The Role of the State in Abolitionist Futures

Project NIA

A conversation with authors Mariame Kaba, Andrea Ritchie, Robyn Maynard, and Leanne Betasamosake Simpson.

As movements to defund and divest from policing and invest in community safety expand in the wake of the 2020 Uprisings, abolitionist organizers are increasingly grappling with questions around the role of the state in abolitionist futures. Where do we want funds diverted from police budgets to go: into other institutions currently controlled by the carceral state, to subsidize the creation of new state entities, or into community-based organizations? What actions and behaviors do we think should be regulated by the state? How should they be regulated? How do we think resources should be distributed? These are not just theoretical questions - they shape the sites of struggle we choose, our organizing objectives and strategies, and the contexts in which they unfold. Organizers Mariame Kaba, Robyn Maynard, Andrea J. Ritchie, and Leanne Betasamosake Simpson explore these questions and more through Black feminist and Indigenous frameworks in their recently released books <a href="https://thenewpress.com/books/no-more-police" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">No More Police: A Case for Abolition</a> and <a href="https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1880-rehearsals-for-living" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Rehearsals for Living</a>. Join the authors for a discussion hosted by <a href="https://www.interruptingcriminalization.com/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Interrupting Criminalization</a> and <a href="https://www.haymarketbooks.org/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Haymarket Books</a> on October 26, 2022 from 5-7 pm ET and release of a new tool to support organizers to individually and collectively reflect on these questions and how they shape strategies of resistance.S﻿peaker Bios<a href="http://mariamekaba.com/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Mariame Kaba</a> is an organizer, educator, curator, and prison industrial complex (PIC) abolitionist who is active in movements for racial, gender, and transformative justice. Kaba is the founder and director of <a href="https://project-nia.org/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Project NIA</a>, a grassroots abolitionist organization with a vision to end youth incarceration. Mariame is currently a researcher at<a href="https://www.interruptingcriminalization.com/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer"> Interrupting Criminalization</a>, a project she co-founded with Andrea Ritchie in 2018. Robyn Maynard is an award-winning Black feminist scholar-activist based in Toronto and the author of the national bestseller <a href="http://cup.columbia.edu/book/policing-black-lives/9781552669792" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Policing Black Lives: State Violence in Canada from Slavery to the Present</a>. Her writings on policing, feminism, abolition, and Black liberation are taught widely across North America and Europe.Andrea J. Ritchie is a Black lesbian immigrant police misconduct attorney and organizer whose writing, litigation, and advocacy have focused on the policing and criminalization of women and LGBT people of color for the past two decades. She is the co-founder of, most recently, <a href="https://www.interruptingcriminalization.com/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Interrupting Criminalization</a> and the author of many books, including &quot;<a href="http://invisiblenomorebook.com/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Invisible No More: Police Violence Against Black Women and Women of Color</a>&quot; (Beacon Press 2017).Leanne Betasamosake Simpson is a renowned Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg scholar, writer, and artist, who has been widely recognized as one of the most compelling Indigenous voices of her generation. Leanne is the author of seven books, including her 2021 novel <a href="https://houseofanansi.com/products/noopiming" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Noopiming: The Cure for White Ladies</a>, which was named a best book of the year by the Globe and Mail and was shortlisted for the Governor General’s Literary Award for fiction.Live ASL interpretation and closed captioning will be provided.

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