Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice
Paperback, 206 pages
English language
Published March 10, 2021 by Haymarket Books.
A reflection on prison industrial complex abolition and a vision for collective liberation from organizer and educator Mariame Kaba.
“Organizing is both science and art. It is thinking through a vision, a strategy, and then figuring out who your targets are, always being concerned about power, always being concerned about how you’re going to actually build power in order to be able to push your issues, in order to be able to get the target to actually move in the way that you want to.”
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.
With a foreword by Naomi Murakawa and chapters on seeking justice beyond the punishment system, …
A reflection on prison industrial complex abolition and a vision for collective liberation from organizer and educator Mariame Kaba.
“Organizing is both science and art. It is thinking through a vision, a strategy, and then figuring out who your targets are, always being concerned about power, always being concerned about how you’re going to actually build power in order to be able to push your issues, in order to be able to get the target to actually move in the way that you want to.”
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.
With a foreword by Naomi Murakawa and chapters on seeking justice beyond the punishment system, transforming how we deal with harm and accountability, and finding hope in collective struggle for abolition, Kaba’s work is deeply rooted in the relentless belief that we can fundamentally change the world. As Kaba writes, “Nothing that we do that is worthwhile is done alone.”
As a white person learning about abolitionist thought and finding ways that I can, with chronic illnesses, be part of this movement, reading this book (and listening, I read part of it via audiobook) both challenged and encouraged me. There is something to be said about firmness, unflinching truthfulness, and boundaries: they are kindness like no other. I will read this book again.
Transformative justice, repairing relationships, redesigning society systemically, accountability for harms. Prisons had to be imagined; prisons were a reform, and like other reforms that leave in place the system of punitive surveillance, control, and violence they don't promote justice for so many harms, while harming more. We can imagine so many alternatives. We don't believe the world will change if we can just change enough minds to e.g. believe that black lives matter; we will define and practice and live a vision for a world where black lives matter.
really useful and varied collection of texts about organizing and abolition. I believe these texts are all available elsewhere, but it was really nice to have in one place, curated, and grouped by theme. I found the collection to be personally useful and inspiring, as well as a great entrypoint to talk about abolition in practice with coworkers and friends interested in the topic but without (yet!) experience with organizing around it.
here's a great reading & discussion guide for use with groups: www.haymarketbooks.org/pdfs/10
This is a fantastic introduction to Kaba's work and is a masterfully selected set of essays that work together to present many different entry points into the ideas of abolition and transformative justice. I found the parts detailing the differences between punishment and accountability/consequences to be extremely helpful to my philosophy as a manager, and this book also helped me grasp the "long game" that is activism & organizing in a way I'm not sure I ever really did before. Very powerful stuff; be prepared to take a ton of notes.
Purchasable
https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1664-we-do-this-til-we-free-us.