Reflection prompts:

Let’s come together to deepen our shared understandings of visionary Black-led abolition movements, expand the limits of our abolitionist imaginations, and recognize the ways that race, class and gender influence our understandings of safety and punishment. What questions are we each sitting with in the wake of the Chauvin verdict and how it relates to calls for justice and accountability? How are people defining justice and accountability in relation to police indictments? How do we reckon with the system that is guilty, that is not put on trial, that was designed to secure and maintain white dominance? Nearly a year after “Defund the Police” became a rallying call from the Movement for Black Lives, what do we need to grapple with in order to become stronger amplifiers of this paradigm shift of divestment from militarized policing, re-investment into community wellbeing, and fundamental re-imagining of public safety? We will ground in definitions and frameworks put forward by key leaders and take this time to grow our collective capacity in service to abolitionist pathways to a more just future.

Here is some delicious food for thought, as an offering before we meet. No expectation to have read these to join the dialogue!

• Imagine – A series on what police abolition might look like by Amber Hughson @conflicttransformation – “You don’t realize it, but your brake lights aren’t working. Imagine… a city employee signals for you to pull over & says “hey, how about I replace those lights for you right here so no one gets hurt?” An hour later, both lights work & you’re at home. Is that public safety?”
• So You’re Thinking About Becoming an Abolitionist by Mariame Kaba – “Prison industrial complex (PIC) abolition is a political vision, a structural analysis of oppression, and a practical organizing strategy. While some people might think of abolition as primarily a negative project — “Let’s tear everything down tomorrow and hope for the best” — 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.”
• Whether Darren Wilson Is Indicted or Not, the Entire System Is Guilty by Mariame Kaba – “It feels blasphemous to suggest that one is disinvested from the outcome of the grand jury deliberations. “Don’t you care about accountability for harm caused?” some will ask. “What about justice?” others will accuse. My response is always the same: I am not against indicting killer cops. I just know that indictments won’t and can’t end oppressive policing which is rooted in anti-blackness, social control and containment. Policing is derivative of a broader social justice. It’s impossible for non-oppressive policing to exist in a fundamentally oppressive and unjust society.”

Resources that were referenced and shared during the dialogue:

• Zach Norris – we keep us safe
• Undrowned – Alexis Pauline Gumbs
• TGIJP: http://www.tgijp.org
• CR http://criticalresistance.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/CR_abolitioniststeps_antiexpansion_2021_eng.pdf 
• Book rec- https://www.parallax.org/product/healing-resistance/
• Great guide for abolition study group: Together We Lift the Sky
• https://abolitionjournal.org/studyguide/?fbclid=IwAR3tommSx0OyZY5kUM7eLoMw2pOuhyFcEguILWiEhPrpHK8bNAE867fxYjQ

Framing

• Reading quotes from Ruth Wilson Gilmore:

“Abolition is about presence, not absence. It’s about building  life-affirming institutions.” 

“Abolition is about abolishing the conditions under which prison became the solution to problems, rather than abolishing the buildings we call prisons.”

• 1 min video on Abolition 101

Dialogue Notes

These are rough, uncut, unfiltered, and anonymous notes taken at the dialogue. We get that these may not be very readable to those who were not in attendance at the dialogue, and, honestly, sometimes even to those of us who were. We still feel it is important to keep them available as part of our accountability process and for archiving and reference purposes.  Some of these notes have been digested/transformed into blogs.

• What has worked in having conversations, what has been generative, what have been blocks
• Have been in community where discussions about race were standard and then in contexts with family who are not on the same page – how to meet people where they are
• “That doesn’t apply to me” – somehow human suffering isn’t applicable and we can be removed from it
• Listening – theoretical support of abolition vs direct/daily impact of environment – so in feelings that can’t hear about how calling police, etc, doesn’t work – just make space to let them hear what they are saying, to vent, to get through their feelings
• Working in nonprofit industrial complex, which is white dominated industry where people are paid wages to offset a missing social support system
• Learned about direction/contract my team was exploring, but we were facilitating flow of state resources and recognized that the money going through the state legitimized it – but hasn’t changed the structures
• Getting organizations to slow down to look at impacts of choices – slowing down agendas
• So much abuse in these toxic systems
• Constantly in these situations where you are re-legitimizing the state to get the resources
• Have found it helpful to focus on specifics – i.e. people with mental health training should respond to mental health crisis, not police
• In library space, re: security guards and calling police when there are incidents. Had a reading group of Zach Norris – we keep us safe reading group bc library is a shared space that should be for everyone, but it was opt in and not everyone was there so not wide impact
• Painting that instead picture – where are we not yet, and how can we get there – this isn’t the only way
• When we’re in crisis, there isn’t a capacity to do the imagining
• We are manipulated to feel always in crisis – and with rise of defund the police, huge PR campaign of fear and “rise in crime”
• Intentional media of what is focused on and what is not focused on
• A new jail was being built where i live, and due to covid and crime rates down, it stopped and will now be community services – a huge win in my world
• Reminded of last summer AOC – defund police doesn’t require much imagination – it’s what a wealthy white neighborhood looks like – it’s already happening when we’re talking about budgets and priorities
• Framing things – make people do the cognitive shift “what if this family were white / middle class” – discussed example of the way the system didn’t know how to support a certain child – if we imagine them being resourced, that child would be wrapped in resources, not in custody – what level of care would you give this child or family if they were yours
• All of the Imagine graphics end with the expectation that you will make it home safely
• Thinking about access to access to food – curious about how food access/food justice can be an entry point to these conversations – relationship between reform and complicity/complacency – easy to slip in to easy reforms/traps
• Reformist reform v abolitionist reform – is is reinforcing the state – shared Critical Resistance questions http://criticalresistance.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/CR_abolitioniststeps_antiexpansion_2021_eng.pdf
• These systems are so deeply ingrained at every step so people inside think they are helping (i.e. diversion, drug treatment. No, just let them go, no one should be in jail)
• Have been thinking about how to hold issues like access to clean drinking water in prisons – how that fits in to these conversations of just defunding
• Balancing pragmatism and vision when faced with current realities
• Our goal is to help people get their needs met – to do that within jails/prison will have an impact – any services/advocacy feels important, but “not one more dollar”
• There is such a lack of resources currently, so addition of resources is needed, esp when you are there for the person not the system – recognizing their humanity
• So deeply entrenched – how to defund the police and prison guards, while supporting resources to improve lives inside prison
• One of the most painful parts of juvenile detention, when the jail closed, was that Black and brown people lost their jobs, with careers that are not easily transferable, correctional officers unions are some of the most powerful unions in the country. Agencies will be the ones who want to provide the funding for resources to maintain jobs. Black and brown workers in the system, not all white. These complexities to engage with. Has to be a both/and conversation.
• One huge goal has to be no more people in – how do you stop the flow in? Keep getting smaller, shrink and shrink. Where policy comes in, around resentencing. Cohort of people who are harder to get out.
• Prison is torture. A human rights violation.
• Important to name the contradictions wherever we are located, wherever we are working. Where do we serve and how do we serve this shift? Speaking these truths.
• Zach Norris will name – of course we want this system to not exist, and we are supporting this particular work you are doing. 
• Every minute of contact with criminal justice system has worse outcomes for BIPOC youth – keep this in mind.
• Dividing the work – how it all strengthens and reinforces. So many people who are not doing anything.
• I ask folks if they have 2 minutes of free time a month, what if 1% of folks who voted for Biden called the White House, would be 20,000 a day, start to move a muscle
• How to mobilize and reach into the empathy gap, among white people? 
• Reach low-hanging fruit
• Model: affirm – counter – transform
  • Take a step back and find common ground of agreement (like everyone has access to clean drinking water)
  • Then go back to where there was divergence
• These are lifelong questions – working with whiteness empathy gap – what makes people get curious? For white people who don’t get it, perhaps ask how does this system serve you? 
• 2021 is 50th anniversary of Stanford Prison Experiment – studied social psychology of prison context by putting students in roles of guard and prisoner. Had to be called off after 6 days bc went too far and overwhelmed individual consciousness. In these conditions of dehumanization ,how would that affect us. Showed the toxicity, but is often used to advocate for reform but not abolition. How to push that farther? Intervenes into bad apple metaphor – it’s the barrel – it’s the system. 
• Not a lot of officers have heard of this experiment. 
• The system isn’t broken – it’s doing what it was designed to do. Participation invisibilized.
•  Thinking of connection with green new deal and exit strategies, complication of who holds jobs – they are human beings, with trauma, who am i to critique?
• Curious about critiques of somatic abolitionism
• Working with cultural competency with police and Spanish-speaking workers, practicing de-escalation, knew how much fear my clients had, and the police recruits felt they were in danger, many had recently come from Iraq – hard to hold everyone’s humanity
• Everyone has a right to a safe life, dignity and healing and a way out
• Empathy for workers, institutions that are training us
• Liberal feminist imperialism of white women running most defense companies – the different faces of US militarism, biggest cop in the world
• In My Grandmother’s Hands, reading and feeling a world of dissonance – it will name that this is a system designed to uphold white supremacy, and encourage cops to meditate. 
• How are folks centering in POC leadership?
• There’s activity of getting white people on board, and then how do we support visions and solutions emerging from impacted communities?
  • Interested in trauma
  • The pathologizing and diagnostic labeling of trauma are so white, coming out of abusive western white medical system that may not be speaking to all communities
  • I worry about my white institutional training
  • The system is cruel, bottom line
• Community Ready Corps: 5 Methods
  • Divestment of resources to support Black self-determination, bottom line
  • Following Black leadership – what are they asking white people to do?
  • Contribution not control – what does it mean to show up 
• Anti-Police Terror Project
• Check my own self-righteousness, this is not how i wanted it to be
• Pen pal: if anyone doesn’t have relationships with people in prison, recommend it, study groups and closer relationships
• TGIJP, Critical Resistance, Initiate Justice
• Open to being checked
• I look to people who are living it
• Film: Feminist on Cell Block Y
• The systemic complexity and the simplicity of caring for people
• Learning to rethink and reprogram what we perceive as threats, recognizing our white fragility

Checkout

• Appreciating looking at the many levels at once, feeling enlivened
• Sitting with the both/and
• Complexity
• Also the simply of care for human beings
• Recognizing all have humanity, even officers
• How to make sure all my white friends have alternative to police resources
• Feeling unsettled