminal Tribes Act, are present and are actively being used in India today.

TS: If prisons started out as a rehabilitative idea, how did that idea degrade into a more punitive rendering in modern times?

SD: Firstly, there may have been a rehabilitative ideal at the core of prisons, but that doesnt mean that the system itself ever allowed for this ideal to be achieved. Secondly, it can be argued that this idea of rehabilitation is itself paternalistic and doesnt seek to understand or address harm holistically. Our current system of punishment individualizes harm, by keeping to clean categories of victim and offender, measures the impact of the harm-based less on what someone who has been harmed needs but what is pre-decided, and then metes out punishment. The story ends there. Besides just fixing this system or making it work, we need to question the ends of punishment does it really help to remove a person out of their context, isolate them from society, confine them, remove their agency, and believe that this will help them rethink the harm they have done, repent, and that is what we need for rehabilitation?

So I think the rehabilitative ideal at its core is a flawed concept and lends itself and creates punitive culture. We might think that things that happen within prisons, like torture and violence, are an aberration to prisons but they are endemic to the way tthe system functions. And this is all on top of the fact that certain identities are targeted at evvery stage.

TS: What about isolation from communities, in particular, is counterproductive to rehabilitation?

SD: Ill say a little more about isolation and then return to its impact on those in prisons. Crime and punishment itself is individualized and this list of harms often leaves out social harms that groups of people are suffering because of. We live in an extremely unequal society. This means there are already several forms of harm that people are struggling with because of their class and caste position, because of their gender or disability. There is a level of social neglect and state neglect that allows these harms to continue unaddressed. So when someone commits a crime they are already likely to themselves be dealing with certain harms. Now, when you isolate someone, you ignore the harm they have lived with completely. You dont address the social situation that may have shaped their decisions and that still very much needs to be addressed. To me, that is the most egregious part of isolating someone from their communities that it allows the state and society to absolve their responsibility from addressing the social situation that they have created and perpetuated.

As I said earlier, the concept of rehabilitation that is tied to prisons is itself flawed. Very often, what one needs from someone who has committed a crime is some level of acknowledgement and accountability for the harm they have caused. We know in the context of sexual violence for instance that survivors often have several needs and very few of them involve their harm-doer sitting in a jail and repenting. That is not what justice looks like for a lot of people. So what we might need instead of rehabilitation is something far more active and engaged from a harm-doer.

Finally, the isolation of prisons is actually itself harmful. There is a reason prisons are dreaded. We know there is horrendous mistreatment within the system. We know the impact of power dynamics between prison guards and prisoners, between prisoners themselves affects peoples everyday llives. We know that there is immense psychological trauma from being isolated in society. So youre essentially sending those who commit violence to a violent place. This should not be a justifiable form of harm.

TS: The term carceral state is often used in relation to talking about prison reform. What exactly comes under the ambit of a carceral state?

SD: The word carceral, we know comes from its relationship to prison. But the carceral state expands that to help us think beyond the criminal justice system or institutions of confinement to other practices and structures of the state that are shaped by a similar punitive culture.So one thing that the carceral state allows us to do is look at other institutions of confinement or detention, like immigration detention camps, psychiatric institutions, or even shelter homes but the value of the term comes from how it helps us think about things that we earlier may have thought are not related, like poverty, gender, ethnic difference, the construction of borders, our everyday culture and thinking around punishment that resemble state forms of policing and surveillance. So the carceral state is a useful analytical framework to understand and think critically about all of these different kinds of relationships that are related to confinement.

TS: And how does detention work in systems that dont involve punishment like say, a psychiatric asylum or a shelter? Common understanding is that these spaces are created by the state as means of aid, right?

SD: Formal institutions for protection are worth thinking about together not because they are completely identical to prisons in the form of harm they are causing but because there are other similarities that really shouldnt be there at all in the way we care for people. Some similarities of these are that these institutions have dismal facilities, being institutionalized often results in intense stigma, and the social identities of the people who tend to be institutionalized in shelter homes or psychiatric institutions are often similar to that of prison. Finally, these spaces of confinement in society and, as a result, the people in these spaces, are at the margins of society so there is little oversight or accountability for the harms that may be committed in these spaces. So Im not saying that prisons and these institutions are identical and need to be treated exactly the same way but we need to question the construction and practices at these institutions within the larger framework of the carceral state.

TS: One thing thats common across all forms of such institutions is the frequent violation of human rights. How does that end up happening? How much the confined individuals identity depends on the abuse they suffer?

SD: Theres no clear way to answer this actually, but these spaces have a lot of impunity and a lack of accountability built into them. For one, being a space of confinement, we dont know what is happening within these spaces a lot of the time. And because of the stigma associated with these spaces, people are also not paying attention to this. Secondly, the power dynamic between those who hold people in confinement and the confined is a breeding ground for human rights violations.

With respect to prisons, we have this idea that people in jail are bad people and theres no reason to treat bad people well. The use of various methods of torture is also because it seems like a straightforward form of getting what you want you want to hold someone responsible, you know that the process of investigation is tedious and messy, and you know that you will not face any consequences at all for such actions then why not use this method to get the job done? Thirdly, its important to note that prisons are also patriarchal institutions this is not to say that it is only men who abuse their power it means that prison spaces embody aggressive masculinity which leads to violent behavior.

It can also be difficult to distinguish between abuse that happens due to the system itself and the abuse that happens due to the confined individuals identity. Like I said, the criminal justice system targeted towards certain communities namely poor people, people who are Dalit, Bahujan, and Adivasi, and like all of society, is also disproportionately violent towards women, gender minorities, and people with disabilities. In other words, prisons reproduce many of the forms of oppression and dehumanization of certain groups that we see in society that would be understood as human rights violations and because of the lack of impunity endemic to such spaces, these violations are part of the culture of these spaces.

TS: Over the past year,weve seen a lot of discourse around abolition due to the Black Lives Matter movement and the custodial deaths of Jayaraj and Bennix. What made you optimistic, and what nuances did you feel were lost in these conversations?

SD: I think my worry always is about things like abolition becoming a buzzword. Im not even against buzzwords if it helps makes people genuinely curious about what it signifies it can be quite valuable. I think feminism becoming a buzzword, thanks to genuine global advocacy, is part of the reason Im a feminist. So Im very excited that this conversation has gained some traction in India. But the difficulty with buzzwords is not only that there may not actually be this genuine curiosity about what it means and it may only help people gain woke points but also because many people think we should do this here too like there isnt a long history of essential anti-caste, anti-capitalist, feminist grassroots activism that has been ongoing. Just because something has become a buzz now doesnt mean that there arent people who have been talking about the oppression they have faced or thinking about it radically, or working on mitigating it. We should have already been listening and learning from this. I think that is at the core of what we want people newly interested in abolition to see with the work that we do at Detention Solidarity Network. So I really hope that Indian people engaging with abolition are thinking about the specific context and seeing abolition work in India within our context.

Theres quite a bit of abolition discourse thats US-specific. This is absolutely essential work but we do need to be attentive to how the Indian justice system is different from the US. For example, the prison industrial complex in America is quite different from how prison industries function in India. There are also quite a few parallels drawn between the racialized nature of the American justice system, and caste in India these are important because there are similar hierarchies and dehumanization but we need to pay attention to how exactly they are happening and what they are rooted in. Many abolitionists in the U.S. like Angela Davis, Ruthie Gilmore, and Mariame Kaba talk about the contemporary criminal justice systems direct links to a history of slavery the criminal justice system in India is also shaped by a history of racial capitalism but one that has its roots in British colonialism. Another nuance to think about is that we are not exactly the type of capitalist state the U.S. is we have had a welfare orientation built into our Constitution and evident in laws like the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities Act). Lastly, there are severely militarized zones in our country, like Chhattisgarh and Kashmir, where state violence has occurred with impunity for decades. These are all factors we need to think critically about when we talk about the abolition of the carceral state in the Indian context.

What we can learn from the US Abolitionists who have done the significant work of articulating this stance is that abolition is not a one-time act. Were not razing all the prisons to the ground tomorrow. We have to think about the alternative forms of justice that were putting in place so that these systems that were relying on now become obsolete. We have to think about how, systems of oppression are interconnected and replicated in prisons so we cannot have a conversation about abolition without talking about annihilating caste or ending the patriarchy. Abolition may seem like a new framework, but its quite old in a lot of ways.

TS: A very common counter-criticism I see online regarding abolition discourse is what is the point of defunding an already underfunded policing system. Does this argument have legs, or is it flawed?

SD: I definitely think that its quite flawed because the critical thing that this way of thinking misses is asking you want the police to be more effective, but effective towards what end? If the ends are the same, that the policing will continue to perpetuate systemic oppression and dehumanization then empowering the police force is going to help them continue to work like they work right now. Thats more torture, extra-judicial killings, and police brutality. work right now, thats more extra-judicial killings and police brutality.

Another thing this line of thinking leaves out is, what if this money was to go elsewhere? How are we measuring underfunding? If this money was to actually go into addressing unemployment, establishing a minimum wage, providing more robust health care so the needs that communities have -, it could actually be preventive in controlling the kinds of harms we talk about when we talk about crime. That is not something we are able to consider alongside at the moment.

TS: I believe everyone skeptical of prison abolition always asks this is abolition actually possible or more of an idealistic framework?

SD: So we know that the prison system as it exists has not been able to achieve what it set out to achieve rehabilitation. We know that prisons frequently target the marginalized and perpetuate systemic oppression. So perhaps we need to think about how idealistic or utopian prison reform as an ideal has been considering we seem to have never been able to achieve it. Our criminal justice system has been broken and is broken but we are still holding on to some utopian ideal in our current efforts of reforming it.

So in many ways, the idea of prison reform is far more idealistic than abolition. Prison abolition urges us to create strong systems of caring for each other as communities, addressing systemic harm perpetuated by the state, creating alternative forms of responding to harm which eventually can make prisons something we dont really need. It makes us think about what might be possible if we were to seriously redistribute the amount of effort and resources that are going into holding up a farce of justice to a more meaningful form of care. The second thing that I would say is that this does not mean that we dont engage with the criminal justice system. We very much need to change the material conditions for prisoners and address the harm that people are facing in confinement. And we need to do that by questioning our assumption that all people in detention are bad, destigmatizing confinement, and genuinely thinking of people in confinement as key stakeholders who know best what they are facing and what they need.

See the article here:

Tell Me More: Talking Prison Reform and Alternative Forms of Justice With Saumya Dadoo - The Swaddle

Lloyds of London is seeking a slave trade historian to examine its artefacts in the wakes of a Telegraph investigation.

The insurance market has posted an advert for an expert to investigate its collection of more than 3,000 items including paintings, swords and furniture.

The company, which was founded in 1688, previously insured slave ships, later apologising last year for its shameful role in the slave trade.

According to the job advert, the new staff member will carry out investigations to find out what artefacts and objects link to African and Caribbean history (specifically slavery and abolition).

Last year a Telegraph investigation found that swathes of corporate Britain benefited directly or indirectly from the slave trade and its abolition.

University College London (UCL) last year collected these names into a major database to find out how British companies profited form slavery.

A spokeswoman for Lloyd's of London said: "As society evolves, it is right and proper for us to take a look at those symbols and artefacts and make a decision as to whether or not what they stand for reflects where we are.

"Of course, it is important to fully understand history, but we must do so in a way that reflects changing sentiments and societal views as we more fully understand that history - the good, and the bad."

When slavery was abolished in 1833, Lloyds of London was one company which benefited from the Governments decision to compensate Britons who had lost property as a result.

Insurer Lloyd's of London, with founder subscriber Simon Fraser, was the former owner of the Castle Bruce estate in Dominica, which was handed compensation totalling the equivalent of 397,451.

At the time a Lloyd's spokesman said: "We are sorry for the role played by the Lloyd's market in the 18th and 19th century slave trade. This was an appalling and shameful period of English history, as well as our own, and we condemn the indefensible wrongdoing that occurred during this period.

"We will provide financial support to charities and organisations promoting opportunity and inclusion for black and minority ethnic groups."

Dr Katie Donington, a senior lecturer in history at the London South Bank University told the BBC that the move by Lloyd's was "very welcome".

"The work of analysing the historical relationship between commercial organisations and the business of slavery must take place within the context of evidence-based research. That process begins with examining the archive as well as relevant material culture held by Lloyds," she said.

She also said that she hoped that information that comes from the research will be made available to slavery historians, community grounds and the public so that they can understand the ways in which slavery and its legacies shaped both Lloyd's and the wider City of London during this period."

The insurance market was many of several companies identified by the Telegraph to have historical links to the slave trade.

The pub chain Greene King apologised after links were revealed that one of its founders owned a number of plantations in the Carribean.

Nick Mackenzie, Greene King's chief executive, said: "It is inexcusable that one of our founders profited from slavery and argued against its abolition in the 1800s.

"We don't have all the answers, so that is why we are taking time to listen and learn from all the voices, including our team members and charity partners, as we strengthen our diversity and inclusion work."

See more here:

Historian sought by Lloyds of London to examine its artefacts for slave trade links - Telegraph.co.uk

In December 2003, after 30 years spent labouring on an abaca plantation, Susana Quionez finally summoned the courage to demand better working conditions from her employer, the Japanese-owned Ecuadorian company Furukawa. The companys reaction was harsh: far from simply ignoring her request, it went so far as to send the police to evict her from the plantation where she and her family were living. Susanas daughter Maria-Guadalupe Preciado was pregnant with her third child at the time. She vividly recalls the insults, the gunshots and the tear gas like it was yesterday. Her brothers, still in their teens, were thrown into prison. Her husband was shot in the leg and, without the means to seek treatment, later died from his injury.

In 2003 I demanded my rights for the first time, Susana, 60, tells Equal Times. As she explains, it took her some time to realise that what was happening on the companys plantations wasnt normal. We used to think that this was just how life was, that you had to work to survive, that enduring this kind of brutality was normal. Susana recalls that it was thanks to reports she watched on her small black and white battery-powered television that she began to realise that she too had rights, and that all of them were being violated.

But even after the brutal eviction of her family, knowing nothing other than the abaca plantations for generations, Susanna had no other choice but to ask to be reinstated at the company under the promise that she would no longer make demands.

Furukawa came to Ecuador in 1963 to produce abaca fibre for international markets. A species of banana tree native to the Philippines, abaca was introduced to the small South American country after studies conducted by the company determined that the area of Santo Domingo in the countrys north-east had the right climatic conditions for cultivating the plant. This extremely resistant fibre is used in products such as tea bags, machine filters, banknotes and high-quality paper, as well as in the automotive and textile industries. It is also used to produce facemasks, causing demand to soar since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. Abacas versatility of use has made it one of Ecuadors most exported products, and Furukawa its main producer.

But the hundreds of families including Susanas, who for decades have harvested and processed abaca fibre for Furukawa, do so under conditions from a previous century. The company rents out its land to intermediaries who pay workers according to how much they produce. Known as intermediacin laboral (work through intermediaries), this form of labour is common in Latin America and allows landowners to take ownership of farmers work while evading their responsibilities as employers. The farmers have neither contracts nor social security, and their wages, when paid, do not allow them to live with dignity. The result is indebtedness and extreme poverty.

In Ecuador, the Labour Ministry is obliged to carry out field visits every year to verify the working conditions in companies, says Patricia Carrin, a lawyer with the Comisin Ecumnica de Derechos Humanos (CEDHU, Ecumenical Commission for Human Rights), an organisation that provides assistance to victims of human rights violations. So these inspections were carried out without anyone noticing that anything was wrong? According to Carrin, there are two possible explanations for this: Either the authorities saw what was happening and decided not to act, or the company took steps to ensure that inspectors only visited the one out of 32 plantations where conditions were more or less good. The Labour Ministry claims that it carried out inspections from 2017 to 2020 and handed down fines, including for child labour.

It is indeed hard to believe that the unhealthy and degrading living conditions of Furukawas 1,200 plantation workers, mostly Afro-Ecuadorians, could have escaped inspectors attention. Equal Times visited the camps, which consist of old concrete huts whose small rooms are without light or ventilation. They have no electricity or drinking water, let alone sanitary systems or toilet facilities. The wells are unusable and the workers are forced to drink water from a nearby stream which is contaminated by abaca waste.

According to a 2019 report by the Peoples Defender, Ecuadors equivalent of the Ombudsman, these conditions are not an isolated case of one camp but are typical of Furukawas practice on all of its plantations.

In addition to their deplorable living conditions, workers are typically not provided with protective gloves, masks or trousers for dangerous activities that have resulted in serious injuries and even amputations. Abaca filaments can be as sharp as blades, capable of lacerating the flesh. Most accidents occur while the plant is being stripped for its fibre using diesel machines that have not been replaced in over 50 years. The workers twist the plant into the machine to crush it and remove its sap to obtain the fibre. One moment of inattention can quickly result in an accident.

In 2018, 123 workers finally decided to organise and take their case to court. With no trade union representation, they sought the help of human rights organisations who, appalled by the conditions of bondage detailed in the Ombudsmans report, agreed to support their lawsuit against the state for negligence and against the company for modern-day slavery.

The Centro de Derechos Econmicos y Sociales (CDES, Centre for Economic and Social Rights), which provided support to the victims, cites the Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade, and Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery, which defines serfdom as the condition or status of a tenant who is by law, custom or agreement bound to live and labour on land belonging to another person and to render some determinate service to such other person, whether for reward or not, and is not free to change his status.

Carrin argues that it is the workers inability to break free from their status as serfs that constitutes modern-day slavery in this case: These people depend on a third party, in this case the company, for their livelihood. They are not free to change their status.

On Furukawas plantations, workers get up at 3am every day and work until 8pm to earn an average of between US$80 and US$100 a month. Entire families, both adults and children, participate in production activities. All of the families, who live on less than a dollar a day, are forced to buy food on credit and then ask the company to pay for it, which means producing more and more to pay back their debt. The company also strictly forbids workers from planting anything other than abaca, depriving them of a minimum of food autonomy.

They [the managers] tell us this land does not belong to you. You are here to work, not to farm. If you want fruit, buy it, says Leones Ramn, a worker.

In a 2019 interview with local media outlet Revista Plan, then head of Furukawa in Ecuador Marcelo Almeida denies any obligation to the workers, claiming that the intermediary is responsible. While acknowledging that the company may have made some mistakes, Almeida rejects accusations of human rights violations: according to him, the conditions of the [Furukawa] workers are much better than those of many others in Santo Domingo. When asked about the violent eviction that took place in 2003, he claims to not really remember, before declaring that it occurred because there were dangerous people in the camp, though he is unable to say why they were dangerous.

While preparing her files on the eve of the third and final court hearing on 14 January, Carrin was nervous. For her, this was also a complex political trial involving several high-ranking officials with interests in agribusiness companies. We have a revolving door problem: public officials with interests in private companies and vice versa. Economic power, in collusion with political power, over human rights, she says, adding that if the case had involved white or mixed-race people, it would have been much more likely to be taken up by the press and dealt with more quickly by the courts.

The problem of landowners exploiting workers in Latin America is closely linked to the racialisation of bodies.

According to Rossana Torres, a researcher in environmental social sciences at the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (FLASCO), the colonial invention of the concept of race continues to have tangible effects on the lives of the people in this region.

In a statement before to the court, she accuses the Ecuadorian state of being guilty of stigmatising discourse towards people of African descent. She gave the example of a delegation from the National Assembly who attempted to visit one of the plantations and was warned of dangerous inhabitants by officials from the Ministry of the Interior. According to Torres, such characterisations have legitimised the companys racist oppression of its workers.

In the minutes before the verdict was handed down at the court of first instance of Santo Domingo on 15 January 2021, the suspense in the air was palpable. When the judge decided in favour of the plaintiffs, the applause was deafening. It was indeed a historic decision: it is the countrys first recognised case of modern-day slavery in agriculture and marks the first time that workers have won a lawsuit against a powerful agro-industrial company for discrimination and human rights violations.

The judge recognised the farmers right to land access and ordered Furukawa to compensate them and to issue a public apology. The judge also concluded that the Labour Ministry had failed to act responsibly and allowed such violations to take place for 60 years.

It was ordered to compensate each worker by providing access to services such as housing, healthcare and education, as well as to psychological counselling. The details of the decision are not yet known as the judge has yet to issue a written ruling.

Both Furukawa and the Labour Ministry have already appealed the decision, and while Susana and her daughter are happy with the initial outcome, they are waiting for the victory to become official before they celebrate. As one of the plaintiffs told Equal Times, the workers ultimately hope to gain access to land in order to set up their own cooperative to directly export our abaca to international markets.

But with the influential company unlikely to give up its land without a fight, the struggle of the Ecuadors abaca workers is far from over. We dont want to be exploited any more. We want a different future, says Susana.

Read the rest here:

In Ecuador, abaca workers are demanding justice and an end to 60 years of modern-day slavery - Equal Times