Where has the time gone? I really can’t believe that we are at the end of the year. I continue to be furious and sometimes despondent about the ongoing Israeli genocide of Palestinians and the genocides in Congo, Sudan, and elsewhere. What more is there to say? What can we do together to end the slaughter and the deathmaking? I don’t know but I figure we should try everything we can. I keep trying to do small things: attending protests, sharing resources with people I know, raising my voice everywhere to say that this is immoral, taking the actions that others suggest to pressure our governments, etc. And yet, it’s not enough, and the question remains: what will end the suffering? My friend, the historian Dan Berger [read Dan’s newest book Stayed on Freedom which is excellent], shared some words on Twitter a couple of weeks ago that resonated deeply with me:
Our actions are working, and they are not enough.
Nothing we do is sufficient, and everything we do matters.
We must be strategic, and we must operate on multiple fronts simultaneously.
Time is of the essence, and we have to act for the long haul.
This is how change happens.
I was so moved by the words that I immediately asked if any artists would be willing to translate the words into visual art. My friend Laura Chow Reeve took up this challenge and produced a lovely poster which she has made available to everyone to freely use. I made some hard copies of the poster which I will be sharing for free at the May Day Social Justice Holiday Market, where I will be tabling on December 16.
I am departing from my regular structure for this edition of my newsletter. As this is a season for sharing gifts, for reflection, and hopefully for some rest, I wanted to share some resources that offer accessible introductions to some abolitionist concepts, ideas, and practices. This is by no means exhaustive and others would include different resources. I hope that these might be useful to open up conversations with your loved ones and communities over the holidays.
I plan to continue this newsletter in 2024. I’ve enjoyed putting it together. I plan to keep it free to anyone who wants to subscribe, so please do share it with others. Some of you have generously made pledges to support the newsletter. I am so grateful for this and for you. I have decided that I will turn the pledges “on” in January 2024. If you know my work, I try to regularly uplift causes that mean something to me. In 2024, I plan to donate whatever is pledged to support various causes. I will select one group, project, or cause each month and donate funds to it based on your support. I hope that those of you who will be paid subscribers feel that this is a good use of the resources you are pledging. So many people and organizations are doing important work and they always need more resources to continue. I’d like to continue to help them.
Speaking of supporting some good causes…If you’re shopping for winter holidays, here are a few items that benefit some great groups.
Notebooks and Print - The wonderful folks at Blackbird Letterpress have partnered with me again this year to create a handmade notebook and a “hope is a discipline” print. 50% of the proceeds from sales support REBUILD and For The People Leftist Library Project.
T-shirts and Totebags - I started a Bonfire store last year and all of the items for sale support organizations and projects doing great work in the world, including the Chicago Freedom School, For The People Leftist Library Project, and the National Network of Abortion Funds.
Candles - Lakewood Wax Co. is generously contributing 25% of candle sales to Survived and Punished NY and REBUILD.
I make no money from the sale of any of these items but I do get the pleasure of supporting groups and organizations that need resources.
Happy holidays to all who celebrate and a very happy New Year! Don’t forget that, as Clarissa Pinkola Estes reminds us, you were made for this.
Prose:
I’ve been returning to this beautiful essay by Susan Raffo often. I so appreciate her discussion of collective care, which she roots in the principles that organize our bodies and other systems of the natural world. She focuses on the idea that nature provides “at least two layers of support” at every stage of life—an inner layer that supports and holds the entity, and an outer layer that provides protection against forces outside. She draws on that pattern to articulate a framework for collective care that is grounded, sturdy, and loving. For more, read Susan’s book.
Abolition For the People is out in paperback (currently 40% off) and I think that it is a very good introduction for anyone curious about prison industrial complex (PIC) abolition. It’s filled with short essays and collates further resources for those who want to dig deeper.
I got so much out of this long read that Grace Glass and Sasha Tycko published recently in n+1. The authors beautifully communicate the experience of deep involvement in Atlanta’s #StopCopCity movement. The participants’ profound relationships to the forest and one another shine through the deeply personal narration, as do the hard intellectual, emotional, and physical work at the center of a sustained, world-building protest movement.
Zines:
These are two zines that I usually share with people who ask me for introductory “what is PIC abolition?” resources. They are a good start because they are short and concrete. Hopefully, they encourage abolition-curious people to delve into other texts and resources to continue their education. These aren’t the definitive words but they are a door.
Practicing Abolition, Creating Community by Benji Hart, designed by Emma Li, and 16 Axioms for Abolitionist Organizing by me, designed by Lizzy Suarez.
Podcast:
PIC abolitionists want to close existing prisons/jails and prevent the building of new ones. I appreciated this podcast as an example of HOW this can be done. In this episode of Alex Chambers’s Inner States podcast, Judah Schept, a professor of justice studies at Eastern Kentucky University, describes how intensive community organizing convinced the federal government to halt its plan to build a federal prison in eastern Kentucky’s Letcher County. Schept does a great job of placing the story—and the ongoing struggle for noncarceral investment in the region—into the wider context of PIC abolition.
I’m biased of course but I love how the One Million Experiments podcast engages people by offering concrete examples of community-based safety interventions, projects, and visions. Each episode feels like a poem and a love letter to builders of community.
Art Matters:
Art is so important, especially because it can help to remove the ceiling from our imaginations. I seek out many different art forms that inspire an abolitionist horizon. Here are a few offerings that I think are wonderful to share with others looking for similar inspiration.
Poems
“Field Trip to the Museum of Human History” by Franny Choi
“The First Week” by Laura Eberly
“Hen March Outlaws Cops” by Guante
Visual Art
Abolitionist Imagination Cards, a project conceived by me and coordinated by Micah Bazant
Music
Abolition by Taina Asili
We Do This Til We Free Us Playlist
Video/Film
Black Futures: Ode to Freedom Summer
Potpourri:
I am raffling a wall quilt created by my friend Rachel Wallis to continue to raise funds for REBUILD. If you donate $25 or more, you can enter the raffle. It ends on December 15 at midnight EST and I’ll let the winner know on December 17.
I love this Meditations project organized by Jana Smith around abolitionist themes.
Johnny Damm’s I’m a Cop: Real Life Horror Comics project brings to life the violence of real comments by police union leaders.
This zine about the work of Queenie’s Crew, an abolitionist learning group for kids and their caregivers founded by my organization Project NIA (which sunsets in just a couple of weeks after 14 yrs), is an amazing resource for caregivers and a ray of light.
I’m obsessed with hot chocolate. Here and here are two of my favorites.
2024 Reading List
These are a few books about the carceral state from my never-diminishing to-read pile that I am prioritizing in 2024:
Gotham’s War Within a War: Policing and the Birth of Law and Order Liberalism in World War II–Era New York City by Emily Brooks - currently 30% off
Rattling the Cages: Oral Histories of North American Political Prisoners edited by Josh Davidson - currently 30% off
Challenging Confinement: Mass Incarceration and the Fight for Equality in Women’s Prisons by Bonnie Ernst
Police and the Empire City: Race and the Origins of Modern Policing in New York by Matthew Guariglia
Prison Capital: Mass Incarceration and Struggles for Abolition Democracy in Louisiana by Lydia Pelot-Hobbs - currently 30% off
After Accountability: A Critical Genealogy of a Concept edited by Pinko
American Purgatory: Prison Imperialism and the Rise of Mass Incarceration by Benjamin Weber
Preordered/Planning to Preorder
The first three books on the following list are ones that I have had the pleasure to read as galleys, and I wrote forewords for two of them. The rest are books that I have or will preorder and am excited to read next year.
Fire Dreams: Making Black Feminist Liberation in the South by Laura McTighe (March 2024) - Preorder your copy today using the code E24MCTGH for a 30% discount
How to Abolish Prisons: Lessons from the Movement by Rachel Herzing and Justin Piché (April 2024)
Abolition and Social Work: Possibilities, Paradoxes, and the Practice of Community Care edited by Mimi Kim, Cameron Rasmussen, and Durrell Washington (April 2024)
The Carceral City: Slavery and the Making of Mass Incarceration in New Orleans, 1803-1930 by John Bardes (April 2024) - currently 30% off
Why Would Feminists Trust the Police? A Tangled History of Resistance and Complicity by Leah Cowan (June 2024)
Hope and Struggle in the Policed City: Black Criminalization and Resistance in Philadelphia by Menika Dirkson (July 2024)
DARE to Say No: Policing and the War on Drugs in Schools by Max Felker-Kantor (April 2024) - currently 30% off
The Warehouse: A Visual Primer on Mass Incarceration by James Kilgore and Vic Liu (March 2024)
The Politics of Safety: The Black Struggle for Police Accountability in LaGuardia’s New York by Shannon King (January 2024) - currently 30% off
Witness: An Insider’s Narrative of the Carceral State by Lyle May (April 2024)
Beyond Policing by Philip V. McHarris (July 2024)
In the Shadow of Liberty: The Invisible History of Immigrant Detention in the United States by Ana Raquel Minian (April 2024)
What Kind of Bird Can't Fly: A Memoir of Resilience and Resurrection by Dorsey Nunn with Lee Romney (April 2024)
Cool Library Thing of the Month
A Prison Library is a Contradiction zine by ALW, a library worker in New York City. They summarize the zine with this important reminder:
Described above are several ways that people doing information work, both inside and outside, have found ways around the brutal limits to information freedom. These are not solutions to the problem of the prison library. Rather they are reactive, protective, and creative responses to the prison. The only solution to the prison library is prison abolition, a revolutionary practice and political vision in which library workers can and must play a role.
See you next year!