The inspiration continues! The flow of memoirs, life experiences and books ceaselessly enrich our capacity to empathize. Thanks once again, Courtney!
Regarding books that have influenced my thinking, there's Judith Butler's challenge in "The Force of Nonviolence" to generate "new imaginations" as we face these challenges that Courtney brilliantly sets forth.
On the subject of prison abolition (not merely reform), I rely on the longstanding example and writings of Angela Davis. This has been reinforced more recently by Mariame Kaba's "We Do This 'Til We Free Us. Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice" (Haymarket Books, 2021).
Kaba introduces us to "Project Nia"( Swahili for "with purpose") and the cause is explained persuasively throughout. It contains an excellent ch., "So You're Thinking About Becoming an Abolitionist". Kaba advocates the "transformative justice movement led by Black, Indigenous, and people of color survivors [with] a different vision for ending violence and transforming our communities."
Kaba proceeds to explain how she closely follows the thought of Angela Davis:
"As Angela Y. Davis points out, 'we have to be consistent' in our analysis and not respond to violence in a way that compounds it. We need to use our radical imagination to come up with new structures of accountability beyond the system we are working to dismantle. "(p.65).
Kaba then quotes from another hero of mine, bell hooks, who wrote:
"It is essential to our struggle for self-determination that we speak of love. For love is the necessary foundation enabling us to survive wars, the hardships, the sickness, and the dying with our spirits intact. It is love that allows us to survive whole." Kaba endorses hooks' wholeheartedly by asserting that "To lead with love gives us a fighting chance at winning."(p.106).
Kaba's thesis advocating prison abolitionism as a vital cause is an illustration of how a book can powerfully change views because, at least in my case, I'm indebted to Kaba (following Davis and hooks), for radically altering mine about the necessity for prison abolition. DD
I am moved by both the post and the replies and yet... I still feel like it’s a plethora of profound words but what, in the end, do we DO?
Prison abolition is a non-starter, in my estimation. No one is going to rally round the idea of restorative justice for rapists and murderers.
That said, why would someone like Monte be imprisoned for a fender-bender? THIS is perhaps where we start. The non-violent ‘crimes’, the over-policing, the lack of humanity towards people who didn’t harm anyone and who are harmed themselves.
The people who work in these occupations (police, prison workers, etc) become calloused by what they are exposed to, if they don’t go into this work for the actual purpose of sanctioned violence (sick as that may sound, I’m sure there are some who do). Are there no people in these roles who can turn the tide? Why was Monte not given his medication? It’s unimaginable how people can live with themselves when they dehumanize so blatantly.
Horrors! There is the horror of not showing empathy, the horror of minimizing, and the horror of making horror abstract. "Observing and commenting" has to be one more horrible symptom of whiteness. The more profound question is how one somatically engages with the horrors we witness. Do we have responsible, collective somatic intelligence to suffer with? I know my white Protestant lineage doesn't. I renounced my ordination after Katrina hit, and my congregation just sat there and hardly spoke about it. We had not done our work as white people. It might be different now. As I witness the anguish in Lahaina, a place that I love, and the consequent intersections of injustice around the indigenous, class challenges, and colonization, I am stunned and grieving as one of the returning "tourist/pilgrim" to Maui. In my book The Art of Ensoulment: A Playbook on How to Create from Body and Soul- I offer that bowing to limits and dancing with suffering are core practices. Dancing? In what ways do we MOVE our sorrow and rage? Another key is the practice of differentiating between situational emotions like anger and the greater emotional field of rage, which results from repeating patterns that make us angry. My friend and teacher Ruth King proposed to me after Katrina, "How will you dignify your rage?" Asking that question led me to a new alignment. I renounced my ordination to the rule of white patriarchal Protestant and Catholic practice that creates NORMS. It was a painful thing to do as I remain a loving member of my ancestral lineage. Now, without a vow to it. Important somatic work for me.
...”(B)e an embodied ally, not just a fascinated one.” Well said.
Beautifully said. Embodied allyship. We need proximity!
You crystallised something that was only partially formed in my consciousness and being. Thank you.
profound realization, thank you for sharing
The inspiration continues! The flow of memoirs, life experiences and books ceaselessly enrich our capacity to empathize. Thanks once again, Courtney!
Regarding books that have influenced my thinking, there's Judith Butler's challenge in "The Force of Nonviolence" to generate "new imaginations" as we face these challenges that Courtney brilliantly sets forth.
On the subject of prison abolition (not merely reform), I rely on the longstanding example and writings of Angela Davis. This has been reinforced more recently by Mariame Kaba's "We Do This 'Til We Free Us. Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice" (Haymarket Books, 2021).
Kaba introduces us to "Project Nia"( Swahili for "with purpose") and the cause is explained persuasively throughout. It contains an excellent ch., "So You're Thinking About Becoming an Abolitionist". Kaba advocates the "transformative justice movement led by Black, Indigenous, and people of color survivors [with] a different vision for ending violence and transforming our communities."
Kaba proceeds to explain how she closely follows the thought of Angela Davis:
"As Angela Y. Davis points out, 'we have to be consistent' in our analysis and not respond to violence in a way that compounds it. We need to use our radical imagination to come up with new structures of accountability beyond the system we are working to dismantle. "(p.65).
Kaba then quotes from another hero of mine, bell hooks, who wrote:
"It is essential to our struggle for self-determination that we speak of love. For love is the necessary foundation enabling us to survive wars, the hardships, the sickness, and the dying with our spirits intact. It is love that allows us to survive whole." Kaba endorses hooks' wholeheartedly by asserting that "To lead with love gives us a fighting chance at winning."(p.106).
Kaba's thesis advocating prison abolitionism as a vital cause is an illustration of how a book can powerfully change views because, at least in my case, I'm indebted to Kaba (following Davis and hooks), for radically altering mine about the necessity for prison abolition. DD
I am moved by both the post and the replies and yet... I still feel like it’s a plethora of profound words but what, in the end, do we DO?
Prison abolition is a non-starter, in my estimation. No one is going to rally round the idea of restorative justice for rapists and murderers.
That said, why would someone like Monte be imprisoned for a fender-bender? THIS is perhaps where we start. The non-violent ‘crimes’, the over-policing, the lack of humanity towards people who didn’t harm anyone and who are harmed themselves.
The people who work in these occupations (police, prison workers, etc) become calloused by what they are exposed to, if they don’t go into this work for the actual purpose of sanctioned violence (sick as that may sound, I’m sure there are some who do). Are there no people in these roles who can turn the tide? Why was Monte not given his medication? It’s unimaginable how people can live with themselves when they dehumanize so blatantly.
Horrors! There is the horror of not showing empathy, the horror of minimizing, and the horror of making horror abstract. "Observing and commenting" has to be one more horrible symptom of whiteness. The more profound question is how one somatically engages with the horrors we witness. Do we have responsible, collective somatic intelligence to suffer with? I know my white Protestant lineage doesn't. I renounced my ordination after Katrina hit, and my congregation just sat there and hardly spoke about it. We had not done our work as white people. It might be different now. As I witness the anguish in Lahaina, a place that I love, and the consequent intersections of injustice around the indigenous, class challenges, and colonization, I am stunned and grieving as one of the returning "tourist/pilgrim" to Maui. In my book The Art of Ensoulment: A Playbook on How to Create from Body and Soul- I offer that bowing to limits and dancing with suffering are core practices. Dancing? In what ways do we MOVE our sorrow and rage? Another key is the practice of differentiating between situational emotions like anger and the greater emotional field of rage, which results from repeating patterns that make us angry. My friend and teacher Ruth King proposed to me after Katrina, "How will you dignify your rage?" Asking that question led me to a new alignment. I renounced my ordination to the rule of white patriarchal Protestant and Catholic practice that creates NORMS. It was a painful thing to do as I remain a loving member of my ancestral lineage. Now, without a vow to it. Important somatic work for me.