We Do This ‘Til We Free Us

Summary, part 1 & 2

Part 1: So You’re Thinking About Becoming an Abolitionist

Background on Prison Abolition

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). 

For Kaba, prison abolition goes far past just abolishing prisons, surveillance, and policing; it is a complete overhaul of how society is structured, what roles institutions play in society, and how we manage conflict and harm. Since the prison industrial complex is built on anti-Blackness, oppression, and white supremacy, prisons act as a structural form that upholds these structures and ultimately lead to the suffering and suppression of Black communities. This is why addressing harm without structural forms of oppression is important. 

Kaba provides four concrete steps for where to begin the abolition process: 

1. “...when we set about trying to transform society, we must remember that we ourselves will also need to transform. Our imagination of what a different world can be is limited” (p. 4). Challenging the logic of oppression and how society has internalised and grown to rely on these logics is essential to step one.  

2. “...we must imagine and experiment with new collective structures that enable us to take more principled action, such as embracing collective responsibility to resolve conflicts” (p. 4). To further this point, Kaba highlights Brazil's  Landless Workers Movement (Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra). (To find out more about this movement: https://www.mstbrazil.org/content/what-mst)

3. “.... we must simultaneously engage in strategies that reduce contact between people and the criminal legal system” (p. 4).

4. “....as a scholar and activist Ruth Wilson Gilmore notes, building a different world requires that we not only change how we address harm but also that we change everything” (p. 5). (This idea is further explored in Ruth Wilson Gilmore’s book, Change Everything: Racial Capitalism and the Case for Abolition.)

While these steps provide a more general overview, Kaba also covers what immediate steps can be taken to work towards prison abolition: 

1. “Organizing for dramatic decreases of police budgets and redirecting those funds to other social goods (defunding the police)” (p. 13). 

2. “Ending cash bail” (ibid).

3. “Overturning police bills of rights” (ibid).

4. “Abolishing police unions” (ibid).

5. “Crowding out the police in our communities” (ibid).

6. “Disarming the police” (ibid).

7. “Creating abolitionist messages that penetrate the public consciousness to disrupt the idea that cops = safety” (ibid).

8. “Building community-based interventions that address harms without relying on police” (ibid).

9. “Evaluating any reforms based on these criteria” (ibid).

10. “Thinking through the end of the police and imagining alternatives” (ibid).

Critiques of the Prison Abolition Movement

Kaba uses the rest of this section of the book to challenge some of the common critiques or comments on prison abolition. 

Critique 1: The system is “broken.” 

This discourse often emerges after the mainstream media covers another killing of a Black person at the hands of police officers. People (mostly white) will often be upset and start to argue that the policing system is broken and needs to be fixed through strategies like more racial bias training, more positive interactions between young Black children and the police, and more body cams to avoid these killings in the future. However, this discourse completely ignores how the system of policing is working exactly as it is set out to. 

Criminality and Blackness have become synonymous and police are responsible for upholding the idea that Black people are dangerous and need to be controlled. Kaba uses personal accounts to reveal the way that every summer, her students and community members face increased animosity from the police as children are out of school and on the streets more often. These frequent encounters with the police show how police focus on terrorizing and criminalizing Black communities and that racial bias training, body cameras, and increased interaction between police and young people are not solutions to the problem; they merely uphold a system.

Critique 2:  The dehumanization of the prison population. 

Kaba focuses on a case from 2013 to show how the industrial prison complex strips prisoners of their humanity. 

• Tiffany Rusher was imprisoned for charges related to sex work and, after having altercations with inmates, was put in solitary confinement. As Rusher’s mental health began to decline, she was placed on “crisis watch,” where she was monitored for 24 hours and “stripped of all clothing and belongings, and placed in a bare cell with only a “suicide smock” (a single piece of thick woven nylon, too stiff to fold, with holes for one’s head and arms)” (p. 19). 

• After being treated in a mental health facility and improving greatly, Rusher was placed back in confinement after another altercation, despite her having clear mental health issues. Thus, the cycle of carceral violence and abuse began all over again. 

• Eventually, Rusher was found unresponsive after a suicide attempt and died 12 days later after being removed from life support. She was only 27 years old. 

The Tiffany Rusher case highlights that prisons are focused on abuse and neglect and have no interest in rehabilitation. Rusher is a single example in a sea of horror stories of abuse sustained in the prison system. Kaba highlights the importance of restoring the humanity of prisoners that have been systematically neglected and abused in the prison industrial complex and abolishing the system to ensure no one has to go through what Tiffany, her friends, and family had to go through. With the abolition of prisons and the introduction of humane, people-led interventions, people like Tiffany Rusher can get the help they need. 

Part 1 finishes with Kaba focusing on the importance of hope as a grounded practice in prison abolition work. In an interview by Kim Wilson and Brian Sonenstein, Kaba states, “I always tell people, for me, hope doesn’t preclude feeling sadness or frustration or anger or any other emotion that makes total sense. Hope isn’t an emotion, you know? Hope is not optimism” (p. 26). Kaba views hope as something you practice, a philosophy that is essential in the sustained fight for prison abolition.

Part 2: There Are No Perfect Victims

Victimhood: Who is a “valid” victim and who isn’t? 

Kaba is the co-founder of an organization called Survived and Punished that focuses on criminalized survivors. Criminalized survivors are people (often Black women) who are charged with a crime, even though they were protecting themselves from sexual, physical, or mental violence. These victims reveal how the prison system is deeply intertwined with systems of violence. You can learn more about this work here. Kaba uses this chapter to bring attention to two specific case studies of gendered violence and criminalized survivors. 

Case of Marissa Alexander 

The first case is that of Marissa Alexander, a woman who fired a warning shot to scare off her abusive husband. No one was hurt and yet, she faced up to 60 years in jail at her retrial (p. 31). Ultimately, Marissa Alexander agreed to a plea deal. 

Alexander’s retrial was happening at the same time as the indictment trial for the murder of Mike Brown. Although the cases seem to be very different, Kaba argues that “the logic of anti-Blackness and punishment connects both” (p. 31). Both cases involved Black people suffering at the hands of colonialism, anti-Blackness, slavery, and imperialism, causing Back people to be seen as “innately inferior” (p. 31). 

Society often views Black people as disposable, and the industrial prison system upholds and enforces this logic. All injustices are connected. This is why the abolition of the whole system is so crucial. Marissa Alexander has since been released from prison, you can watch her TED Talk here.

Case of Cyntoia Brown

The second case Kaba discusses is the Cyntoia Brown case. The Cyntoia Brown case had more media coverage than the Marissa Alexander case, in part because of the emergence of the hashtag #FreeCyntoiaBrown, used by high-profile celebrities such as Kim Kardashian and Rihanna. 

Cyntoia Brown was 16 years old when she shot a man she was having sex with, in an act of self-defense. Cyntoia was tried as an adult for first-degree premeditated murder, first-degree felony murder, and aggravated robbery two years after her initial arrest on August 25, 2006 (p. 35). Cyntoia specifically explained that it was survival sex work that led to her situation, yet the media was quick to change the narrative that Cyntoia was a child sex slave. Kaba critiques this changing of narrative, mentioning how important it is to use the same language as the victims and how sensationalist coverage erases many of the nuances and complexities that go along with being involved in the sex/street industries. It is important to remember that not every sex worker is trafficked, even if the law says anyone under the age of 18 is. This was an attempt to paint Cyntoia in a more “palatable” and “sympathetic” light by the media in order to fit a perfect victim narrative.

Kaba questions why a 29-year-old Black woman is an unsympathetic victim. This was further questioned by Kaba when imagery that emerged during the retrial featured Cyntoia as a child, wearing pigtails like she did when she went to trial at 16. This flattened narrative of Cyntoia being a child manipulated to be a sex slave is highlighted by the media because it is easier to cause sympathy for a victim that is passive, innocent, and respectable. Ultimately, the final paragraph of this piece highlights the issues surrounding the way the Cyntoia Brown case was handled: 

Let’s #FreeCyntoiaBrown—not only from the cage she has unjustly been held in for the past thirteen years for fighting for her life, but also from narratives that take away her agency and police and control what it means to be a survivor of violence. And let’s do the same for all young people in the sex trade, and all survivors of violence. (p. 40)

Since being granted clemency Cyntoia Brown has written a book, which you can read more about here.

“No Selves to Protect”

Cases like the ones above highlight how Black women specifically are criminalized for survival techniques. This concept has been solidified and coined by Kaba as “no selves to protect.” This idea of no agency, no body to protect is supported by historical context as women slaves in America were considered property, not people. Therefore, any sexual violence or abuse towards them was not considered a crime at the time. This notion of property, along with the exclusion of Black women from definitions of femininity and womanhood, have historically and systemically affected Black women’s bodily agency and autonomy.

The prison-industrial system isn’t working for survivors of sexual assault or women who attempt to protect themselves against gendered violence. That is why the abolition of the prison industrial complex is an essential fight for the progression of women in society. Sexual assault is nuanced and complex, and the system we use now is not. Additionally, the system does not bring justice to survivors. In fact, it often just retraumatizes survivors as they are forced to go through the trial and prosecution of their abusers. Real justice for survivors could look like therapy, monetary redistribution, and/or safe places to live away from where the abuse happened. Real consequences for perpetrators could look like public apologies, therapy, loss of jobs, and/or the inability to hold high positions. Ultimately, the system that we have now is not serving survivors, especially if the survivors are Black women.