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A review by danielles_reads
We Do This 'til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice by Mariame Kaba
reflective
3.5
I'm not sure of my exact rating but it's hovering somewhere between a 3 and a 4. To start, I find it really irritating and borderline irresponsible to publish this in book form with ZERO citations. Even the online articles many of these were originally published as had citations! Some parts of the essays are intended to be read with links like online articles are, which lessened the impact when in book form (like Kaba mentioning the US already bombed Black people, which went unexplained in the book, but the online article linked to the MOVE bombing. I did not get that until searching online ). Some other reviews mention this, but there were some statistics that were straight-up wrong, with others being weirdly specific to make a point. I also found that Kaba didn't include all the details in some of the stories about prisoners, which weakens her argument imo. Why describe the actions of a woman who sexually assaulted a 12 year old boy as “sex with a minor”?
And as a collection of articles, this was awfully repetitive, especially the first half. I think the editor could have done a better job curating Kaba's writing. But I did find many of the articles in the second half to be really strong and unlike anything I'd read before about abolition. However, I think Kaba is missing some analysis on people who commit violent acts to assert their power. She mentioned it briefly in the essay on R Kelly but I think it should have been expanded upon, especially because the essay about Larry Nassar only talked about social conditions leading to violent crime, which felt very out of place as that doesn't apply to him at all. The short story included was weird in that it seemed to contradict what Kaba said multiple times about revenge not belonging in abolition (allowing the victim’s family to decide whether or not to kill the perpetrator?? wtf ). I'm also curious what Kaba expects post-abolition systems to look like in large cities, as all of her talk on community accountability seems to only work for small towns or groups.
Overall, I would conditionally recommend this to those who are new to the concept of abolition, as long as they research things themselves to verify some of Kaba's claims. Though personally I think Derecka Purnell’s Becoming Abolitionists is a much better place to start.
And as a collection of articles, this was awfully repetitive, especially the first half. I think the editor could have done a better job curating Kaba's writing. But I did find many of the articles in the second half to be really strong and unlike anything I'd read before about abolition. However, I think Kaba is missing some analysis on people who commit violent acts to assert their power. She mentioned it briefly in the essay on R Kelly but I think it should have been expanded upon, especially because the essay about Larry Nassar only talked about social conditions leading to violent crime, which felt very out of place as that doesn't apply to him at all. The short story included was weird in that it seemed to contradict what Kaba said multiple times about revenge not belonging in abolition (
Overall, I would conditionally recommend this to those who are new to the concept of abolition, as long as they research things themselves to verify some of Kaba's claims. Though personally I think Derecka Purnell’s Becoming Abolitionists is a much better place to start.