# data[].attributes.headline
“Youth Lead Now: Equipping Young Leaders for Social Change”

# data[].attributes.subject
“Youth Lead Now: Equipping Young Leaders for Social Change”

# data[].attributes.body
Samantha Fuentes, a survivor of the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, and leader in March for Our Lives, shared her story of resilience and healing that fuels her commitment “to uplift the voices of the silenced, and remind us that ALL our experiences matter regardless of color, religion, gender, age, or sexual orientation.” Samantha seeks to rally bystanders to participate in change when they witness injustice, because “anything is possible in numbers.”

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
"Where Do We Go From Here? Lessons from Ferguson & Beyond"

June 30, 2020
The Conference's new webinar series to expand racial justice awareness launched with the Rev. Traci Blackmon, Associate General Minister of the United Church of Christ, talking on "Where Do We Go From Here? Lessons from Ferguson & Beyond." She has become a leading national voice in the struggle for racial justice in the aftermath of the killing of Michael Brown, Jr. in Ferguson, Missouri, nearly six years ago.
Watch and listen
"Sacred Disruption: Standing with Jesus at the Corner of 38th & Chicago"

July 15, 2020
Rev. Gary Green and Rev. Dr. Justin Sabia-Tanis, both faculty members at United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities, had a dynamic conversation about how our sacred scriptures and our theologies can help shape our responses to George Floyd's murder and a history of racial oppression. How can we disrupt existing realities to create something new?

"Youth Lead Now: Equipping Young Leaders for Social Change"

August 6, 2020
Samantha Fuentes, a survivor of the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, and leader in March for Our Lives, shared her story of resilience and healing that fuels her commitment "to uplift the voices of the silenced, and remind us that ALL our experiences matter regardless of color, religion, gender, age, or sexual orientation." Samantha seeks to rally bystanders to participate in change when they witness injustice, because "anything is possible in numbers." The webinar was co-moderated by Rev. Kevin Brown and Cecilia Alexander, an intern with the Minnesota Conference UCC helping manage the new youth/young adult Instagram channel and connect youth to social justice opportunities.

Upcoming

Date TBD: Examining racial terrorism in our own Minnesota history. We will revisit the injustices done to indigenous peoples in Minnesota as well as the lynchings of 3 black men in Duluth in 1920.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Justice Talk to Justice Walk: Building Awareness, Strengthening Our Resolve

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
June 30, 2020 The Conference's new webinar series to expand racial justice awareness launched with the Rev. Traci Blackmon, Associate General Minister of the United Church of Christ, talking on "Where Do We Go From Here? Lessons from Ferguson & Beyond."

# data[].attributes.headline
“Sacred Disruption: Standing with Jesus at the Corner of 38th & Chicago”

# data[].attributes.subject
“Sacred Disruption: Standing with Jesus at the Corner of 38th & Chicago”

# data[].attributes.body
Rev. Gary Green and Rev. Dr. Justin Sabia-Tanis, both faculty members at United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities, had a dynamic conversation about how our sacred scriptures and our theologies can help shape our responses to George Floyd’s murder and a history of racial oppression. How can we disrupt existing realities to create something new?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
"Where Do We Go From Here? Lessons from Ferguson & Beyond"

June 30, 2020
The Conference's new webinar series to expand racial justice awareness launched with the Rev. Traci Blackmon, Associate General Minister of the United Church of Christ, talking on "Where Do We Go From Here? Lessons from Ferguson & Beyond." She has become a leading national voice in the struggle for racial justice in the aftermath of the killing of Michael Brown, Jr. in Ferguson, Missouri, nearly six years ago.
Watch and listen
"Sacred Disruption: Standing with Jesus at the Corner of 38th & Chicago"

July 15, 2020
Rev. Gary Green and Rev. Dr. Justin Sabia-Tanis, both faculty members at United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities, had a dynamic conversation about how our sacred scriptures and our theologies can help shape our responses to George Floyd's murder and a history of racial oppression. How can we disrupt existing realities to create something new?

"Youth Lead Now: Equipping Young Leaders for Social Change"

August 6, 2020
Samantha Fuentes, a survivor of the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, and leader in March for Our Lives, shared her story of resilience and healing that fuels her commitment "to uplift the voices of the silenced, and remind us that ALL our experiences matter regardless of color, religion, gender, age, or sexual orientation." Samantha seeks to rally bystanders to participate in change when they witness injustice, because "anything is possible in numbers." The webinar was co-moderated by Rev. Kevin Brown and Cecilia Alexander, an intern with the Minnesota Conference UCC helping manage the new youth/young adult Instagram channel and connect youth to social justice opportunities.

Upcoming

Date TBD: Examining racial terrorism in our own Minnesota history. We will revisit the injustices done to indigenous peoples in Minnesota as well as the lynchings of 3 black men in Duluth in 1920.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Justice Talk to Justice Walk: Building Awareness, Strengthening Our Resolve

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
June 30, 2020 The Conference's new webinar series to expand racial justice awareness launched with the Rev. Traci Blackmon, Associate General Minister of the United Church of Christ, talking on "Where Do We Go From Here? Lessons from Ferguson & Beyond."

# data[].attributes.headline
“Where Do We Go From Here? Lessons from Ferguson & Beyond”

# data[].attributes.subject
“Where Do We Go From Here? Lessons from Ferguson & Beyond”

# data[].attributes.body
The MN Conference UCC’s new webinar series to expand racial justice awareness launched with the Rev. Traci Blackmon, Associate General Minister of the United Church of Christ, talking on “Where Do We Go From Here? Lessons from Ferguson & Beyond.” She has become a leading national voice in the struggle for racial justice in the aftermath of the killing of Michael Brown, Jr. in Ferguson, Missouri, nearly six years ago.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
"Where Do We Go From Here? Lessons from Ferguson & Beyond"

June 30, 2020
The Conference's new webinar series to expand racial justice awareness launched with the Rev. Traci Blackmon, Associate General Minister of the United Church of Christ, talking on "Where Do We Go From Here? Lessons from Ferguson & Beyond." She has become a leading national voice in the struggle for racial justice in the aftermath of the killing of Michael Brown, Jr. in Ferguson, Missouri, nearly six years ago.
Watch and listen
"Sacred Disruption: Standing with Jesus at the Corner of 38th & Chicago"

July 15, 2020
Rev. Gary Green and Rev. Dr. Justin Sabia-Tanis, both faculty members at United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities, had a dynamic conversation about how our sacred scriptures and our theologies can help shape our responses to George Floyd's murder and a history of racial oppression. How can we disrupt existing realities to create something new?

"Youth Lead Now: Equipping Young Leaders for Social Change"

August 6, 2020
Samantha Fuentes, a survivor of the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, and leader in March for Our Lives, shared her story of resilience and healing that fuels her commitment "to uplift the voices of the silenced, and remind us that ALL our experiences matter regardless of color, religion, gender, age, or sexual orientation." Samantha seeks to rally bystanders to participate in change when they witness injustice, because "anything is possible in numbers." The webinar was co-moderated by Rev. Kevin Brown and Cecilia Alexander, an intern with the Minnesota Conference UCC helping manage the new youth/young adult Instagram channel and connect youth to social justice opportunities.

Upcoming

Date TBD: Examining racial terrorism in our own Minnesota history. We will revisit the injustices done to indigenous peoples in Minnesota as well as the lynchings of 3 black men in Duluth in 1920.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Justice Talk to Justice Walk: Building Awareness, Strengthening Our Resolve

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
June 30, 2020 The Conference's new webinar series to expand racial justice awareness launched with the Rev. Traci Blackmon, Associate General Minister of the United Church of Christ, talking on "Where Do We Go From Here? Lessons from Ferguson & Beyond."

# data[].attributes.body
Join Rev. Traci Blackmon for a conversation with Rev. Dr. Allan Boesak & Rev. Dr. Curtiss DeYoung, co-authors of the book: Radical Reconciliation: Beyond Political Pietism and Christian Quietism. (Maryknoll: Orbis. https://www.orbisbooks.com/radical-re...)

Featuring: Rev. Dr. Allan Boesak South African United Reform Church pastor, liberation theologian, anti-apartheid activist, and former chairman of the Western Cape region of the African National Congress (ANC)

Rev. Dr. Curtiss DeYoung Chief Executive Officer of the Minnesota Council of Churches and an ordained minister of The Church of God. He has also served as the Executive Director of Community Renewal Society in Chicago,

Rev. Traci D. Blackmon Associate General Minister of Justice & Local Church Ministries for The United Church of Christ and Senior Pastor of Christ The King United Church of Christ in Florissant, MO.

# data[].attributes.body
This is a new Influencer dedicated to news regarding racism in America and how to change it. I've been watching her videos, and she is super to the point and charismatic!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
News On Purpose. 2K likes. News with Personality and love... Rise then Shine with your girl Jiccarra N. Hollman. I will be bringing you news you can use including: world facts, entertainment, sports,...

# data[].attributes.body
This is a free six week course that people can follow along with; however, you can take as much time on the material as you need. The study guide is just an outline of resources and information.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Mumia Abu Jamal

Abolition is about presence, not absence. It's about building life-affirming institutions. Ruth Wilson Gilmore

TABLE OF CONTENTS

WELCOME
to our introduction to abolitionism!

We invite you to meet our historical moment, in which a Black-led popular uprising, launched in response to the police murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Tony McDade, and the white supremacist killing of Ahmaud Arbery, is spotlighting police violence and racist criminalization. Many people who witnessed the horrifying murder of George Floyd on camera, and are now confronted by the continuation of so much more racist state violence, suddenly feel that abolition can't wait.

As this moment of drastic change continues in rebellion, spreading from Minneapolis to over 2000 cities and towns in the US and many more globally-while police violence continues to mount-we hope you'll join us in radical study. This study holds the promise of both refusal of the current order, and the creation of a new one: sometimes, worlds are created in the midst of uprisings, in mutual aid efforts like the Minneapolis Sanctuary Hotel and the Capitol Hill Organized Protest. These are examples of what we call "making abolitionist worlds".

The essence of abolitionism is the construction of a society without imprisonment and policing.

You may be new to abolition as a movement or concept. While definitions range widely, the essence of abolitionism is the construction of a society without imprisonment and policing. It is about dismantling institutions and systems like prisons, jails, detention centers, psychiatric institutions, policing, immigration restriction, state surveillance, and many others.

However, it is also about building. Prison abolitionists follow those dreamers and warriors who imagined an end to the slave economy and settler colonialism on which the US was founded. We imagine what would be required for a society without prisons, and propose different means to support collective thriving and more effective ways to address harms.

You can read many definitions of abolition-we like this definition from the organization Critical Resistance, whose materials are utilized a lot in this study guide.

By Eileen Jimenez
"This linocut was created with the yəhaw̓ story in mind. 'The Creator has left the sky too low. We are going to have to do something about it, and how can we do that when we do not have a common language? ...We can all learn one word, that is all we need. That word is yəhaw̓ - that means to proceed, to go forward, to do it.' - taqʷšəblu / Vi Hilbert (Upper Skagit) in her telling of Lifting the Sky." This image is available at Amplifier-for more great art and the yəhaw̓ story, check out the yəhaw̓ Indigenous creatives collective.

How to use this guide

What follows is a suggested design for a six-week study group. Each week is organized by theme; we recommend doing the readings/viewings/listening in the order listed. We have included materials that you can read and watch in under 5 hours each week. We hope that you will do what you can, but really, we hope that you'll eventually study more than what we list here-because we know that radical study, often named "political education," is one key to movement-building, and only we can do it for ourselves. Abolition is, in addition to being about dismantling and building, also about transforming things. And perhaps first and foremost, it is about transforming ourselves in concert with others. Sometimes this happens when we study together!

This guide is here for you to self-organize weekly meetings for discussion (remotely or otherwise safely during the COVID crisis) with your friends, co-workers, neighbors, comrades.

We hope that these materials will be both informative and transformative for your group. When you're ready, we have some tips for matching your knowledge with practice: some abolitionist actions are included at the end of this document.

You are asked to obtain just one book to do this introductory series: the classic Are Prisons Obsolete? By Angela Davis. While the book is available for free online, if you have the means to do so, we ask you to consider purchasing it from a Black-owned bookstore (you can order from these) and to continue to buy from them when you read the many recommended books listed in our additional resources!

INTRODUCTION

Podcast: The Case for Aboliton

To begin, listen to the podcast, "Ruth Wilson Gilmore Makes the Case for Abolition".

PART ONE: Ruth Wilson Gilmore Makes the Case for Abolition (Podcast: Intercepted)

PART TWO: Ruth Wilson Gilmore Makes the Case for Abolition (Podcast: Intercepted)

At the start of this interview, Gilmore introduces us to the history of her family. Of her father, who worked both as a union organizer and an antiracist organizer, she says, "he was somebody who saw, long before Black Lives Matter, that when Black people's lives matter, everybody's lives get better."

Here, as in much of her work, Gilmore (affectionately called Ruthie) references the Black radical tradition-both anticapitalist, and Black liberationist-in the spirit of which this study guide is created. Ruthie urges us to board a bus of "dream riders": to join in a multiplicitous abolitionist movement for the end of prisons, in the interest of all. As she often says, "where life is precious, life is precious". She begins our work by showing us that abolition isn't, at its core, about inducing fear or discomfort-though it is often perceived that way.

While those feelings may arise in our study, abolition is a liberatory movement, responding to the "organized abandonment of vulnerable populations" that forms the conditions in which the prison industrial complex arises today. In response to this system of abandonment and violence, abolitionists strive to "make freedom out of what we have:" to reduce harm and clear the way for our radical imagination to materialize into the potential for a world in which everyone can have a chance to survive and thrive.

Video: Abolition 101
https://youtu.be/L1r-hYCiYyo
For an introduction to abolitionist theory as a supplement to the current uprising, we recommend that you watch or listen to Abolition Collective member Orisanmi Burton's June 2020 presentation, Abolition 101 (this 30 minute lecture begins at the 6:45 mark). In addition to the dual sense of refusal of the current order and the "yes" that abolitionist alternatives offer, Burton further understands abolitionism as a lens.

Abolitionism takes the criminal punishment system as a "strategic site to focus our attention, because it's a site in which many of the contradictions that are present throughout the society are concentrated." Using "abolitionist historiography", Burton examines historical and contemporary examples of policing to reveal the criminal punishment system as a mode for enacting class warfare: securing racial hierarchy to maintain property at the expense of life. Through struggle against the injustice secured by this system, Burton argues, we enter a collective, humanizing process. This "101" introduces many key features of the abolitionist movement that this study guide explores.

WEEK ONE
Prisons and Policing in the U.S. as a History of anti-Blackness

Here's what you'll be studying this week

This week introduces both policing and the US prison system as a continuation of anti-Black racism in chattel slavery.

As historian Khalil Gibran Muhammad explains, the system of policing in the US emerged to control Black people through brutal force, both in the South and the North. This week, you'll listen to a podcast featuring Muhammad, who explains that one origin of the contemporary police were "slave patrols," in which all white men were required to participate; these patrols enforced the "slave codes," the laws governing enslaved people, and were meant to prevent rebellion, through surveillance and brutal punishment. Following emancipation, the "Black Codes", the growth of a prison-plantation system, and the rise of white vigilante groups all enshrined the criminalization of Blackness as the method to extend racial hierarchy. As Jim Crow was solidified and Black people fled the violence of the South in the early to mid 20th century, police were key to securing segregation and racial oppression across the US. Muhammad describes the early US police force as "a critical feature of establishing a racial hierarchy-even among white people," as immigrants and ethnic white populations became subjects for racist, classist policing.

Together with a chapter from Are Prisons Obsolete?, this week introduces both policing and the US prison system as a continuation of anti-Black racism in chattel slavery. Angela Davis considers the modern prison, designed as a humanitarian reform that would supplant more brutal punishment, as another in a series of racist institutions that appeared permanent: slavery, lynching, and segregation. For the next five weeks, we will follow Davis' charge to imagine the impermanence of the prison and the entire criminal punishment system as a racist regime.

As Davis argues, the fact that US prisons and policing developed in the context of anti-Blackness, the slave codes, and the convict lease system does not mean that state punishment has refrained from attacks on other populations; indeed, she argues, anti-Asian, Latinx and Native racisms "congeal and combine in the prison." This week, Orosco's new essay details police racialization of Chicanxs, while the link to the website "States of Incarceration" focuses on the example of Minnesota's history to show the ways that settler colonialism relied on incarceration as a colonizing tactic. Finally, Dylan Rodríguez names the importance of culture, even more than "facts," to demonstrate the necessity of joint struggle for humanization in the face of violent systems of racialized social control.

Listen

Throughline: American Police (1 hour podcast)

Read

Angela Davis, Are Prisons Obsolete? Chapter 2: "Slavery, Civil Rights, and Abolitionist Perspectives Toward Prison"

Read

Joseph Orosco, "Lessons About Police Brutality From the Chicanx Experience"

View

Website: States of Incarceration: Minnesota

Watch

Dylan Rodríguez, Abolition is our Obligation (6 minute video)

WEEK TWO
The Prison Industrial Complex

Here's what you'll be studying this week

The PIC is a web of productive forces: a system that claims to resolve a problem (the problem of "crime") but that in fact relies on and reproduces that problem, industriously and often, profitably.

As Mary Hooks says in the first video for this week, the Prison Industrial Complex, or PIC, is a vast and complex "web." It has been named and defined in large part through the work of the organization Critical Resistance, which was founded in 1999, after the conference, "Critical Resistance: Beyond the Prison Industrial Complex" took place at UC Berkeley. This gathering joined formerly incarcerated people, activists, revolutionaries, academics (and some people who were more than one, even all of those) to create a movement against the prison and policing as anchors of US governance, and as corollaries to the US in its global role as the "policeman of the world." Critical Resistance defines the PIC as "the overlapping interests of government and industry that use surveillance, policing, and imprisonment as solutions to economic, social and political problems." When we speak of the PIC, we speak of the massification of the prison and policing, and their extension into every facet of life.

The PIC is a web of productive forces: a system that claims to resolve a problem (the problem of "crime") but that in fact relies on and reproduces that problem, industriously and often, profitably. As Eve Goldberg and Linda Evans write in a pamphlet that is now nearly 25 years old-but still, sadly, too relevant- "Like the military industrial complex, the prison industrial complex is an interweaving of private and government interests. Its twofold purpose is profit and social control. Its public rationale is the fight against crime."

The PIC is industrial: it is linked to industry, even when it's purportedly a public, state service. As Mia Armstrong explains, "private prisons house only a twelfth of the country's prisoners," but outsourcing produces a link between public prisons and private business, as does the "prison economy," the extremely underpaid, productive labor that incarcerated people do. Systems of policing and imprisonment have expanded in the neoliberal era (the last 50 years), and their tactics have been replicated in bordering and immigration control, school systems, and in health and social services.

As the prison system expanded in the 1980s and 90s, privatization increased; as Livia Luan writes, private prison companies now manage much of the massive, carceral system that targets migrants. Many industries and governmental functions are now entwined with the prison, and large swaths of the population are swept into its reach as employees, employers, as criminalized targets, and their family, friends and communities-as Brett Story's film, The Prison in 12 Landscapes, eloquently documents.

Watch

Mary Hooks, "What is the Prison Industrial Complex?" (1 minute video)

Watch

Angela Davis, "The Shifting Concept of the Prison Industrial Complex" (4 minute video)

Watch

Ruth Wilson Gilmore, "When the Prison Industrial Complex Masquerades as Social Welfare" (3 minute video)

Read

Eve Goldberg and Linda Evans, "The Prison Industrial Complex and the Global Economy"

Read

Mia Armstrong, "Here's Why Abolishing Private Prisons Isn't a Silver Bullet"

View

Chart: Mass Incarceration and more data visualizations on current prisons and policing at the Prison Policy Initiative

Read

Livia Luan, "Profiting from Enforcement: The Role of Private Prisons in U.S. Immigration Detention"

Recommended film: Brett Story, The Prison in 12 Landscapes

Recommended: watch film

WEEK THREE:
Policing and Imprisonment as Racial Violence

Here's what you'll be studying this week

Now that we've seen a history of the police and prisons as modes for securing race-class hierarchy in the US, and we understand the massive growth of the carceral system in recent US history and its extended reach into all facets of life, we consider, once again, the way that Blackness is criminalized and Black people are targeted for policing.

Michelle Alexander-whose book, The New Jim Crow, is recommended for future reading (especially chapters 1 and 2)-argues that US legal practice creates a racial "caste system," as the criminalization of Blackness takes hold both in the courts, and many other cultural realms.

In this week's reading, Mariame Kaba's essay, "Summer Heat," emphasizes the genocidal effects of police violence, much of which occurs under the auspices of the "War on Drugs," as Jay-Z and Molly Crabapple's short video shows.

The website "mapping police violence", our next source, helps us consider the current, horrifying state of police murder. We can begin to understand patterns of police violence through demographic demarcations: urban and rural populations, as well as by race-and by particular police departments. As former political prisoner and current organizer with RAPP, Laura Whitehorn, explains in a short video, the historical advent of mass incarceration of Black, Indigenous, and other people of color attacked revolutionary movements, and continues to disempower entire communities who might otherwise have more strength to agitate for social and political change. However, it is important to note that while police are twice as likely to use force against people of color, as this chart shows, and communities of color and immigrant populations are subject to disproportionate state violence, nearly half of police killings in the U.S. are of white people. Indeed, white people-complexly bifurcated by ethnicity, ability, region, and class-are vulnerable to violent police control and the criminal punishment system. How do we account for this?

We turn to the notion of "racial capitalism", which Ruth Wilson Gilmore explores in a 16-minute film. This documentary begins with a discussion of capitalism's emergence in Europe. As Gilmore claims, and as Cedric Robinson theorized in the foundational text, Black Marxism, inequalities and enslavement among the people of Western Europe forms the historical basis of capitalism; this European social hierarchy emerges through racial practices. Therefore, Gilmore argues, antiracism is and must be anticapitalist:

"capitalism won't stop being racial capitalism if all the white people disappear from the story. Capitalism requires inequality, and racism enshrines it."

To understand today's PIC as a racial system, we recommend watching the first hour of Ava Duvernay's extremely popular film, 13th, which gathers many short clips from activists, political figures, and scholars to offer an overall picture of the reality of prisons and policing as anti-Black violence, created by consensus of the US political class (both Democratic and Republican parties). However, we want to issue a warning: the film includes many images of racist violence against Black people, including lynching. Duvernay also includes a clip from the dramatized narrative film, 12 Years a Slave, that depicts a slaveowner raping an enslaved woman, and then striking her violently. We ask you to consider not watching that scene, which runs for 20 seconds: from 33:40 to the 34:00 minute mark.

This week's study shows that the struggle against anti-Black police violence is consistent over time. This subjection to violence produces feelings of rage, which June Jordan's poem evokes.

Read

Mariame Kaba, "Summer Heat"

Watch

Jay-Z and Molly Crabapple, "The War on Drugs is an Epic Fail" (4 minute video)

Explore

This website: Mapping Police Violence

Watch

Laura Whitehorn, "The Effects of Mass Incarceration" (5 minute video)

Watch

"Geographies of Racial Capitalism with Ruth Wilson Gilmore" (16 minute video)

Watch

The first hour of this film: Ava Duvernay,

Poem

June Jordan, "Poem About Police Violence"

WEEK FOUR
Reformist Reforms vs. Abolitionist Steps

Here's what you'll be studying this week

Much of the discussion of prisons and policing as problems circles around the notion of reform. We begin this week with an 11-minute discussion from Gilmore, who advocates for abolition, rather than reform, as an "offense" against the violent conditions of racial capitalism, with "aspirational" human rights as a paradigm shift that can honor all peoples' lives, without making problematic demarcations between the "criminals" and the "innocents" that reformist efforts preserve. Gilmore briefly considers several examples that make this point, beginning with the demands of prisoners on hunger strike in California. We might think of these demands as "non-reformist reforms". Hunger strikers had several demands: one was to have a way to get out of solitary confinement-a form of torture that some had been subject to for decades. Another demand was for adequate nutrition. These demands were refused, but if they were met, they would be "reforms" that would help prisoners' lives-working to abolish, rather than preserve, the prison. Considering the problem of the PIC from the point of view of the criminalized and incarcerated, Gilmore argues-in harmony with Spade, Bassichis, and Lee, whose work we read next week-there is another way: we can create abolitionist movements "with all we've got".

Many proposals for police reform that consistently fail to eradicate police violence, allowing for the continued circumstance in which police violence is blamed on a few "bad apples".

For this week's reading, we consider the possibilities imagined for reform through an investigation into the recent history of police reforms which, as Alex S. Vitale argues, do not achieve their stated aims-decreasing racist violence, for instance-but rather, extend funding and grow the reach of police. Vitale's chapter addresses contemporary incidents, like the "broken windows policing" that led to the murder of Eric Garner, and reviews the many proposals for police reform that consistently fail to eradicate police violence, allowing for the continued circumstance in which police violence is blamed on a few "bad apples". Vitale argues for the replacement of police with increased access to democracy that can challenge race-class inequality.

For a deeper exploration of the history of criminal punishment as a history of reform, we recommend reading chapter three from Are Prisons Obsolete?, where Davis reveals that the advent of the prison, in the 18th-19th centuries, was a product of reform movements that sought to end more brutal punishments that preceded incarceration. Even solitary confinement, widely viewed as a form of torture, and in no way linked to hope for "rehabilitation" today, was conceived as a rehabilitative reform, meant to discipline the "habits and ethics" of the white working class. Today, prisoners often have to fight for their right to transformative or rehabilitative processes like access to books, spiritual practice, exercise and educational programs. Prisons have largely ceased to even claim to rehabilitate, but rather are known to warehouse surplus populations.

Having considered the relationship between reform and the growth of the policing and punishment systems, we now ask you to study the infographic created by Critical Resistance: "Reformist Reforms vs. Abolitionist Steps in Policing," which distinguishes between "reformist reforms which continue or expand the reach of policing, and abolitionist steps that work to chip away and reduce its overall impact." Looking closely, we see that Critical Resistance argues against increasing police training. Instead, they argue for defunding. As Rachel Herzing writes, the function of policing is "armed protection of state interests." Herzing examines recent reform efforts, arguing instead that we "take steps forward toward a future free of the violence of policing."

In a Critical Resistance video, Kamau Walton argues that policing cannot be reformed, nor outsourced to "community control", because it's working as intended: to oppress, disempower and further marginalize particular populations. Yet this powerful argument is up to debate, as some new initiatives in Black-led radical movements show. Here, we want to highlight this debate to begin to show the scope of possibilities offered in the current movement to overturn state racism. Max Rameau and Netfa Freeman describe the Community Control Over Police initiative of DC's Pan-African Community Action (PACA) to shift power to Black working class masses. Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò argues that community control provides a bedrock for defunding and abolitionist efforts to operate independently of the state. These examples show different attempts to dismantle repressive state institutions and to defend the lives of communities made vulnerable by state violence.

Watch

Ruth Wilson Gilmore, "Don't Reform Prisons, Abolish Them" (11 minute video)

Read

Alex S. Vitale, The End of Policing, chapter 1: "The Limits of Police Reform"

Recommended: Read

Angela Davis, Are Prisons Obsolete? Chapter 3, "Imprisonment and Reform"

Study

This chart: Reformist Reforms vs. Abolitionist Steps in Policing

Read

Rachel Herzing, "Big Dreams and Bold Steps Toward a Police-Free Future"

Watch

Kamau Walton, "What's Wrong with Community Control of Police?" (5 minute video)

Read

Max Rameau and Netfa Freeman, "Community Control v. Defunding the Police: A Critical Analysis"

Read

Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò, "Power Over the Police"

WEEK FIVE
Feminist, Queer and Trans Abolitionism

Here's what you'll be studying this week

This section examines abolitionist praxis as central to the aims of trans, queer, and feminist liberation, which we begin to consider through review of a document produced in the movement against gender-based violence 40 years ago.

We explore a common criticism of abolition: "what about rape and domestic violence?" Don't perpetrators of misogynist, homophobic, or transphobic violence "deserve" incarceration-or some kind of state punishment?

Criminal punishment responses to gender-based violence overwhelmingly increase state violence without abolishing sexism.

Advocating for state punishment in order to alleviate the problem of gender-based violence is a strategy that abolitionists critically name "carceral feminism", and as Mariame Kaba shows in this "new zine", the current outcome-that carceral feminists hold sway in the movement against gender-based violence-was not uncontested. Kaba re-published this 1977 "Open Letter to the Anti-Rape Movement" to emphasize that feminist antiviolence activists have questioned the role of law enforcement for forty years, but their critique has been demobilized by the professionalization of the movement and its co-optation in nonprofits, a hallmark of neoliberalism.

As many anti violence activists agree, criminal punishment responses to gender-based violence overwhelmingly increase state violence without abolishing sexism. This is a critique that has been historically repeated and revisited: nearly twenty years ago, the organization INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence joined with PIC abolitionist organization Critical Resistance to urge us to "develop responses to gender violence that do not depend on a sexist, racist, classist, and homophobic criminal justice system." This foundational document of abolitionist feminism stands against the misconception that abolitionists sideline the very real problem of the interpersonal violence and harm that is endemic to life in heteropatriarchy.

Instead, feminist, queer and trans abolitionists question whether state punishment responses to abuse, harassment, and sexual violence are effective at ending violence or, indeed, even intended to be so. As Victoria Law notes, the irony of carceral feminism is that it "does not acknowledge that police are often purveyors of violence and that prisons are always sites of violence." Further, carceral feminism "ignores the ways in which race, class, gender identity, and immigration status leave certain women more vulnerable to violence and that greater criminalization often places these same women at risk of state violence." Against criminal punishment responses to harm, as abolitionist feminists, it is upon us to imagine and enact transformative approaches that truly address and uproot gender-based violence, leaving no one behind.

In our final reading for this week, Bassichis, Lee and Spade begin with the rebellious energy of the "sexual and gender outsiders," principally people of color, who mobilized in the Stonewall uprising that is often considered the catalyst of the modern LBGTQ+ movement. This essay begins with a chart that highlights the difference between elite-driven "official solutions" to big problems, which privilege those constituencies most likely to already have some privilege, contrasted with "transformative approaches" that radical movements utilize to build solidarity and advocate for collective well-being. Bassichis, Lee and Spade carefully and plainly explain the ways that progressive, even radical movements have been driven towards these "official solutions" due to the strategies of global capital and neoliberal governance in the last 40 years.

Now that you've heard all about the demobilization and co-optation of our antiviolence feminist, queer and trans liberation movements, want to spend some time with a real revolutionary, who was at the Stonewall uprising and dedicated her entire life to the ethic of mutual aid in the service of survival and thriving for trans people who are targeted by the punishment system? Watch the film Major! -we're not crying, you're crying.

Read or listen

"New Zine: Letter to the Anti-Rape Movement" Mariame Kaba 2020/Santa Cruz Women Against Rape 1977

Read

INCITE-Critical Resistance Statement on Gender Violence and the Prison Industrial Complex. This classic document, nearly 20 years old, is soon to be updated!

Read

Victoria Law, "Against Carceral Feminism"

Explore

This website (and new recommended book!): Invisible No More: Police Violence Against Black Women and Women of Color

Read

Spade, Bassichis, and Lee, "Building a Queer and Trans Abolitionist Movement with All We've Got"

Recommended

WEEK SIX:
Abolitionist Alternatives

Here's what you'll be studying this week

The final chapter of Angela Davis's book explores the question that so many of us ask about abolition: " If jails and prisons are to be abolished, then what will replace them?" A similar question that has come up in current anti-police protests is, " if police are to be defunded or abolished, what will replace them?" As you know now-if you didn't before-abolitionists consider jails, prisons, and police, or the entire "criminal punishment system", as a site for the production of great harm, and we don't believe they need to be "replaced." On the other hand, abolitionists have taken up the charge of addressing the problems that police and prisons purport to resolve: problems of social harm and violence, often interpersonal violence-you can start with a comic that explains just this. Rejecting the notion of "crime" that falsely categorizes some as "innocent" while others are "guilty," instead, abolitionists focus on the problem of harm.

Davis begins chapter six asking us to question the notion of punishment, and instead urges us to use our radical imagination to

" envision a continuum of alternatives to imprisonment-demilitarization of schools, revitalization of education at all levels, a health system that provides free physical and mental care to all, and a justice system based on reparation and reconciliation rather than retribution and vengeance."

Her chapter begins by rejecting the criminalization of drug use, sex work, and migration, strategizing for an end to sexist violence, and advocating for a vastly expanded social safety net. Davis ends by considering an entirely new justice system, with the example of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa, for those times when people perpetuate violence.

This brings us back to the idea of transformative justice. As we began to learn last week, transformative justice is an experimental set of practices designed in large part by feminists who seek to address and "transform harm," as Kaba writes, through methods of accountability and healing that avoid reproducing the harms associated with the punitive justice system.

Here, we offer several examples from community-based organizations that have worked to transform harm by ending policing, providing interpersonal accountability and healing models, and increasing community-based resources that offer everyone a chance to thrive. What would a world based on transformative justice look like? To begin, it would be one that would completely overturn the ableist basis of capitalism-as Patty Berne writes, disability justice is a "vision and practice of a yet-to-be, a map that we create with our ancestors and our great grandchildren onward, in the width and depth of our multiplicities and histories, a movement towards a world in which every body and mind is known as beautiful."

When we make abolitionist worlds-when we attempt to build harm-free zones, for example-we're creating that map. We end this week, and our study series, with Nick Estes, who revisits anticolonial movements that "co-create liberated spaces and communities of freedom," aligning our present with the legacies of resistance we choose to extend.

Read: Angela Davis, Are Prisons Obsolete? Chapter 6, "Abolitionist Alternatives"

Watch

Andrea Ritchie, "Building Alternatives is Everyone's Job" (5 minute video)

Watch

Videos: Building Accountable Communities (scroll down to watch four 5-minute video conversations between Kiyomi Fujikawa and Shannon Perez-Darby)

Explore

Here are some community-based programs from the Bay Area and Sacramento that have created modes of community-based safety. These "abolitionist alternatives" are experimental projects that can provide models and knowledge for other contexts.

Read

Patty Berne, "Disability Justice: A Working Draft by Patty Berne"

Read

Nick Estes, "Freedom is a Place"

ABOLITIONIST ACTIONS

Now that you've studied, it's time for putting abolition into action! The process of "praxis" is one of combined thought and action. We hope that you will act, and study, and act again, and return to your studies as you grow your revolutionary practice. We're inspired by the Critical Resistance slogan: "Dismantle. Change. Build." As abolitionists, we want to change everything. Through both "dismantling" and "building," these action ideas are meant to do just that.

Dismantle

Did you see them burn down the Minneapolis police station? Is that a possibility in your locale?

Did you know that Minneapolis city council voted to dismantle their police department? Campaigns to defund the police-to shrink their budget, curtail their reach, and to limit their presence-are underway in many cities, but it's up to abolitionists to keep our advocacy strong, holding officials accountable to the aims of our liberation movements. This is happening everywhere! For example, in Durham, North Carolina, the group Durham Beyond Policing has built a successful coalition against the growth of policing.

The violence of the punishment state and the racial capitalism that deals in death-making poverty and criminalization deserve nothing but our energy for destruction. In the spirit of the Minneapolis Uprising, we want to organize, riot, protest and strike! Let's join the resistance. Now is the time.

Maybe you'll join a campaign, or otherwise help people gather in your school district, city or town to reduce the police budget and put that money into Black and brown communities. For some practical steps that might work in your region, see this #M4BL toolkit: "Interrupting Criminalization". You might prevent a new jail from being built, work to disband a school police program, or grow abolition on your campus. Maybe you'll join a movement to abolish the police, and to free everyone held in your local prison, jail, or detention center!

Build

Care for each other. Commit to mutual aid (you probably already do it!). While you're out there practicing it-here are a few more resources for your exploration of mutual aid.

Try some abolitionist mutual aid. These are small actions that can support incarcerated people right now.

Plan a letter-writing event! Incarcerated people are far too isolated, and may be in need of communication. See the guide from the organization Survived and Punished here.

Get involved with a books-to-prisoners program! This national list includes many.

Join the call to #FreeThemAll -none of us are free while some of us are caged.

Free Them All 4 Public Health

Release Aging People in Prison: RAPP

End youth incarceration: support Project Nia

Mobilize: contribute to bail funds, and advocate for political prisoners. Providing bail is an immediate way to open a cage. Mutual aid means caring for all people, never distinguishing between those who are or aren't "deserving" of a chance for well-being. To care for incarcerated people, our goal is to #FreeThemAll.

To build the next world while this one breaks down, we want to highlight mutual aid-it's not merely an action, but an ethical practice we can all get into. Mutual aid contradicts capitalist hierarchy by emphasizing the truth of our interconnection. One mutual aid slogan, "we keep us safe," was popularized both in the COVID crisis and the 2020 uprising against anti-Black violence and policing. This slogan expresses the anticapitalist feminist notion that people caring for one another is at the heart of a safer, healthier, and more abundant world. For a great resource to learn about and participate in mutual aid, check out Big Door Brigade.

Keep up your study and keep acting upon it! Imagine. What will you do to make abolitionist worlds? The possibilities are never ending.

Sometimes fire takes the forest so that new things can grow. A clearing. After the fire burns and the smoke settles, the soil is left replenished, fertile and alive. Forest fires make way for the sun to touch the earth so wildflowers can break through. A diversity of insects, plants and animals are allowed to generate and thrive while monocultures, disease and invasive species are restrained. Nature reminds us that healing is a process and it takes many roles to support an ecosystem. We don't have everything we need in this moment to restore ourselves and our communities, but we have enough to begin.

Art and writing by Jared Ingebretson and Nikki Ann

We hope you do more!
FURTHER INVESTIGATION

Critical Resistance, "Breaking Down the Prison Industrial Complex" video series

Reading Towards Abolition: A Reading List on Policing, Rebellion, and the Criminalization of Blackness

Prisons, Policing, and Punishment Resource Guide

Khalil Gibran Muhammad, The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America

Angela Davis, Abolition Democracy: Beyond Empire, Prisons, and Torture

Kelly Lytle Hernández, Migra! A History of the U.S. Border Patrol

Julia Sudbury, Global Lockdown: Race, Gender, and the Prison-Industrial Complex

Week 1 (Prisons and Policing in the U.S. as a History of anti-Blackness) further investigation:

Angela Davis, Are Prisons Obsolete? Chapter 5, "The Prison Industrial Complex"

Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis and Opposition in Globalizing California

Harsha Walia, Undoing Border Imperialism, especially chapter 1: "What is Border Imperialism?"

Jackie Wang, Carceral Capitalism

Robert T. Chase, Caging Borders and Carceral States: Incarcerations, Immigration Detentions, and Resistance

Tara Herivel and Paul Wright eds., Prison Profiteers: Who Makes Money From Mass Incarceration

Marc Mauer, Race to Incarcerate

Week 2 (The Prison Industrial Complex) further investigation:

"Race, Policing, and the Dangers of 'Living While Black'

"Black Lives Matter: A Commentary on Racism and Public Health"

JSTOR: Structural Racism Syllabus

Tricia Rose, "How Structural Racism Works" (one hour lecture)

Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow (we recommend chapter 2)

Barbara Ransby, Making All Black Lives Matter: Reimagining Freedom in the 21st Century

The Center for Popular Democracy, Law for Black Lives, & BYP100, Freedom to Thrive: Reimagining Safety & Security in our Communities

Mia McKenzie, The Solidarity Struggle: How People of Color Succeed and Fail At Showing Up For Each Other In the Fight For Freedom

Robert Nichols. "The colonialism of incarceration." Radical Philosophy Review 17.2 (2014): 435- 455

Heidi Kiiwetinepinesiik Stark. "Criminal Empire: The Making of the Savage in a Lawless Land." Theory & Event Vol. 19, Iss. 4, (2016)

Luana Ross, Inventing the Savage: The Social Construction of Native American Criminality, University of Austin Press, 1998.

Week 3 (Policing and Imprisonment as Racial Violence) further investigation:

Week 4 (Reformist Reforms vs. Abolitionist Steps) further investigation:

INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence, The Color of Violence Anthology

Victoria Law, Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated Women

Beth E. Richie, Arrested Justice: Black Women, Violence, and America's Prison Nation

Emily Thuma, All Our Trials: Prisons, Policing and the Feminist Fight to End Violence

Dean Spade, "Their Laws Will Never Make Us Safer"

Cathy Cohen, "#DoBlackLivesMatter? From Michael Brown toCeCe McDonald: On Black Death and LGBTQ Politics" (transcribed lecture)

Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries: Survival, Revolt, and Queer Antagonist Struggle

Eric Stanley and Nat Smith, Captive Genders: Trans Embodiment and the Prison Industrial Complex

Tommi Avicoli Mecca, Smash the Church, Smash the State: The Early Years of Gay Liberation

Watch film: Susan Stryker, Screaming Queens! Riot at Compton's Cafeteria

Watch film: Jacqueline Gares,

Community-based organizations:

More Organizations and Projects:

Resources:

Readings:

Week 5 (Feminist, Queer and Trans Abolitionism) further investigation:

Week 6 (Abolitionist Alternatives) further investigation:

LIBERATORY STUDY

Today's abolitionist movement is formed through the lived conditions of our time; these same forces formed historical freedom struggles. As PIC abolitionists, we are not only descendents of these struggles-we are their continuation. All the very different revolutionaries and radicals who we cite in this document hold a common belief that a more just world is possible, and that we can join in struggle to make it so.

Today's movement for the abolition of policing and prisons seeks to end dehumanization and punishment enacted through race, class, nationality, gender, sex, sexuality, and ability. As such, PIC abolitionism is consonant with other movements that share this goal. At the start of our study, Ruth Wilson Gilmore proclaimed that today's abolitionism "must be green, must be red, and must be international." This guide has offered little of that! Here are some resources to continue and expand our liberatory study.

The "Daily Realities of Prison Life": Ear Hustle podcast

Listen to Mumia Abu Jamal: Prison Radio

George Jackson, Soledad Brother: The Prison Writings of George Jackson

Leonard Peltier, Prison Writings

Dan Berger, Captive Nation: Black Prison Organizing in the Civil Rights Era

Time Blunk and Raymond Luc Levasseur, Hauling up the Morning/Izando la Mañana: Writings & Art by Political Prisoners & Prisoners of War in the U.S.

Joy James, The New Abolitionists: (Neo)slave Narratives And Contemporary Prison Writings

Dylan Rodriguez, Forced Passages: Imprisoned Racial Intellectuals and the U.S. Prison Regime

Barbara Harlow, Barred: Women, Writing, and Political Detention

Nahla Abdo, Captive Revolution: Palestinian Women's Anti-Colonial Struggle Within the Israeli Prison System

Prisoner Movement Organizations and Projects (Just a few)

Please note that a lot of people contributed to this incomplete suggestion for introductory resources on many movements. They're not in any particular order-just dive in!

Nick Estes, Our History is the Future: Standing Rock and the Dakota Access Pipeline

Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz, An Indigenous People's History of the United States

Vine Deloria, Custer Died for Your Sins

Jaskiran Dhillon, Prairie Rising: Indigenous Youth, Decolonization, and the Politics of Intervention

Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, As We Have Always Done

Glen Coulthard, Red Skin, White Masks

Kelly Lytle Hernández, City of Inmates: Conquest, Rebellion, and the Rise of Human Caging in Los Angeles, 1771-1965

Heid E. Erdrich, R. Vincent Moniz, Jr., and Jonathan Thunder, Pre-Occupied (film).

Leanne Simpson "An Indigenous View on #Black Lives Matter"

Justin Leroy, "Black History in Occupied Territory: On the Entanglements of Slavery and Settler Colonialism"

Native Liberation Organizations and Projects (Just a few!)

Prisoners' movements, prisoners' writing

Native liberation

Kimberlé Crenshaw, "The Urgency of Intersectionality" (TedTalk)

Anzaldúa and Moraga, This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color

Angela Davis, Women, Race and Class

The Combahee River Collective, "A Black Feminist Statement" (1977)

Gloria Anzaldúa, Borderlands/La Frontera

Sonia Shah, Dragon Ladies: Asian American Feminists Breathe Fire

Rabab Abdulhadi, Nadine Naber, and Evelyn Alsultani, Arab and Arab American Feminisms: Gender, Violence and Belonging

Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Spill: Scenes of Black Feminist Fugitivity

Negar Mottahedeh, Whisper Tapes: Kate Millett in Iran

Sara Ahmed, Living a Feminist Life

Silvia Federici, Caliban and the Witch: Women, The Body, and Primitive Accumulation

Zillah Eisenstein, Abolitionist Socialist Feminism: Radicalizing the Next Revolution

Antiracist Feminist Organizations and Projects (just a few!)

SisterSong: Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective

Asian American Feminist Collective

GABRIELA National Alliance of Women: "for the liberation of all oppressed Filipino women and the rest of our people"

Incite! network of radical feminists of color organizing to end state violence and violence in our homes and communities.

The #MeToo Movement Website: metoomvmnt.org

Disability justice

Joel Olson, The Abolition of White Democracy

Becky Thmopson, A Promise and a Way of Life

Mab Segrest, Memoir of a Race Traitor

Hilary Moore and James Tracy, No Fascist USA! The John Brown Anti-Klan Committee

Alex Zamalin, Antiracism: An Introduction

Noel Ignative and John Garvey, Race Traitor

Facilitating growth: an antiracist resource for white people

White Antiracist Organizing and Projects (just a few!)

Antiracist Feminisms

Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine

George Lipsitz, The Possessive Investment in Whiteness: How White People Profit from Identity Politics

Nancy McLean, Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right's Stealth Plan for America

David Talbot, The Devil's Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government

Christopher Leonard, Kochland: The Secret History of Koch Industries and Corporate Power in America

AC Thompson's reports on US Neo-Nazi movements: Frontline and ProPublica

White antiracism

Robert Vitalis, White World Order, Black Power Politics: The Birth of American International Relations

Michael Mann, Incoherent Empire

Arundhati Roy, War Talk

Juan Gonzalez, Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America

Greg Grandin, Empire's Workshop: Latin America, the United States, and the Rise of the New Imperialism

Nikhil Pal Singh, Race and America's Long War

Mahmood Mamdani, Good Muslim, Bad Muslim

Faisal Devji, The Terrorist in Search of Humanity

Rashid Khalidi, The Hundred Years War on Palestine

Cynthia Enloe, Nimo's War, Emma's War: Making Feminist Sense of the Iraq War

Nadje Al-Ali & Nicola Pratt, What Kind of Liberation? Women and the Occupation of Iraq

Adam Shatz, "'Orientalism', Then and Now"

Daniel Immerwahr, How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States

Yanis Varoufakis, Adults in the Room: My Battle with the European and American Deep Establishment

Anti-Imperialist Projects:

US Capitalism, Whiteness, and the Right

Julie A. Dowling and Jonathan Xavier Inda, Governing Immigration Through Crime: A Reader

Martha Escobar, Captivity Beyond Prisons: Criminalization Experiences of Latina (Im)migrants

Tanya Golash-Boza, Deported: Immigrant Policing, Disposable Labor and Global Capitalism

Jenna M. Lloyd, Andre Burridge, and Matt Mitchelson, Beyond Walls and Cages: Prisons, Borders, and Global Crisis

Shannon Speed, Incarcerated Stories: Indigenous Women Migrants and Violence in the Settler-Capitalist State, especially chapter 3, "Perilous Passages: The Neoliberal Multicultural Settler State

Listen: Rustbelt Abolition Podcast - Queering Abolition (features two Tucson organizers who are leading abolitionists efforts for LGBTQIA (im)migrants in detention.

Listen: Radio Cachimbona Podcast - Immigration lawyer and abolitionist deconstructs the criminalization of (im)migrants.

Migrant Justice Organizations (just a few!):

Against Imperialism

Migrant Justice

Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth

Frantz Fanon, A Dying Colonialism

Amilcar Cabral, Resistance and Decolonization

Aimé Cesaire, Discourse on Colonialism

Assata Shakur, Assata: An Autobiography

Subcomandante Marcos, Conversations with Durito

Vijay Prashad, The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World

Max Elbaum, "What Legacy from the Radical Internationalism of 1968?"

Alex Lubin, Geographies of Liberation: The Making of an Afro-Arab Political Imaginary

Angela Davis, Freedom is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement

Abolitionism and Education

James Baldwin, The Fire This Time

Robin D. G. Kelley, Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination

Kimberly Springer, Living for the Revolution: Black Feminist Organizations 1968-1980

Keeanga Yamahtta Taylor, How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective

Bloom and Martin, Black Against Empire: The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party

Pamela Pennock, The Rise of the Arab-American Left

Karen L. Ishizuka, Serve the People: Making Asian America in the Long Sixties

Johanna Fernández, The Young Lords: A Radical History

Maylei Blackwell, Chicana Power! Contested Histories of Feminism in the Chicano Movement

George Katsiaficas, The Imagination of the New Left: A Global Analysis of 1968

Dohrn, Ayers and Jones, Sing a Battle Song: The Revolutionary Poetry, Statements, and Communiques of the Weather Underground, 1970-1974

Emily Hobson, Lavender and Red: Liberation and Solidarity in the Gay and Lesbian Left

Dan Berger and Emily Hobson, Remaking Radicalism: A Grassroots Documentary Reader of the United States, 1973-2001

Schomburg Center Black Liberation Reading List (many resources listed here)

Check out the Freedom Archives for more radical movement history!

Decolonization and Internationalism

If you are running a reading group based on this guide, please comment on the Abolition Journal Blog and tell us about your experiences!
Late-20th century liberation: radical accounts

Some of us came together to create this study group guide through our shared work in the Abolition Collective. To learn more about us, please visit our blog, and read our journal online! The Abolition Collective's manifesto claims that abolition "is not about what is possible, but about making the impossible a reality". We invite you to join us, go all the way, and make it so.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
If You're New to Abolition: Study Group Guide

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Mumia Abu Jamal Abolition is about presence, not absence. It's about building life-affirming institutions. Ruth Wilson Gilmore We invite you to meet our historical moment, in which a Black-led popular uprising, launched in response to the police murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Tony McDade, and the white supremacist killing of Ahmaud Arbery, is spotlighting police violence and racist criminalization.

# data[].attributes.headline
We Want to Do More Than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom

# data[].attributes.subject
We Want to Do More Than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
We Want to Do More Than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
We Want to Do More Than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom [Love, Bettina] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. We Want to Do More Than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom

# data[].attributes.headline
We Got This.: Equity, Access, and the Quest to Be Who Our Students Need Us to Be

# data[].attributes.subject
We Got This.: Equity, Access, and the Quest to Be Who Our Students Need Us to Be

# data[].attributes.body
Amazing educator and person. Had the pleasure to spend three days in training with him.

# data[].attributes.headline
The Inner Work of Racial Justice: Healing Ourselves and Transforming Our Communities Through Mindfulness

# data[].attributes.subject
The Inner Work of Racial Justice: Healing Ourselves and Transforming Our Communities Through Mindfulness

# data[].attributes.body
We need to add some healing to this work.

# data[].attributes.headline
Not Light, But Fire: How to Lead Meaningful Race Conversations in the Classroom

# data[].attributes.subject
Not Light, But Fire: How to Lead Meaningful Race Conversations in the Classroom

# data[].attributes.body
And if you want to join an online book club: https://davestuartjr.com/summer-books-on-race-listening-and-work/

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
but fire: how to lead meaningful race conversations in the classroom

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
united states;race relations;study and teaching.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
race relations; multicultural education; #notlight; race conversations; talking about race; race in schools; race in the classroom; racial story; students of color; poc; protest; riot; protests; riots; race war; ally; racial labels; safe spaces; safe space; equality; equity; black lives matter

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
united states - race relations - study and teaching

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
united states;race relations;study and teaching.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Not Light, but Fire: How to Lead Meaningful Race Conversations in the Classroom

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Not Light, but Fire: How to Lead Meaningful Race Conversations in the Classroom [Kay, Matthew R.] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Not Light, but Fire: How to Lead Meaningful Race Conversations in the Classroom

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Just what is going on with white people? Police shootings of unarmed African Americans. Acts of domestic terrorism by white supremacists. The renewed embrace of raw, undisguised white-identity politics. Unending racial inequity in schools, housing, criminal justice, and hiring. Some of this feels new, but in truth it's an old story.

Why? Where did the notion of "whiteness" come from? What does it mean? What is whiteness for?

Scene on Radio host and producer John Biewen took a deep dive into these questions, along with an array of leading scholars and regular guest Dr. Chenjerai Kumanyika, in this fourteen-part documentary series, released between February and August 2017. The series editor is Loretta Williams.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Just what is going on with white people? Police shootings of unarmed African Americans. Acts of domestic terrorism by white supremacists. The renewed embrace of raw, undisguised white-identity politics. Unending racial inequity in schools, housing, criminal justice, and hiring. Some of this feels ne

# data[].attributes.body
The Leading Equity Podcast focuses on supporting educators with the tools and resources necessary to ensure equity at their school.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Welcome to the Leading Equity Podcast

The Leading Equity Podcast focuses on supporting educators with the tools and resources necessary to ensure equity at their school. On this podcast, listeners can expect to hear interviews and stories from voices of equity in education today. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, and Spotify!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Leading Equity Podcast focuses on supporting educators with the tools and resources necessary to ensure equity at their school. On this podcast, listeners can expect to hear interviews and stories from voices of equity in education today. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, and Spotify!

# data[].attributes.body
Please "friend" me (Jess - Foust - Nickelsen) and I will add you! This is a PRIVATE group, so you won't be able to enter without an invite. Thank you!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Free 5-8 day shipping within the U.S. when you order $25.00 of eligible items sold or fulfilled by Amazon.

Or get 4-5 business-day shipping on this item for $5.99 . (Prices may vary for AK and HI.)

Learn more about free shipping

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
ya books featuring muslim characters; ya books about internment; what to read after reading the handmaid's tale; what to read after watching the handmaid's tale; contemporary dystopian ya books; political ya books; contemporary novel; diverse; muslim; islam; islamic; political resistance; gift; young adult; teen book; boy age fifteen year old; girl age sixteen year old

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
young adult fiction / diversity & multicultural

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
young adult fiction / religious / muslim

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
young adult fiction / romance / contemporary

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
young adult fiction / social themes / prejudice & racism

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
young adult fiction/politics & government

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
young adult fiction/romance - contemporary

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
young adult fiction/social themes - prejudice & racism

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
young adult fiction / diversity & multicultural

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
young adult fiction / religious / muslim

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
young adult fiction / romance / contemporary

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
young adult fiction / social themes / prejudice & racism

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
young adult fiction/politics & government

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
young adult fiction/romance - contemporary

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
young adult fiction/social themes - prejudice & racism

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Amazon.com: Internment (9780316522700): Ahmed, Samira: Books

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Brené Brown: Hi everyone, I'm Brené Brown, and this is Unlocking Us. Today, I'm talking with Professor Ibram Kendi. He's a number one New York Times best-selling author and the Director of the Antiracist Research and Policy Center at American University. He's also an ideas columnist at The Atlantic and a correspondent with CBS News. He is the author of four books, including Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, which won the National Book Award for Nonfiction. He has another book called, Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You, which he co-authored with Jason Reynolds, and it's a remix of the Stamped from the Beginning book that is meant for YA, teen readers - an incredible, incredible book. And he's got a new book coming out called Antiracist Baby, which is a board book that will be published this month in June. Completely evidence that it's never too early to start talking about anti-racism.

BB: He's also the author of How to Be an Antiracist, and that's what we're going to talk about today. We're going to talk about all those books, but we're going to really focus on How to Be an Antiracist, which is a groundbreaking approach to understanding and uprooting racism and inequality in our society and in ourselves. It's an incredible conversation. I welcome you to the table to sit with us, talk, think, feel, ask, question, and lean in really, really far to what we need to learn about ourselves and the world. I want to start this conversation with a quote from Professor Kendi: "By not running from books that pain us, we can allow them to transform us. I ran from antiracist books most of my life, but now I can't stop running after them, scrutinizing myself and my society, and in the process changing both." Let's jump in.

BB: Alright, first let me say that I am incredibly grateful for you joining us on Unlocking Us, thank you for that.

Ibram X. Kendi: Of course, I'm so happy to be on.

BB: I always start these podcasts with not the perfunctory, but the honest, "How are you?" How are you doing right now?

IK: I'm okay. This is quite the time in American history, and as someone who studies anti-Black racism, I'm simultaneously enraged to see the deathly effects of that racism, but simultaneously energized to see all of the people resisting that racism.

BB: How are you holding up with the COVID-19 pandemic on top of all of this, as the underscore to all of this?

IK: I think that that has been difficult for me, partly because my colleagues and I, we partnered with the COVID Tracking Project to build this COVID racial data tracker. And so we're... It's like the premier tracker of racial data on COVID. And so I'm seeing the data coming in and the disparities all over the country, and so that's been difficult. And then simultaneously, my wife, Sadiqa, her family is... Her hometown is Albany, Georgia, and Albany, Georgia and that general area of Southwest Georgia has one of the worst outbreaks in the country. And simultaneously, it's a trauma desert, it doesn't have a tremendous amount of high-quality healthcare, in contrast to New York City, which also of course has been a major outbreak. And so, seeing and hearing those stories firsthand of people suffering, obviously, it's been difficult. And this is a primarily Black area.

BB: I want to get into... I want to talk a lot about How to Be an Antiracist, your book that I think is life changing. I want to talk about your new book that's coming out in a couple of weeks. Tell us the title of that new book.

IK: Antiracist Baby. It's a board book.

BB: I can't wait. I want to start because when we talk about the pandemic, when we talk about what's happening right now in the world with a rebellion, the protest, you wrote an article that went up on The Atlantic this morning.

IK: Yes.

BB: It's called "The American Nightmare: To be Black and Conscious of Anti-Black Racism is to Stare Into The Mirror of Your Own Extinction." I want to... Can I read a piece of this to you and ask you about it?

IK: Sure, yeah.

BB: Would you rather read it or would you... Can I read it to you?

IK: Yeah, you can read it. That's fine, yeah.

BB: Okay. You're using as an epigraph, a quote from Malcom X from 1964, "We don't see any American dream. We've experienced only the American nightmare." And then you write, "A nightmare is essentially a horror story of danger, but it is not wholly a horror story. Black people experience joy, love, peace, safety. But as in any horror story, those unforgettable moments of toil, terror, and trauma have made danger essential to the Black experience in racist America. What one Black American experiences, many Black Americans experience. Black Americans are constantly stepping into the toil and terror and trauma of other Black Americans. Black Americans are constantly stepping into the souls of the dead because they know that could have been them, they are them. Because they know it is dangerous to be Black in America because racist Americans see Blacks as dangerous. To be Black and conscious of anti-Black racism is to stare into the mirror of your own extinction."

BB: This is not just about the police brutality; this is not just about Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd; this is about the tens of thousands of Black victims of Covid.

IK: Yeah.

BB: Talk to me about this article. What do we need to understand?

IK: Well, I think first and foremost, the article revolves around a very, very prominent book that was written in 1896 by Frederick Hoffman, who, basically it was a book of statistical tables and racial data that showed not only racial disparities in crime rates, but also racial disparities in infection rates and racial disparities in mortality, or I should say death rates, and so he took this massive amount of racial data to proclaim that Black people were not subjected to racist policies. That wasn't the cause of Black disease, of Black death, and even Black people being disproportionately arrested and incarcerated. He made the case that this data shows that Black people are headed towards gradual extinction, and it's their fault. They are by nature or behavior, a dangerous, diseased, dying people, and to recognize anything else is to not recognize the facts. And so this idea, normalizing Black pain and suffering and death has only continued to this day, and so essentially when you normalize, when you just believe that Black people should be disproportionally dying of police violence or even COVID-19, you're thereby not going to challenge, let alone look for the policies that are actually behind this disproportionate Black death.

IK: And so then those who are experiencing those policies that are then leading to that trauma and terror, and even toil, they're going to be experiencing the American nightmare. And the reason why I use the term the American nightmare is because Black people are constantly told that America is this land of equal opportunity, that police officers protect and serve, that we too have access to the American dream. And obviously, based on the experiences of Black people, we've really, as Malcolm said, 50 years ago, experienced the American nightmare.

BB: When you talk about the Hoffman book, it's such a devastating reminder to me, because I see this a lot right now of how statistics, academics, science can be dehumanizing tools as much as kind of the language that we use.

IK: Yeah, without question. And let me give an example. So when we first were able to start getting states in early April to release racial data, and then we saw these racial disparities. We saw that Black people were disproportionately being infected and even dying, of COVID. The first response of people to that data, of many people to that data, was to say Black people are not taking the virus seriously, Black people are not socially distancing, there's something wrong with Black people, and then we were able to disprove that. Basically survey data in mid-March had already proven that actually Black people were taking the virus more seriously than white people. So then it's zeroed in to, well, it must be the result of Black pre-existing conditions.

IK: And then those pre-existing conditions are caused by Black people making disproportionately bad or unhealthy behaviors. So it just always, essentially, you take these racial disparities, and we've been arguing over their existence, even before Frederick Hoffman. Is it because there's something wrong with Black people, or is there racist policy? And those who believe we live in a nation that's post-racial, that there's equal opportunity, they're not going to ever see the racist policies that are even in many cases, hard to see, instead they're just going to blame Black people.

BB: It's almost, and I don't think it's almost, it is the confirmation bias of racist beliefs.

IK: It is, yeah, it is. And that's what's striking about Frederick Hoffman, because he opens his book arguing that, "I am free of bias. I am free of prejudice or sentimentally."

BB: Which should be our first flag, right?

[chuckle]

IK: Exactly, right. And then, ends the book stating that the gradual extinction of Black people is only a matter of time, and it's based on the data. And to give another example, you have many people arguing that police violence, disproportionate police violence is the result of Black people being disproportionately violent, and Black people are disproportionately violent, they say, because, well, just look at the violent crime data. There's this widespread belief that Black neighborhoods are more dangerous because of violent crime data, the same violent crime data that Frederick Hoffman in this book in 1896 really popularized. But what Americans don't realize, and this is what I've been trying to get people to see, is that there's no relationship between the violent crime in those neighborhoods and the Blackness of the people.

IK: In other words, people believe that the reason why those neighborhoods are violent is because there are Black people there, and that's why when they see Black neighborhoods, they assume that those neighborhoods are violent because the Black people and their culture and their behavior and even their genetics are predisposed to violence. But if that was the case, then all Black neighborhoods would have the same levels of violent crime. In other words, higher income...

BB: Because that would be the... Yeah, that would be the consistent variable.

IK: Precisely. And so, higher income Black neighborhoods would have the same levels of violent crime as extremely impoverished Black neighborhoods. That is not the case. And it's not the case in white America, it's not the case in Asian America, Native America, Latinx America. In every America, if we want to split up America racially, you have higher levels of poverty, long-term unemployment, you're going to have higher levels of violent crime, whether you're talking about a white community or neighborhood with higher levels of violent crime or Latinx or Black. So we know statistically that actually what is the consistent variable is poverty and unemployment. But people still want to call these dangerous Black neighborhoods as opposed to dangerous unemployed neighborhoods.

BB: One of the things that I find so powerful about your work, there are many things, but one of the things I find so powerful is your ability to unpack things, lay them out, and the steps always lead back to policy. It always leads back to systemic policy.

IK: And I think that's one of the things I'm trying to get people to realize, and especially, I think one of the things that happens with our discussions on race is we personalize groups, meaning we make groups into individuals, and, even though every group is made up of individuals, we say, "Oh well, this group is disproportionately obese, so therefore, why can't this group "diet or exercise more" in the way I used to do when I weighed a little bit more. But that's actually... We can't think of groups as individuals, when we think of... Especially we can't think of disparities as the result of the personal choices of the individuals in groups, because I think that's what happens, that's how we have been misled into believing, but when we actually... All of the data points to and all of the analysis points to, is that when you have two groups, there's going to be all different types of behaviors in both groups, whether that...

BB: Complete variance, right?

IK: Precisely. So you take white people and Black people, you have white people who eat unhealthy, you have white people who are vegans, you have Black people who eat in an unhealthy manner, and then you have Black people like me who are vegans. And so... And then you have vegans who are white, who don't really eat vegetables. Right? And so it's so much variable, and so we emphasize the negativities that we see among those individuals who are Black, and then ignore the negativities among the individuals who are white. And so we say, "Oh, those Black folk and their soul food, that's why they're unhealthy," as if you don't have white people who gathered this weekend and had hamburgers and hot dogs only on their barbeque menu. So I think that it's critically important for us when we think of groups and group inequality, to recognize that what changes communities, what changes groups, it's not their individual behaviors, it's policy change.

BB: I want to slow down here and go into slow motion for a moment, because, what you're saying is so profoundly important at the crux of, I think, of your entire book. And for me as a researcher, it's... We take groups and we take stereotypes and characteristics of groups, and what it seems to me that we do, and I think you write about this, but I want to check in with you to make sure I'm understanding it correctly because this is what I see. We see the most kind of negative, socially agreed upon, not good characteristics of groups of color, and we assign it to the entire group. Then we take the best characteristics of one or two people in the white folk group and assign it to that entire group. That's true, right? You see that...

IK: Exactly. So that's what I talk about how we generalize the individual negativities of people of color while we individualize the individual negativities of white people.

BB: And you know what keeps coming back to me, and I'm going to date myself with this because this was a huge raging issue as I was in school and then graduate work: the bell curve is such an example of the manipulation of statistical data to confirm a racist hypothesis. Okay. Yeah, I just... You know what? We do that. We do that. I can think of times when I do that, maybe not about race, but I do do that with... I'll tell you where I do it. I do it with political identity. I take the best part of the people I see in my group and assign it to everyone in my group. And the worst part, and it's so self-protective and self-destructive at the same time, isn't it?

IK: It is. It is. And I know How to Be an Antiracist, in particular, I remember giving a talk about this book, I believe I was in Gainesville, Florida, and this woman who was obviously a Republican or a conservative, got up during the Q&A and basically challenged me, basically by saying, "You're just another liberal who is just criticizing conservatives completely and never being able to look back on the problems of things that liberals do." And I was like, "Did you read the book?" [laughter] Because obviously, you didn't read the book, because the book was just as critical of people who identify as liberals or Democrats as people who identify as conservatives and Republicans.

BB: I want to read something from the book, early-on pages. Is it weird when I read to you? Is it okay?

IK: It's fine, yeah.

BB: Okay. "The good news is that racist and antiracist are not fixed identities. We can be a racist one minute and be an antiracist the next. What we say about race, what we do about race in each moment determines what, not who, we are." And you write, "I used to be racist most of the time. I am changing. I am no longer identifying with racists by claiming to be not racist. I am no longer speaking through the mask of racial neutrality. I am no longer manipulated by racist ideas to see racial groups as problems. I no longer believe a Black person cannot be racist, I am no longer policing my every action around an imagined white or Black judge trying to convince white people of my equal humanity, trying to convince Black people, I am representing the race well." This book is incredibly vulnerable in terms of you sharing your own experiences. Why was that important to you as you were writing this?

IK: So, I remember when I was thinking about this book and I was sort of thinking about the pulse of the book, even the heartbeat of the book. I recognize that the heartbeat, historically, of racism has been denial, has been to deny that one's ideas are racist, one's policies are racist, and certainly that one's self and one's nation is racist, and so then I was like, "Okay, by contrast, the heartbeat of antiracism is confession, is admission, is acknowledgement, is the willingness to be vulnerable, is the willingness to identify the times in which we are being racist, is to be willing to diagnose ourselves and our country, and our ideas, and our policies." And the reason why that's the heartbeat is because, like with anything else, the first step is acknowledging the problem. We can't even begin the process of changing ourselves, of acting in an antiracist fashion, if we're not even willing to admit the times in which we're being racist. And so I realize that essentially to be antiracist is to admit when we're being racist. And so I realize that in order to really give voice to that, in order to really model that for people I had to do that to myself and for myself.

BB: And you do it, and you do it throughout the book and you move forward a bunch and you slide back, and you share that with us. To me, that is the heart of the book, that there is such a deep humanity in this book. Was that intentional on your part? Did you write it from a perspective of, "This is what it means to be in the human struggle?"

IK: I think so. And I mean, I think that, to be honest, the first few chapters were a huge struggle for me to write, precisely because of how vulnerable I had to be and how many... I had to basically admit and chronicle some of the most shameful moments of my life, especially as someone who was raised in a home to value and love Black people, to be able to have to write about those times in which I did not value or love Black people, let alone other groups, was very, very difficult. And so it really wasn't... And so I think I struggled and it actually... I think the first few chapters, it took me almost like a year to write, and it really wasn't until as I write about in the end of the book that I was diagnosed with cancer, that I just wondered whether indeed I would even live to see the book come out, and I think because of that, in a way freed me to be vulnerable and to be completely sort of open and naked in writing the book.

BB: Yeah, there's just courage on every page. I mean, really, and I have to say you don't see that very often in books. You don't see that very often in the world, so thank you for that. I think the central message is that the opposite of racist isn't not racist, The true opposite of racist is antiracist. Can you break that down for us and help us understand how the opposite of racist is not, not race... Not racist is not the opposite of racist.

IK: Sure, so I think... Let me say it in this way. So when you think of... So I define a racist as someone who is expressing racist ideas or supporting racist policies with their action or inaction, I know we're not supposed to use terms in the definition, but I think what's critical about understanding what it means to be racist is understanding what a racist idea is, and what a racist policy is. And once you understand what a racist idea and racist policy is, you begin to realize that there's a fundamental contrast to that, and that contrast is not some sort of neutrality. And so if a racist idea is any idea that suggests a racial group is superior or inferior to another racial group... In other words, a racist idea connotes racial hierarchy, then what's the opposite of that? The opposite of that is ideas that connote racial equality, that challenges directly that idea of racial hierarchy and says, "No. All the racial groups are equals."

IK: And there's no in between racial hierarchy and racial equality. Either all the racial groups are equals, or certain racial groups are better or worse than others. And so there's no not racist idea, there's only a racist idea and an antiracist idea. And the same thing with policy. If a racist policy is leading to racial inequity, then an antiracist policy is leading to racial equity. There's no in between inequity or equity, and if racist policies lead to injustice, then by contrast, antiracist policies lead to justice. There's no in between injustice or justice. And so then when you take a person, you have people who are either expressing racist or antiracist ideas. So in any given moment, they're either being racist or antiracist, there's no not racist sort of category.

IK: And then I should also add very quickly that when people typically say, "I am not racist," it is in response to someone challenging something that they just did or said that indeed probably was racist. So again, I mentioned how the heartbeat, or in order to be antiracist, we have to be willing to admit the times in which we're being racist. By contrast, in order to be racist, we never admit the times in which we're being racist, and instead we say we're not racist.

BB: I have a couple of questions. So what do you say to the person who when you say we're either racist or antiracist to the person who says, "That's a false dichotomy. There can be neutrality between antiracist and race, there can be neutrality between injust and just, between inequality and equity or equality." I can't find what that neutrality is. But I would really love to know how you answer that because I get that a lot, especially when I quote you, but I can't think of a single example, because the systems are already in place. So if we were at net zero, how does that... I mean, it may be so but we're not, so what do you answer?

IK: Yeah so I state that are you... I would... So people have asked me asked that, and typically what I state say is, "Are you stating that because from a defensive posture?" In other words, you don't want to identify as racist, and you view those antiracists in some way that you don't want to sort of identify with. So this is fundamentally defensive so you can create a category for yourself. And typically, we know when people are creating categories for themselves because you can't define your category. And so are you creating this category for us, or are you creating this category for yourself? And if you're creating it for us, then define it for us, so we can understand it.

IK: What does it mean to be not racist? I know what it means to be racist. I know what it means to be antiracist. What does it mean to be not racist? And if you can't provide a very clear and consistent definition, then that shows me that you're fundamentally being defensive, and you're fundamentally seeking to create a category for yourself.

BB: That is so powerful, and starting with the defensive posturing that I think there are people that don't want to be in the racist category of course, because there's so much shame attached to that.

IK: Yeah.

BB: And they don't want to be in the antiracist category because there's so much frickin work attached to that.

IK: Yes.

BB: Do you know what I mean?

IK: Yes.

BB: Like antiracism work is, no joke, exhausting and vigilant, and there's shame in it too because it's... So it's interesting because - can we dig into something that is kind of at the intersection of your work and my work to help me figure out something?

IK: Sure.

BB: You don't seem to be... And I've only read this book and a couple of articles that you've written or maybe three or four articles from The Atlantic, but I will be getting the baby board book for sure. And it'll become my new go-to, like, I'm looking at Barrett, who's in here with me. She's like, "This will be the new. Every baby we know will be getting this book." You don't seem to be a proponent of shame as a social justice tool.

IK: No.

BB: So, let me ask you this question because I think this goes to the creating categories out of defensiveness. One of the things that I've seen and I see it a lot, I see it a lot in my social feeds, I see it a lot when I have really difficult Q&As when I'm on book tours. Let's say you and I are talking, and I share a racist idea, or I make a racist statement, and you hold me accountable for that. Right? Which is fair. You question and we dig in. But you say... I am going to feel shame about that, for most, I think most, maybe not all, but most white, I hope, most white Americans, or maybe Americans in general will feel shame about being held accountable for racist thinking or thoughts or speaking, then I go into shame. But what I'm struggling helping people understand and maybe you can share your thoughts on it with us is being held accountable for racism and experiencing shame around that, is not the same as being shamed about racism.

IK: Mm-hmm, yeah.

BB: Does that makes sense to you at all? Or am I off? I don't know.

IK: No, I think it makes sense. And I think that... Well, two things I'm trying to think of what to say first because I feel like I'll forget the other. Do you ever feel that way?

BB: All the time.

IK: So I think one thing is that... So if we talk about racist ideas, to grow up in America is to grow up, and for racist ideas to constantly be rained on your head and you have no umbrella. And you don't even know that you're wet with those racist ideas, because the racist ideas themselves cause you to imagine that you're dry.

BB: Right.

IK: And then someone comes along and says, "You know what, you're wet, and these ideas are still raining on your head. Here's an umbrella." You can be like, "Thank you, I didn't even realize I was drenched."

BB: Yeah, yeah.

IK: And then with all these ideas, and then the question, this is why I don't think people should feel ashamed, is there were other people and very powerful people in a history that was constantly raining those ideas on your head, and so what that means is, for instance if you're a white American, who has racist ideas, and then you, let's say, perpetuated those ideas by, let's say, not hiring a Black person because you thought they were lazy. You were simultaneously a victim and a victimizer. And so I think it's critical for people to recognize that literally, and as I talk about in How to Be an Antiracist, there's a specific reason why you had so many powerful Americans trying to convince white Americans that Black people were inferior; it was out of their own self interest.

BB: Yeah.

IK: And so then, white Americans and other Americans were tricked into believing that Black people should be enslaved in 1855, and then meanwhile poor whites, whose poverty was directly the result of the riches of white slaveholders were like, "Yeah, it should be this way." And so then those people were able to get richer and richer, and so me coming to that poor white person who believes Black people should be enslaved and then who have even sort of worked on slave patrols and brutalized Black people trying to run away, I'm basically coming to them and saying, "Here is the way you were a victimizer and here is the way you were a victim." And it's critically important, I think, for people to understand, people have been tricked, they've been manipulated, they've been hoodwinked, and that's why I think, that's what I'd want people to realize.

BB: Yeah, thank you for the umbrella. I didn't know I was wet. I think that might be where we lose people.

IK: Yeah.

BB: Wow. Do you ever... I think about this, I think my background is in social work, so I have my master's in social work and PhD in social work, and my bachelor's too, and so I've probably taken 20 classes on the nature of oppression. I guess the thing that always strikes me about oppression as a construct, and I know I'm going to personify it, and I know this is probably not right, but I would love your thoughts on it because I've tried to figure it out for so many years is, God, it's so hard to fight because it has an answer for everything, like it is...

IK: Yeah, yeah.

BB: Do you know what I mean?

IK: Mm-hmm.

BB: Like, it's such a formidable foe. It's like every time, like when you said to me, I got goosebumps when you said, "It's raining on you. But part of what it's raining on you is the message that you're dry."

IK: Mm-hmm.

BB: It is such a formidable foe, isn't it?

IK: It is, and that I think that it's critically important. What I'm trying to do is bring people back into reality, right? So they can realize that it's being rained on them, that that rain is coming down on their head, that they're slipping and falling and harming people in ways that they don't even realize. And when you step that back into reality, then you can actually recognize what's actually happening to you and what you're doing to other people. And then you can also begin to see how and why you have people protesting all over this country and why people are enraged and why that resistance is going to continue. Literally racist ideas, literally separate people from reality, and it prevents people, even too, from helping themselves.

IK: And so I talked a lot in my book about the ways in which even you have Black elites who believe ideas about the Black poor and who sort of reproduce racist ideas about the Black poor, not realizing that racist policies against them are being justified through ideas about the Black poor, or you have white Americans who are believing in racist ideas that these people of color will just use and abuse and take advantage of so-called social entitlement programs like Medicare for All, or increasing Social Security funding, or basic income, or other... Or paid leave, things that other countries have. And so therefore, I don't want none of that. And then it results in them not having the social safety net when they fall, their friends not having it, their family not having it, and then when they fall and become hurt, then they're told it's immigrants' fault. And so it's this constant sort of people being hurt...

BB: God.

IK: And then they believing that it's these other people who are the source of their pain, as opposed to the people who they actually support, who are the source of their pain.

BB: I'm a terrible podcast host, because I'm sitting here with my hands over my mouth, and that's not... I can't do that, but that's my response to this. I read an article, I think it was during the 2016 election, all I can remember is an MD-PhD, public health person, and I think the name of the article is: "Racism is Killing White People." And it's because they were voting against the very things, the services, and the safety nets that they themselves will need just because of the racist rhetoric that they attached to it.

IK: Exactly.

BB: It's...

IK: Yeah, Jonathan Metzl and that's based on his book Dying of Whiteness. And he talked about...

BB: Is that the who that... Is he an MD? Is that the one I'm talking about?

IK: MD-PhD, yes, yeah.

BB: My husband's a pediatrician, I think I read it in, there was an excerpt of something in American Pediatrics or something. So tell us who that was and what that book was, and we'll put it on our show notes.

IK: So yeah, it's Jonathan Metzl, who's a MD-PhD, I believe at Vanderbilt, and his book was entitled Dying of Whiteness, and he looks at the white resistance to the extension of ObamaCare or even the extension of Medicaid in particular states and how that not only harmed, obviously people of color disproportionately, but even white people, and how the resistance to creating more insurance and affordable healthcare has harmed white people, let alone people of color, or even probably the most striking aspect of that book was so he not only looked at healthcare, but even the massive debate currently over gun control.

BB: Gun control.

IK: And gun safety and gun rights, and how first and foremost, you've had white men who have been advocating for the reduction or elimination of gun safety laws so that they can arm themselves, so that they can protect their families against Muslim terrorists and Black criminals and LatinX invaders as they call them. And what's fascinating is those very states where they've been able to successfully eliminate these gun safety policies, it's led to a massive surge in people being killed, white men being killed by hand gun via suicide, so the very people, white men who've been pushing for the reduction in gun safety laws have then led to them, given them greater ability to accumulate guns, and they've used those guns to kill themselves, so literally, people are dying of whiteness.

BB: Can I just ask you just like a no bullshit question here?

IK: Mm-hmm.

BB: Why does that make so much sense to some of us and no sense, it seems, to other people? Why do some of us see the through line and some of us don't see the through line? Do you understand what I'm asking? It's a weird question.

IK: Yeah, yeah. I think first and foremost, because we're living in different sort of realities, and so, for many of these white men who are advocating, who are proud card-carrying members of the NRA, who are advocating for the accumulation of weapons by white men, they believe... I should say they've been made to believe that the cause of their own personal pain, the reasons why they're struggling in society or they do don't have more than they already have, is because of these immigrants and these people of color. They also generalize, when there's a Black person who commits murder, or a LatinX immigrant or a terrorist who commits murder, in their mind, those are the central sort of problems that are harming America and are threatening them. And so they're in tremendous amounts of fear, because they're constantly told by their politicians, by the people they listen to, that these are the people you should fear, and then they're told, "Your rights are being taken away. White men are being chastised and criticized, and demeaned by women, by people of color, by everybody, and so we are your defenders and you need to defend yourself through these weapons."

IK: And, but then what's happening is they're actually getting these weapons and killing themselves, and then all of those individual suicides are individualized, so there's not this collective national outcry about the incredible level of white men who are committing suicide, because, again, if something bad happens to white people, it's individualized.

BB: I've just been thinking a lot about your book around the How to Be an Antiracist book, and I've been thinking about how there is a very short distance in my mind between the dehumanizing dog whistle language from this administration to calling the cops on a bird watcher, to George Floyd. And it's my training, again, I think in social work systems theory, that these things lie on a continuum, but that that walk is very short between these things. Do you agree with that or disagree with that?

IK: Oh yeah, I agree. I mean, I actually tweeted out last week after we heard about what happened to George Floyd, that we should be seeing that, I think I said something to the... Well, let me just say the idea, and that is, when it comes to police violence, oftentimes the beginning of police violence is someone, and in this case, a white woman calling the police saying, "A Black male is threatening my life. I need your help, come help me," when indeed she is actually the person who's threatening the other person, but anyway, she calls up the police, and then the police come, imagining that there's this so-called Black super predator who's preying on this innocent white woman, and that it is their job principally to protect them, and so, then they come imagining the need for force. And then Christian Cooper ends up as George Floyd in Minneapolis.

BB: In a split second.

IK: In which an unarmed person is now dead. And so, there's a very straight line from Central Park to Minneapolis, and we understand because that was essentially the lynching era, but that lynching era has continued.

BB: And I think I would back the line up, because I think for me, a big part of my studies was dehumanization and the process, and the very invisible process of dehumanizing, which every genocide in recorded history starts with dehumanizing and starts with language. So when we hear things like, when we talk about immigrants and the White House uses words like infestation, and when we use words like... I don't even think I've ever heard white people referred to as thugs in my life. It's people have a very hard time understanding that once we move people outside of what we believe is humanity, that it's possible to do anything to them.

IK: It is. And I think that is the reason why when you have those racist ideas that cause you to demonize people of color, and then that is combined with racist policies that are over-policing their neighborhoods, or allowing police officers who kill them to not be prosecuted, or to get off, it only continues this cycle that not only do they not matter to me, they don't even matter to the state.

BB: Right. You wrote something, I think this was a quote from the New York Times, and I feel like I could talk to you for... I hope you come back again, and we can talk more about all the great policy change that's happening. That's what I'm hoping.

IK: That's what I'm hoping, too.

BB: But I want to read this quote because and it says, "By not running from the books that pain us, we can allow them to transform us." This is a quote from you. "I ran from antiracist books most of my life. But now I can't stop running after them, scrutinizing myself and my society, and in the process changing both."

IK: That's what we need to be doing. I think many of us have learned, even from your work, we have to be constantly growing. We cannot harden ourselves, and certainly our children into, "They're stupid or we're stupid." We have to say, "You know what, that was not a smart thing that I did or said. That was a racist act. But I am not essentially a racist." No one is. Everyone has the capacity to change, everyone has the capacity to be antiracist. Everyone has the capacity to grow. And if we're not growing as human beings, then what are we? What's distinguishing humans from other beings? It's that capacity for self-awareness and growth.

BB: That's right, meaning making. I always go back to that quote from Shawshank Redemption, "Get busy living or get busy dying." And I think if you're not learning and growing, which can be painful, stretch marks, bruises, you're dying in a way. Okay, Ibram, walk me through, because I really want to get one of your books for my soon to be 15-year-old son, and so tell me about the sequence of Stamped from the Beginning. Is there a YA version?

IK: Yes.

BB: So how does it work?

IK: So when I wrote Stamped from the Beginning, which again, chronicled this history of racist ideas, literally from their origins to the present, so upwards of 600 years of history, people would come up to me and say, "You know what, I wish I would have learned this in middle school, in high school. I didn't understand and know this history." And so, people kept telling me that, "You know what, this book needs to be before every middle schooler and high schooler." And so we decided that, "Let's create one." And Stamped from the Beginning is upwards of 500 pages, and so we decided we needed a specific book. And so I asked Jason Reynolds, who's, he's probably one of the more gifted YA novelists, who historically has written on race and racism, and he has his own voice and his own style. And I asked him a couple of times, he said no a couple of times, but eventually he agreed, and so he took Stamped from the Beginning, and completely rewrote it for young people in their voice, in his patented lyricism. And yeah, they've fallen in love with it. It actually debuted number one New York Times, so yeah, people are really responding to it well.

BB: You know what I love, is it's never too early to talk to our kids about this. And now you've given us the gifts of a board book, a YA book, and then books for adults.

IK: And that's, I want, especially in this moment, when there are a lot of people who want tools for not only understanding racism themselves, but even teaching and instructing their kids, and I'm hoping also that people realize that they should be having these discussions with their children. Their children are not color blind. The data shows that children as early as six months recognize race, and children as early as two to three years old have begun to consume racist ideas. And if you're not teaching those children antiracist ideas, if you're not challenging those racist ideas, and they're only going to grow up and then one day say something, you're going to feel completely embarrassed. Because like with anything else, people have to be taught to be antiracist, just as they're taught, indirectly, by so many things they see and experience and hear, to be racist.

BB: And I think it's been also my experience that, when you don't... The biggest mistake a lot of people I see making, is we don't talk about race, but we've raised nice and kind kids, so we assume that that's going to translate to something, and it translates to nothing, except the messaging that it's scary and not okay to talk about race.

IK: Exactly. Yeah, if the modeling... Can you imagine, there are adults, and many adults who struggle to talk about race and racism, and... But could you imagine if those adults were talking about these issues as early as 2 or 3, or 1, or as soon as you can speak, then... And I think, part of this also, is, as I'm learning on thinking through how to parent my child, of course, we've learned from you, and one of the things we're trying to model for her, is how to have difficult, uncomfortable conversations and how necessary those conversations are for her having a healthy, happy, and productive and impactful sort of life. And so this talking about race and racism is one type of difficult conversation we need to teach her how to have.

BB: Yeah, and, God, I just don't think there's a bigger gift that we... On top of knowing that you're loved and worthy of love and belonging, I don't know if there's a greater gift that we can give our kids, than the ability to lean into difficult conversation and to be vulnerable. Yeah. Okay, I have this last 10 rapid fire, and it's really important, it's more lighthearted, but it's about getting to know you as a person, and I think, sometimes, one of the hardest things about being an activist is not being seen as a person and can be sometimes dehumanizing in its own way. So if you would allow me, I'd love to ask you these 10 questions.

IK: Sure. Yeah. Let's do it.

BB: Okay, ready? Number one's fill in the blank. Vulnerability is?

IK: Courageous.

BB: Number two, you're called to do something brave, but your fear is real and it's stuck right in your throat. What's the first thing you do?

IK: Think about what the right thing to do is, and focus on that, rather than my fear.

BB: What is something that people often get wrong about you?

IK: That I'm very, very serious and angry all the time.

[chuckle]

BB: Okay. What's the last show that you binged and loved?

IK: That we binged, let's see. Probably... Oh, God, what's the show that was the... Probably the lead show on HBO, that just ended. I'm forgetting the name of it.

BB: Game of Thrones?

IK: Game of Thrones, yes.

BB: Okay, got it.

IK: Game of Thrones. So, literally... So, my wife and I, we hadn't seen it at all, any of the episodes, and we just binge-watched it late last year, and we both really liked it, except the ending, of course, but...

BB: Now, that's a binge, that's a hella binge right there, if you watched it all. Okay, a film that you really love?

IK: So I think, one of the films that I really love, particularly in context to our conversation, is After Earth, which was a movie with Will Smith and his son, in which they are sort of lost on this mysterious sort of planet, and he's hurt, and they have to figure out a way to elude people, or I should say beings and beasts that are trying to kill them. And Will is seeking to really get his son, and speak through his son, to get his son to essentially get them both to safety because he's hurt. And I remember at one point, he's trying to encourage him to face this dangerous, or horrible sort of villain beast that sort of makes up the movie, and he says something to the effect that, "Fear is not real. Danger is real, but fear is a choice," and he obviously wanted him to make a different choice.

BB: God, what a quote.

IK: Yeah.

BB: Okay, a concert that you'll never forget.

IK: Probably... So I... One of my favorite groups in the '90s, when I was growing up, was Jagged Edge, this R&B group, and so I was able to not only see them in concert, but even meet them when I was a freshman... Oh, not a freshman, when I was at FAMU, where I did my undergrad in Tallahassee, Florida.

BB: Favorite meal.

IK: So I'd say my favorite food now is probably avocado, and it's fascinating because I only really started eating avocado probably in the last five years, and one day... And I'm the type of person, if it doesn't look good to me, then I'm not going to want to eat it, and so, since it was green, I'm like, how could... It just looks weird. But then one day I tried it, and I haven't looked back since.

BB: The rest is history, avocado history. Okay, what's on your nightstand right now?

IK: Where... Oh.

BB: He's literally looking at it.

IK: Yeah. What the Eyes Don't See.

BB: Okay.

IK: Which is "A Story of Crisis, Resistance and Hope in an American city," by Mona Hanna-Attisha, which essentially is the story of the Flint water crisis, and how this pediatrician was very critical in not only sort of breaking the problem or demonstrating the problem, but even seeking to lead its recovery.

BB: Okay, a snapshot of an ordinary moment in your life that brings you real joy.

IK: Ordinary moment, is my 4-year-old daughter, I'm home after being somewhere, and she just jumps into a massive sprint, she comes and say hello and hugs me around my legs. That always brings me joy.

BB: Yeah. Last one. What's one thing that you're deeply grateful for right now?

IK: I think I'm deeply grateful for being surrounded by people, who sort of practice love with me, and who show their love as I seek to show my love to them, and so people... I believe people choose to love, and I'm sort of deeply grateful that people have chosen to love me.

BB: Well, your work is life-affirming and life-changing. Professor Ibram Kendi, How to Be an Antiracist. We just have a couple of short weeks to wait for Antiracist Baby, the board book, to come out. I'll make sure that we profile that on all of our channels, and we'll put it up on brenebrown.com. I think danger is real, to go back to your quote, I haven't seen that movie, but that quote's amazing. "Danger is real, but fear is a choice," and I am grateful for you for choosing courage. Thank you for making us braver.

IK: Well, thank you, and of course thank you for all your work, and glad we had a chance to sit down and talk about this.

BB: Me too, thank you.

(music)

Again, I want to thank Ibram Kendi for joining us on Unlocking Us. I'm committed to having him back on the program, if he'll join us, to talk even more, about antiracism and everything he has to teach us. If you want to follow Dr. Kendi, on Twitter, he's Dr. Ibram, @-D-R-I-B-R-A-M, Instagram, @-I-B-R-A-M-X-K. You can also go to our show page, on brenebrown.com, and you'll see all of his books, links to all of his books, and how to find him on social media, his website, and learn more about the work he does. I always sign these podcasts, I sign off on these podcasts by saying, "Stay awkward, brave and kind," and I would add to this one, in addition to awkward, brave and kind, I know we have to make choices, we have to use our voice in service, and for me, that rarely means giving voice to the voiceless, I think the voiceless have voices, and they've been screaming, for centuries. I think our work is to show up, be brave, give ears to the earless, and that's not easy, but right isn't easy, very often. Take good care of yourselves.

© 2020 Brené Brown Education and Research Group, LLC. All rights reserved.

Brown, B. (Host). (2020, June 3). Brené with Ibram X. Kendi on How to Be an Antiracist. [Audio podcast episode]. In Unlocking Us with Brené Brown. Cadence13. https://brenebrown.com/podcast/brene-with-ibram-x-kendi-on-how-to-be-an-antiracist/

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Brené with Ibram X. Kendi on How to Be an Antiracist

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Ibram X. Kendi and I talk about racial disparities, policy, and equality, but we really focus on How to Be an Antiracist, Kendi's groundbreaking approach to understanding uprooting racism and inequality in our society and in ourselves.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
106 Things White People Can Do for Racial Justice

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Note 1: This article was last updated on February 5, 2022.
Note 2: Our work is to fix what we broke and left broken. The work isn’t done…

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
On June 7th - after weeks of protest in response to the murder of George Floyd - the Minneapolis City Council vowed to disband the Minneapolis Police Department. We need to make sure they keep their word.

Black Visions and Reclaim The Block have been pressuring Minneapolis City Council Members to #ChangeTheCharter and defund MPD.
Unfortunately, the Council is ready to move on a charter amendment that would give the police too much power to shape the future of public safety in our city. The City Council needs to hear from you today.

Call (844) 970-3144 to demand a charter amendment that makes no room for police. As you read this, Minneapolis City Council is finalizing language before tomorrow's vote. That's why we need all hands on deck to call members of the City Council and tell them that the future of public safety in Minneapolis should not be led by current or former cops.
The Council must vote to change the charter to eliminate MPD - but they have to do it right. We need a clear commitment that the future of public safety in Minneapolis will not be led by current or former cops.

We've seen this play out before: lawmakers giving in to pressure from a few loud voices instead of listening to demands from the people. We can't let it happen this time. The stakes are too high.

Color Of Change is standing with Black Visions and Reclaim The Block, and we need EVERYONE to call your Council Member TODAY and tell them #CopsAreNotAnOption.(844) 970-3144 now.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Call the Minneapolis City Council: Change the Charter to Defund MPD #JusticeForFloyd

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
On June 7th - after weeks of protest in response to the murder of George Floyd - the Minneapolis City Council vowed to disband the Minneapolis Police Department. We need to make sure they keep their word. Black Visions and Reclaim The Block have been pressuring Minneapolis City Council Members to #ChangeTheCharter and defund MPD.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
When We All Vote Co-Chairs, Ambassadors, Supporters, Join Mrs. Obama in Fight for Senate to Pass the For the People Act
Read their letter here >

Your contribution will help us build a team to get people registered and out to vote. We can't do it without you.

When We All Vote is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, and donations are tax-deductible to the full extent provided by law.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
When We All Vote Co-Chairs, Ambassadors, Supporters, Join Mrs. Obama in Fight for Senate to Pass the For the People Act Read their letter here > Your contribution will help us build a team to get people registered and out to vote. We can't do it without you.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
E-books, e-audio, and video for adults on race and racism

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
As people gather to protest the murder of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmed Arbery and so many Black people before them, Nzinga takes the opportunity to talk about how racism biologically and psychologically impacts our black and brown communities. Yes, this kind of chronic trauma leads to increased substance use disorders. But even more so, this episode explores how racism itself is the addiction of America.

Please note, In Recovery contains mature themes and may not be appropriate for all listeners.

Want to follow Dr. Harrrison? Of course you do! Find her on Twitter, IG, and FB @naharrisonmd

Did you know that this show is supported by listeners like you? You can become a member, get exclusive bonus content, and discounted merch at www.lemonadamedia.com/membership.

Anti-racism isn't easy work, so make sure you're also taking care of yourself:
● truebotanicals.com/InRecovery will get you 15% your first purchase of organic skin care products
● Go to www.loveislouder.org/recovery for great resources for self care like breathing exercises, journaling workshops, and conflict resolution

Here are some resources for folks who want to learn more, donate, and take action.
● Anti-Racism Resources. This has podcasts, books, articles, and movies.
● 75 Things White People Can Do
● Our friends at PBS have a podcast, America Interrupted, about how coronavirus is changing the way we live, and how that impacts our communities of color.
● "What Does It Mean To Be Anti-Racist?" From the Racial Healing Handbook

Local elections are so important! Make sure you're registered to vote at www.vote.gov

To follow along with a transcript and/or take notes for friends and family, go to www.lemonadamedia.com/show/in-recovery shortly after the air date.

Stay up to date with us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at @LemonadaMedia.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
‎In Recovery: Racism Is An Addiction on Apple Podcasts

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
‎As people gather to protest the murder of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmed Arbery and so many Black people before them, Nzinga takes the opportunity to talk about how racism biologically and psychologically impacts our black and brown communities. Yes, this kind of chronic trauma leads to increas...

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Best Sellers Customer Service New Releases Find a Gift Today's Deals Whole Foods Gift Cards Registry Sell AmazonBasics Coupons #FoundItOnAmazon Free Shipping Shopper Toolkit Disability Customer Support

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Wishtree [Applegate, Katherine] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Wishtree

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Turn Uncomfortable Conversations into Meaningful Dialogue

If you believe that talking about race is impolite, or that "colorblindness" is the preferred approach, you must read this book. Race Talk and the Conspiracy of Silence debunks the most pervasive myths using evidence, easy-to-understand examples, and practical tools.

This significant work answers all your questions about discussing race by covering:

Characteristics of typical, unproductive conversations on race

Tacit and explicit social rules related to talking about racial issues

Race-specific difficulties and misconceptions regarding race talk

Concrete advice for educators and parents on approaching race in a new way

"His insistence on the need to press through resistance to have difficult conversations about race is a helpful corrective for a society that prefers to remain silent about these issues."
―Christopher Wells, Vice President for Student Life at DePauw University

"In a Canadian context, the work of Dr. Derald Wing Sue in Race Talk: and the Conspiracy of Silence is the type of material needed to engage a populace that is often described as 'Too Polite.' The accessible material lets individuals engage in difficult conversations about race and racism in ways that make the uncomfortable topics less threatening, resulting in a true 'dialogue' rather than a debate."
―Darrell Bowden, M Ed. Education and Awareness Coordinator, Ryerson University

"He offers those of us who work in the Diversity and Inclusion space practical tools for generating productive dialogues that transcend the limiting constraints of assumptions about race and identity."
―Rania Sanford, Ed.D. Associate Chancellor for Strategic Affairs and Diversity, Stanford University

"Sue's book is a must-read for any parent, teacher, professor, practioner, trainer, and facilitator who seeks to learn, understand, and advance difficult dialogues about issues of race in classrooms, workplaces, and boardrooms. It is a book of empowerment for activists, allies, or advocates who want to be instruments of change and to help move America from silence and inaction to discussion, engagement, and action on issues of difference and diversity. Integrating real life examples of difficult dialogues that incorporate the range of human emotions, Sue provides a masterful illustration of the complexities of dialogues about race in America. More importantly, he provides a toolkit for those who seek to undertake the courageous journey of understanding and facilitating difficult conversations about race."
―Menah Pratt-Clarke, JD, PhD, Associate Provost for Diversity, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
race talk and the conspiracy of silence: understanding and facilitating difficult dialogues on race

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
race; conversations; uncomfortable; meaningful; impolite; approach; book; silence; pervasive; conspiracy; evidence; myths; debunks; answers; discussing; questions; work; covering characteristics; typical; racespecific

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Race Talk and the Conspiracy of Silence: Understanding and Facilitating Difficult Dialogues on Race

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Race Talk and the Conspiracy of Silence: Understanding and Facilitating Difficult Dialogues on Race [Sue, Derald Wing] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Race Talk and the Conspiracy of Silence: Understanding and Facilitating Difficult Dialogues on Race

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
"Allan Johnson really understands how interlocking systems of oppression work and knows how to share his understanding in a way that willbeimmediately accessible to students at all levels. Privilege, Power, and Difference should serve as an invaluable tool for teaching about privilege and oppression." Paula Rothenberg, author of Race, Class, and Gender

"In Privilege, Power, and Difference, Allan Johnson teachesushow to think critically about inequality and oppression withoutgettingmired in guilt or despair. He gently but firmly removes theblindersthat keep us from seeing our own privileges and how thoseprivilegesharm others. Then he shows us how to walk the talk and turnour beliefs in justice and equality into practice. This is a book that willchange lives." Michael Schwalbe, author of Unlocking the Iron Cage: The Men's Movement, Gender Politics, and American Culture.

"It is one of the best texts I have read for introducing the concepts of privilege, power, and difference. . . It is an excellent work covering critically important ideas in an easily accessible style."Amber E. Kinser -- Feminist Teacher

" Privilege, Power, and Difference is an outstanding discussionofhow social systems work to perpetuate privilege, how individualschooseto interact with those systems, and how we can create positivechange." Charles Dickey -- Leftunder Books

"I adopted this very readable book and it has had a tremendous impact on my students. Johnson explains the concept of privilege in ways that allow my students with privilege to hear and understand without getting defensive. I recommend it highly for both college and high school students and the general adult population." Jane Connor, SUNY

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Loose Leaf for Privilege, Power, and Difference

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Amazon.com: Loose Leaf for Privilege, Power, and Difference (9781260152579): Johnson, Allan G.: Books

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Illuminating Social Life: Classical and Contemporary Theory Revisited

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Amazon.com: Illuminating Social Life: Classical and Contemporary Theory Revisited (9781452217826): Kivisto, Peter: Books

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A four-night, eight-hour event series, "Roots" is a historical portrait of one family's journey through American slavery and their will to survive and preserve their legacy in the face of unimaginable hardship.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Color of Fear (1994) Film - Full Documentary

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
"I'm not a racist."

That's what Amy Cooper, a white woman, said when she publicly apologized for calling the police on a black man bird-watching in Central Park.

The words rang especially hollow coming from Cooper. After all, the previous day she had used her position as a white woman to summon police - and the potential for police violence - against editor and birder Christian Cooper after he asked her to put her dog on a leash. "I'm going to tell them there's an African American man threatening my life," she says in a video that quickly went viral.

Not everyone acquires the overnight infamy of Amy Cooper. But her claim of non-racism was a familiar one. If asked, most people would probably say they are not racist. And they're especially likely to say it after they've already done something racist. As Ibram X. Kendi, director of the Antiracist Research and Policy Center at American University, notes in his book How to Be an Antiracist, "When racist ideas resound, denials that those ideas are racist typically follow."

But as Kendi also notes, it's not enough to simply be "not racist." "The opposite of 'racist' isn't 'not racist,'" he writes. "It is 'antiracist.'"

The idea of anti-racism has been getting a lot of attention in recent days as Americans around the country rise up against police violence. But the idea is far from new, with roots in decades of civil rights work by black Americans, said Malini Ranganathan, a faculty team lead at the Antiracist Research and Policy Center.

In recent years, thanks to the work of Kendi and others, the term itself has come to be used to describe what it means to actively fight against racism rather than passively claim to be non-racist. Anti-racism involves "taking stock of and eradicating policies that are racist, that have racist outcomes," Ranganathan said, "and making sure that ultimately, we're working towards a much more egalitarian, emancipatory society."

Part of that work is acknowledging our own positions in a white supremacist system. So I should acknowledge that I am a white woman, and as such, I can't talk about what it feels like to experience racism, or to fight against it as a person of color. But it's also not the responsibility of people of color to fix racism, or explain to white people how not to be racist. As Dena Simmons, a scholar and practitioner of social-emotional learning and equity and author of the upcoming book White Rules for Black People, put it, "Don't ask the wounded to do the work."

So I spoke to experts on the topic to help people - including myself - better understand what anti-racism means and what it looks like in practice. "White folks always want to know how they can do better," Simmons said. "I say, start by doing something."

The history and meaning of anti-racism

The concept of anti-racism has its roots in abolition, Ranganathan said - not just the end of slavery but also the call for structural changes in a post-emancipation society, like the eradication of prisons. The idea has "been around throughout the 20th-century civil rights movements" as well, Ranganathan said. More recently, Kendi and other scholars and activists have used the term "anti-racist" specifically to make the point that "it's not sufficient merely to be non-racist," Ranganathan said.

"One endorses either the idea of a racial hierarchy as a racist, or racial equality as an antiracist," Kendi writes in How to Be an Antiracist, published in 2019. " One either believes problems are rooted in groups of people, as a racist, or locates the roots of problems in power and policies, as an antiracist. One either allows racial inequities to persevere, as a racist, or confronts racial inequities, as an antiracist."

"There is no in-between safe space of 'not racist,'" Kendi continues. "The claim of 'not racist' neutrality is a mask for racism."

"The opposite of 'racist' isn't 'not racist.' It is 'antiracist.'"

To be an anti-racist, Kendi and others say, requires an understanding of history - an understanding that racial disparities in America have their roots, not in some failing by people of color but in policies that serve to prop up white supremacy. The coronavirus pandemic, during which black and Latinx people in many communities have been disproportionately likely to become ill and die, is just one example. As Kendi writes at the Atlantic, "Why are black (and Latino) people during this pandemic less likely to be working from home; less likely to be insured; more likely to live in trauma-care deserts, lacking access to advanced emergency care; and more likely to live in polluted neighborhoods?"

The answer, he writes, is simple: racism.

Specifically, redlining and other forms of housing discrimination have made black Americans more likely to live in neighborhoods affected by environmental contamination that federal and state officials have been slow to respond to, which increases the rates of chronic illness. Those high rates of chronic illness, in turn, make people more vulnerable to Covid-19. In Flint, Michigan, for example, where much of the majority-black population has been affected by lead-contaminated drinking water, the pandemic is "a crisis on top of a crisis with a side of crisis," Mayor Sheldon Neeley told Vox's Khushbu Shah.

Anti-racism is understanding how years of federal, state, and local policies have placed communities of color in the crises they face today, and calling those policies out for what they are: racist.

It also requires an understanding of one's own position in a racist society, many say, an acknowledgment that you can't simply opt out of living in white supremacy by saying you're "not a racist" - you have to actively fight against it. "Anti-racism is an acknowledgment of privilege in a way that, I think, simply disavowing racism is not," Ranganathan said. "It takes seriously that we all are situated into different matrices of power and privilege, and the first step is to take stock of that and not to disavow it or invisibilize it."

Asked to define anti-racism, writer and middle-school teacher Christina Torres cited Beverly Daniel Tatum's conception of racism as a moving walkway. "We're all on the moving walkway," Torres said. "If you're not racist, you're kind of just standing still on the moving walkway, but you're still complicit in societal racism because you're part of society."

"The only way to be anti-racist is to walk in the other direction," Torres said.

The practice of anti-racism

As for how to actually walk against the tide of racism, experts say one key step is educating yourself. White people "need [to] listen to the things that people of color have been telling them for years," Cornelius Minor, an educator and author of the book We Got This.: Equity, Access, and the Quest to Be Who Our Students Need Us to Be, told Vox. "O ne of white folks' favorite things to do is to claim that they didn't know."

But it's not the job of people of color to educate white people about racism or anti-racism. "I'm the victim of racism, and now you want me to try to solve the problem," Simmons says she recently told colleagues. "The problem does not lie within me, it lies within the system that you benefit from."

Instead, people can seek out the many resources already available on anti-racism. In recent days, many publications, including the Guardian, USA Today, and Time, have posted anti-racist reading lists. Many people have also shared resources on social media.

Resources for those wanting to educate themselves and our children about anti-racism. Please take some time so we can improve this world we're currently living in. I will continue to add resources as I find them. #BlackLivesMatter Anti-Racism Resources https://t.co/TAQZBXjqEl
- Augusta Baker Endowed Chair at the U of SC (@BakerChair) May 30, 2020

Once you've educated yourself, the next step is "to actually take action that benefits the members of your community," Minor said.

On Tuesday, many people posted black squares on Instagram as part of the "Blackout Tuesday" campaign. But some noted that the idea could actually harm the movement for racial justice by clogging the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter, which activists use to share actual information, with blank posts. Moreover, as Recode's Rebecca Heilweil reports, some say that "just posting a black square and then logging off gives both brands and nonblack people a way of signaling support on social media without providing any real help."

Beyond just posting something, real action could include talking to friends and relatives about their own racism.

"White folks get really brave on social media, but then really scared when they're around their grandparents," Minor said. "Take that same energy that you got for Twitter, and go sit down with your uncle."

As with other aspects of anti-racism, there are many resources available for talking to white family members about racism - here's one from Teaching Tolerance, and another by Jamilah King at Mother Jones.

For white parents, it's also crucial to teach kids about race and anti-racism. That can be as simple as "pointing out who's in the cartoon and who's not present," Minor said. "Why do we think those people are not here?"

But it also requires thinking about who is in your child's world. "White folks have to actively choose not to live around white folks," Simmons said. For many white people in their daily lives, "You can see folks of color but they're serving your food, they're cleaning your houses," she continued, and so white parents need to put their kids in situations where they can interact with people of color in a meaningful way.

"Let them see the world outside themselves," Simmons said, but "be careful not to be voyeurs."

As with other aspects of anti-racism, there are many resources available for parents. Torres recommends Teaching Tolerance, a website with resources designed for the classroom that could be adapted at home, and the work of anti-bias educator Liz Kleinrock. The New York Times has also compiled a list of books to help parents explain racism and protest to kids.

And beyond educating those in your family and community, anti-racism is also about identifying and fighting racist practices and policies when you see them, Ranganathan said. Policing is an obvious one in this moment, but others include standardized testing that favors white students and air-pollution standards that leave black and Latinx people living in toxic neighborhoods. "To be anti-racist would be to be bold enough to call out these policies as racist," Ranganathan said.

It's also about identifying the teachers, politicians, and thought leaders who are working against these policies. "To be anti-racist would be to give support to these actors, and to throw your weight behind these organizations and these types of conversations," Ranganathan explained.

The work of anti-racism can't stop next month, next year, or when the news cycle moves on. Right now, a lot of white people are paying attention to racism and police violence "because they have no choice," Simmons said. They're stuck at home because of the pandemic, and the protests are all over the media.

But anti-racism can't be something people think about only while it's convenient, Simmons said. "It has to be a commitment that you make."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
It's not enough to be "not racist," experts and educators say.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Black people in America have been under surveillance ever since the seventeenth century, when enslaved Africans were forced to labor in the tobacco and rice fields of the South. Colonial law quickly made a distinction between indentured servants and slaves, and in so doing invented whiteness in America. It may have been possible for a free African or mixed-race person to own slaves, but it was not possible for a European to be taken into slavery. The distinction helped to keep blacks and poor whites from seeking common cause.

The slave patrols that originated in the seventeenth century would be largely made up of poor whites-paterollers, the members of the patrols were called. To stop, harass, whip, injure, or kill black people was both their duty and their reward, their understanding of themselves as white people, something they shared with their social betters. Of course their real purpose was to monitor and suppress the capacity for slave rebellion. While the militias dealt with the Indians, the paterollers rode black people.

Police forces in the North may have been modeled on Sir Robert Peel's plans for London, but as jobs connected to city politics, the policemen themselves, from Boston to Chicago, were Irish, people who had been despised when they first came to America. That they lived next to or with black people told them how close to the bottom of American society they were. In every city the Irish did battle with their nearest neighbors, black people, in order to become American and to keep blacks in their place, below them. North and South, the police were relied upon to maintain the status quo, to control a dark labor force that was feared.

White southerners during Reconstruction resented black police officers and their power to arrest a white man. Redemption, the triumph of white supremacy, pretty much eliminated black police officers. In W. Marvin Dulaney's Black Police in America (1996), the story of blacks on American police forces until the 1970s is one of tokenism and distrust by white colleagues.

Meanwhile, police forces and their relation to black people in general is a long tale about the enforcement of whiteness and blackness. When in 1967 Carl Stokes, the newly elected black mayor of Cleveland who had won due to a coalition of black and white voters, assigned black police officers only, no white ones, to black districts of the city that had experienced riots, white police officials were indignant. What had the mayor taken from them?

In the 1960s, the nation was told every summer to brace itself for a season of urban unrest, much of it, as remembered in essays in Police Brutality (2000), edited by Jill Nelson, ignited by confrontations between police officers and black people. There are the names of past victims of police killings that we have forgotten and there are names chilling to invoke: Eleanor Bumpurs, shot twice by police in New York City in 1984 because she was large and held a butter knife. But starting with Twitter keeping vigil over the body of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in the summer of 2014, and last summer, and already this summer, there is no more denying or forgetting. Social media have removed the filters that used to protect white America from what it didn't want to see, thereby protecting the police as well. Instead of calling 911, black America now pulls out its smartphones, in order to document the actions of the death squads that dialing 911 can summon.

The camera has made all the difference. A camera can mean that there is no ambiguity about what happened. Feidin Santana just happened to be where he was with his cell phone when Walter Scott was killed in North Charleston, South Carolina, on April 4, 2015. We see Scott on the police car dash cam video getting out of that black Mercedes with the supposedly broken brake light and running. Then we see, on Santana's video, Michael Slager firing eight shots into Scott's back. We don't see Scott trying to grab Slager's taser, as Slager alleged.

In Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on July 5 of this year, two cell phones captured two white policemen pinning Alton Sterling on the ground by a parked car in front of a convenience store. Footage from one cell phone is interrupted as one of the policemen yells "Gun" and several shots are heard. The woman filming from a nearby car has dropped down in her seat and she can be heard screaming. But the other cell phone, used by the owner of the convenience store, doesn't blink. It records an officer removing something from Sterling's pocket after he is dead. One of the things that will have to be determined is where his gun was before he was shot.

Brendon Jenkins, or "Jinx," a cool-voiced black anchorman for the online news service Complex News, reported that in possessing a weapon, Sterling was in violation of his probation, given his record-and he offered this information, Jinx added, in the spirit of a transparency that he hoped the Baton Rouge police department would also show. The store owner, whose CCTV footage had been confiscated by the police, said that Sterling armed himself because street sellers of CD s, as he was, had been robbed recently in the neighborhood. Jinx also said that the two white police officers, Blane Salamoni, with four years on the force, and Howie Lake, with three years on the force, both put on paid administrative leave, were supposed to have said that they felt justified in the shooting. The officers said that the body cameras they were wearing fell off or were knocked out of order during the struggle.

On July 6, Diamond "Lavish" Reynolds went on Facebook moments after her fiancé, Philando Castile, was shot four or five times in Falcon Heights, Minnesota, outside St. Paul, and, with her four-year-old daughter in the back seat ready to console her, she became like a broadcast station from the car:

He was trying to get his ID out of his pocket, and he let the officer know that he was, he had a firearm, and was reaching for his wallet and the officer just shot him in his arm.... Please, Jesus, don't tell me that he's gone. Please, officer, don't tell me that you just did this to him....

Philando Castile would turn out to have been pulled over by police fifty-two times in the past fourteen years, so he knew how to respond to a police stop. He also had over $6,000 outstanding in fines-the pressures of municipal revenue generation.

The Castile family was demanding that the police vehicle dash cam footage be released, as well as the name of the police officer-Jeronimo Yanez-("Chinese," Reynolds called him) who has been on the St. Anthony, Minnesota, police force for about four years. (Why does CNN correspondent Chris Cuomo address in public members of the Castile family older than he is by their first names? Young white people don't always consider how disrespectful rather than friendly that can seem to older black people in his audience.)

In Reynolds's broadcast on her Facebook page, the panic and unpreparedness are evident in the shrieking of Officer Yanez that can be overheard. He is still pointing his gun in the driver's window as Castile, a popular school cafeteria supervisor, lies dying. He blames his victim. Reynolds knew instinctively what authority demanded and she repeatedly addressed the white man who had just ruined her life as "sir." "You shot four bullets into him, sir." After Reynolds has been taken from the car in handcuffs, her phone on the ground, Yanez can be heard shouting "Fuck!" Many of the killings in the past three years seem to have at their core the fury of these police officers that they have been defied by black men, that they have been challenged, not been obeyed.

Most police officers don't want anything to go wrong, a retired New York City detective, a black officer, a former marine, explained to me last year on the anniversary of Michael Brown's murder in Ferguson, Missouri. The first thing that happens, he said, is that they get taken off the streets, put on leave or put behind desks, and can't make any overtime. Moreover, your colleagues don't want to work with you because you've become a problem. Most officers do not in their entire careers use their weapons in the line of duty. When they do, what happens is not a matter of the training that was often some years ago and even then only for a few weeks. It is a matter of the individual officer's character, what he or she is like in an emergency.

Until recently, grand juries were reluctant to indict police officers for shootings and when they did, trial juries tended to return dutiful not-guilty verdicts. Some black activists had hoped that white policemen going to jail for killing unarmed black men would act as a deterrent. In 2014, Officer Jason Blackwelder was convicted of manslaughter in the Conroe, Texas, death of Russell Rios, nineteen. Blackwelder was dismissed from the police force, because a felon can't serve, but he was not imprisoned. He received a sentence of five years' probation. There was no video of the crime he was tried for, but the forensic evidence-Rios had been shot in the back of his head-contradicted the policeman's story.

Black Baltimore rioted following the death on April 19, 2015, of Freddie Gray, from spinal injuries sustained while in custody in a police van. Three of the six officers charged were white; three were black. One was acquitted of assault, reckless endangerment, and misconduct; a mistrial was declared in the manslaughter trial of another officer. Four are awaiting trial. In the video of his violent arrest, Gray is screaming and the man filming yells at the police for "tasering him like that."

Officer Lisa Mearkle's camera on her taser recorded the shooting death in Hummelstown, Pennsylvania, in 2015 of David Kassick, a white man, while he was down in the snow. Not every officer involved in police violence is male. She was acquitted.

In Chicago in 2014, the killing of Laquan McDonald, seventeen, captured on a squad car dash cam was so horrible that a court ordered the police to release the footage. The shooter is offscreen, but you can see puffs of smoke from some of the sixteen bullets striking McDonald and the street around him where he lies. After sixteen seconds, Officer Jason Van Dyke enters the frame and kicks away what is probably the knife that had been in McDonald's hand. The case has been turned over to a special prosecutor. It is ironic that after so many years of hostility to the notion that we are under constant watch, not only do we accept cameras, we are in favor of the democratization of surveillance.

The police can be charged, yet the murder of black men, armed and unarmed, at police hands hasn't stopped. Just as creepy people who want to mess with children try to get jobs that give them access to and authority over children, so, too, losers who want to throw their weight around and intimidate others with impunity are often drawn to a job like that of being a policeman. "The best way to deal with police misconduct is to prevent it by effective methods of personnel screening, training, and supervision," the president's Crime Commission Report recommended-in 1968.

Jurisdictions like Ferguson, Missouri, know who their trouble officers are. They accumulate histories of racial incident. They arrive as known quantities. It's time to make it harder to become a police officer. The ones ill-suited for the job are burdens for the ones who are good at it. The videos of police killings also help explain those doubtful cases for which there are no accidental witnesses. The footage shows not only blood lust, state-sanctioned racism, or the culture of the lone gunman in many a police head, but also incompetence.

Nakia Jones, a mother and policewoman in Warrensville Heights, outside Cleveland, says in a moving Facebook post, "I wear blue," telling other officers that if they are afraid of where they work, if they have a god complex, then they have no business trying to be the police in such neighborhoods. They need to take off the uniform:

If you're white and you're working in a black community and you're racist, you need to be ashamed of yourself. You stood up there and took an oath. If this is not where you want to work at you need to take your behind somewhere else.

Officer Jones's passion recalls Fannie Lou Hamer of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party in 1964. Jones also asked black men to put down their guns, to stop killing one another, and mentor young black males.

The camera has accelerated the decriminalization of the black image in American culture. The black men about to lose their lives in these videos don't seem like threats or members of a criminal class; and we have been looking at and listening to President Obama every day. The Willie Horton ad isn't coming back and those who try to use the old racist slanders as political weapons only make themselves into caricatures. The racist is an unattractive figure in American culture, which is why people go to such lengths to achieve racist goals by stealth.

Then, too, just as black identity is found to contain layers, so the majority of young whites might be embarrassed by a racial identity that bestows privileges the protection of which has become harmful to the general welfare. They want a fluid identity as well, a new kind of being white. To intimidate and imprison an urban black male population is unacceptable to them as the task of our police forces. Before Black Lives Matter, there was Occupy Wall Street, which, in Zucotti Park in downtown Manhattan, had a significant black presence, because of union participation alongside the integrated camps of students. The great demonstrations against the Iraq War had had no effect, and many went home, discouraged, for years. But the Occupy movement reopened the street as the platform from which marginal issues could be launched into mainstream consciousness.

The Washington Post reported in June 2015 that 385 people had been killed by the police in the first five months of that year, mostly armed men, a number of them mentally ill. The Post further reported that two thirds of the black and Hispanic victims were unarmed. A website, Mapping Police Violence, displays the photographs, stories, and legal disposition of the 102 cases during that five-month period in which the murdered were unarmed black people. Another site, The Counted, maintained by The Guardian, allows you to catch up by calendar day on the 569 people killed by police so far in 2016, and who they were.

Moreover, some urgent books in recent years have had considerable influence-works on racial profiling, stop and frisk, discriminatory sentencing practices, the disproportionately high black prison population, the profitability of the prison industry, the hallucinatory disaster of the war on drugs, and the double standard when it comes to race and class and the law. A quarter of the world's prisoners are held in the US. Reform of the criminal justice system is a mainstream issue.

Political rhetoric of a certain kind-the absurd notion that protests against the police will lead somehow to higher crime rates-is predictably primitive and maybe some of the backlash we are hearing comes from frustration, the cry of a dying order. On the other hand, recent Pew Center research suggests that a wide discrepancy between black and white respondents is still there when it comes to support of police. Work slowdowns, the displays of tribal solidarity at police funerals-the police can come off as bullies who really mind being criticized, except that they have lethal weapons, the right to use deadly force. Police killings ought to be examined as part of the larger social menace of having too many guns around and far too many people who like guns.

Police practice has led to the violation of the Fourth Amendment and First Amendment rights of black people, but for black people a Second Amendment literalism invites persecution. In 1966, the sight of black men with rifles on the steps of the California capitol incited the state police and the FBI, and the destruction of the Black Panthers was assured. The black men in Dallas who came to the Black Lives Matter march on July 7 in camouflage uniforms, with their long guns, were risking their lives and maybe the lives of those around them. You think you're a symbol, but you're a target. When the shooting started, they ran like everyone else, and sightings of various black men with guns at first led the police to think that there was more than one gunman and that they were being fired upon from a tall building, not from inside a garage.

Brent Thompson, Patrick Zamarripa, Michael Krol, Michael Smith, and Lorne Ahrens were not the white police officers who killed Alton Sterling or Philando Castile; but the killer of these five white policemen, Micah Johnson, a black man, assumed that they could have been, they and the seven other officers he wounded at that Black Lives Matter march in Dallas on July 7. Or he decided that they had to pay for the deaths anyway. He is the disgraced ex-soldier with a grievance, the suicidal opportunist. It is distasteful to reduce deaths to the level of strategy, but Micah Johnson gave some right-wing opponents of Black Lives Matter the chance to pretend that parity exists between black men and white policemen as potential victims of racial violence.

The Dallas police chief, David O. Brown, a black man, the father of a son who killed a policeman and was killed in the ensuing shootout with police, explained at a press conference that Johnson had said he wanted to kill white officers. In fact some white officers protected black marchers from him.

Some young black people say they can understand being fed up enough to pick up a gun. In "16 Shots," his response to the police killing of Laquan McDonald in Chicago, the rapper Vic Mensa warns:

Ain't no fun when the rabbit got the gun
When I cock back police better run....

But we do not need agents of violent retribution.

The protests go on, without interruption. The response of Black Lives Matter to the Dallas killings was crucial and heartbreaking: "This is a tragedy-both for those who have been impacted by yesterday's attack and for our democracy." Dignity, not death.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Black people in America have been under surveillance ever since the seventeenth century, when enslaved Africans were forced to labor in the tobacco and rice fields of the South. Colonial law quickly made a distinction between indentured servants and slaves, and in so doing invented whiteness in America.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
America Wasn't a Democracy, Until Black Americans Made It One

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Coronavirus Was an Emergency Until Trump Found Out Who Was Dying

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The pandemic has exposed the bitter terms of our racial contract, which deems certain lives of greater value than others.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Skip to Main Content

Say It Loud from PBS Digital Studios celebrates Black culture, context, and history. More More

Close

Say It Loud is a PBS Digital Studios series that celebrates Black culture, context, and history. Hosts Evelyn from the Internets and Azie Dungey give you a comedic take on identity and pop culture, from Black pride movements to Black Twitter shenanigans. The show explores the complexity of Black experience and finds joy in the many ways Black folks have influenced American life.

Support for PBS.org provided by:

X CLOSE

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Say It Loud is a PBS Digital Studios series that celebrates Black culture, context, and history. Hosts Evelyn from the Internets and Azie Dungey give you a comedic take on identity and pop culture, from Black pride movements to Black Twitter shenanigans.