We Want More Justice for Breonna Taylor than the System That Killed Her Can Deliver Andrea J. Ritchie 63 Kaba came of age in the '80s on New York's Lower East Side, where she saw firsthand society's societal, racial and economic fault lines. She would commute to a privileged Upper West Side high school, which painted a clear picture of the racial disparities that separated her classmates from her friends on the Lower East Side. What if social transformation and liberation isn’t about waiting for someone else to come along and save us? What if ordinary people have the power to collectively free ourselves? In this timely collection of essays and interviews, Mariame Kaba reflects on the deep work of abolition and transformative political struggle.

Mariame also shares that she is grappling more with punishment and revenge as elements of carceral logic, even when enacted outside of the criminal legal system. One of Mariame’s touchstones, Angela Y. Davis, has said, PDF / EPUB File Name: We_Do_This_Til_We_Free_Us_-_Mariame_Kaba.pdf, We_Do_This_Til_We_Free_Us_-_Mariame_Kaba.epub Punishment means inflicting cruelty and suffering on people whereas when you are expecting consequences, those can be unpleasant and uncomfortable, but they do not have to involve overt cruelty. For example, when a powerful figure is caught doing something wrong, a consequence for their action would be forcing them to step down for their job, but punishing them would mean sending them to jail so that when they leave, it would be extremely difficult to get a job again and live any kind of normal life again (p. 146). If you ask someone to move away so they can be further away from those they hurt, that is a consequence. A punishment would be if they were never able to secure housing again. We Do This ‘Til We Free Us has so much wisdom to offer, particularly at this unprecedented moment. Kaba not only challenges the corrosive notions that only policing and prisons keep us safe, but invites us to see abolition not as a far-away goal, but an everyday adventure that we can embark upon in our daily lives. Mariame Kaba is a galactic treasure. Her passion, dedication and commitment to abolition, safety and accountability are unparalleled. Read this book." — Victoria Law, author, Prison by Any Other NameAccountability must be chosen by someone who has caused harm, not imposed. There is no such thing as making someone be accountable. Instead, there is creating a culture of accountability, holding space for people to practice accountability, and transforming the incentives that currently discourage accountability (especially the PIC, which disincentivizes accountability because admitting guilt for harm caused results in a cage, and consequently also discourages repair for harm.) People are already doing the work of abolition. We can look to concrete examples: reparations campaigns in support of survivors of police violence and torture, participatory defense campaigns, people working to end cash bail and pretrial detention, those supporting individuals through parole hearings, groups doing court watching, those working on mass commutation campaigns, and organizations working for laws that offer pathways toward release (among many others). The prison industrial complex (PIC) meets violence with violence. Abolition meets violence with restoration and transformation.

This part of the book compiles writings that discuss different strategies and options for what abolitionist theory and organizing can look like. Abolitionism is not a politics mediated by emotional responses” (133). Advocating for someone’s incarceration, no matter who they are or how much you hate them, is not abolitionist. And you don’t have to be an abolitionist, but if you are, a key element of an abolitionist politic is opposing policing, prisons, and surveillance in every and any iteration.The intertwined analysis and collective organizing archived in this invaluable collection provides crucial entry points in the everyday work of abolition. Engaging the most pressing questions of our time with clarity and commitment, as always, Mariame makes abolition irresistible, and as imperatively, doable.” — Erica R. Meiners, author, For the Children: Protecting Innocence in a Carceral State For Kaba, prison-industrial complex (PIC) abolition is ‘a political vision, a structural analysis of oppression, and a practical organizing strategy… PIC abolition is a vision of a restructured society in a world where we have everything we need: food, shelter, education, health, art, beauty, clean water, and more things that are foundational to our personal and community safety’ (p. 2). Getting to the root of the issue such as critiquing the way the USA gymnastics team handled allegations and dismantling the misogyny and sexism that lead to sexual assault.