Tracksuits, Traumas and Class Traitors

by D. Hunter

"Tracksuits, Traumas and Class Traitors" is about the ways in which economically and socially marginalised people practice abolition on a daily basis. It's about the fight for dignity in the face of unrelenting contempt. It uses some of the authors own experience living in poverty throughout his first 25 years, as he goes in and out of prison, the care system and homelessness, and how he and his fellow travellers navigate trauma and each other.. It's about the violence of white supremacist patriarchal capitalism, and the ways in which this violence hurts our bodies and minds. It's about love, care and solidarity being the everyday revolutionary practice from below.

Genres: Nonfiction, Politics, Class, Mental Health

350 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2020

About the author

D. Hunter labels himself "an ageing chav". He's the author of Chav Solidarity , a searing read that centres around his childhood of growing up underclass, drug abuse, prostitution and how the liberal left absolutely fails in its aims.

Reviews

[Kev Nickells · Rating 5 out of 5]

I would say this is a book you should read if you exist and can read English. I would doubly say you *need* this if you think of yourself as middle class.

It's a book with a massive trigger warning right at the beginning, and rightly. It's fucking brutal a lot of the time. Underage sex work, drugs, DV, homelessness, violent racism... it's all here. But not salaciously; always to illustrate his central points about dismantling carceral systems. It's a book that has a lot of sympathy for nasty people, and no sympathy for endemically nasty systems. While I've read an amount of the theory he touches on - anarchism, ablism, queerness, sex work, class stuff, racial matters, gender, misogyny (etc) - I've never (without exaggeration) seen such clear and composite expressions of theoretical points. That is, he couldn't be a more inviting, generous writer in terms of illustrating his general point around carceral systems.

[Sylvia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Despite the same star rating given here, I do think this book is much stronger than Chav Solidarity, but I would still recommend reading that first before tackling this.

Hunter's approach here is more theoretical, which is a good thing. The accounts are still here and are again very intense and brutal as a word of warning (which the book does give). This focuses more on how practices of abolition are seen in everyday lives, including the cases of extreme poverty like the ones detailed here.

I mentioned in my review of Chav Solidarity that I was worried about how that book could be used to justify certain behaviours or in organisational capacities, be used to defend oppressive attitudes, regardless of the cycles of trauma from poverty and struggle that is documented here. I was also a bit hesitant at first about how transformative justice was discussed here (through the accounts of Hunter's grandfather and dad), but I think the essays on social models of social work and the final essay 'Class Traitors' do a very good job at diminishing a lot of those worries.

If these cycles of trauma and oppression can be dealt with, it *requires* an abolitionist perspective and ensuring that poor and working class people from the various oppressive backgrounds are in control of the needed services alongside community models of care and transformative justice.

I would recommend checking out the review from Morgan S. on this book too from Ebb Magazine (https://www.ebb-magazine.com/reviews/...). That review summarises a lot of the book very well, 'a new revolutionary theory of interpersonal relationships for the present, drawing on Marxist and anarchist theory.'

[Michael Pittuck · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm in awe of D. Hunter's strength to still be carrying on after the trauma they have experienced. A really quite harrowing story used as a context for important discussions. I wish D Hunter well and will continue to keep the final chapter in mind in all my actions.