jada's reviews
288 reviews

We Do This 'til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice by Mariame Kaba

4.0

this anthology addressed the central questions of abolition from many different angles while still leaving plenty to think about. at some points i felt like i wasn’t being given any answers, but maybe i simply have to be satisfied with the idea that if there was one simple answer, it would already be done. we figure it out by working to get there. i would definitely consider myself an abolitionist, but it’s the what comes after that’s hard to think about. so many of the community-based restorative justice solutions can seem wishy washy and insufficiently punitive, but as kaba wisely said (or narrowly refrained from saying) abolition isn’t about your fucking feelings. and even as i grapple with these questions, i still can’t disagree with the notion that the system as is does not do a good job of addressing harm or preventing it from happening again (to put it mildly). something definitely has to give. it might be the unknown nature of the whole thing that’s messing with me, because we dont and can’t know what harm reduction would look like under truly just circumstances. kaba also said that transforming the world also requires a transformation of the self and a willingness to imagine and look beyond the systems that are so deeply entrenched in the public consciousness.

despite all my ramblings about the nebulosity of it all, concrete suggestions and solutions were posed. i learnt about ensuring that reforms don’t give more power to the systems that we’re trying to get rid of, the difference between consequences and punishment, and some basic principles of fairness, consequences, and justice reimagined. kaba made an interesting point saying that failure is expected in tech and finance, but in social transformation, failure is simply a sign that your ideas suck and you have to go back to the mainstream. she argues that we should be running a million different experiments, and that’s an idea i can get behind. that kinda satisfies the uncertainty of it all, knowing that there won’t be one written down solution that i can easily parrot to all the naysayers, but multiple alternatives depending on the situation.

anyways this raised and answered many questions, leaving me a bit more certain in my beliefs.

The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood

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4.25

Black Against Empire: The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party by Joshua Bloom

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4.5

Haiti: The Aftershocks of History by Laurent Dubois

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informative reflective

4.0

The Good Die Young: The Verdict on Henry Kissinger by Rene Rojas, Bhaskar Sunkara, Jonah Walter