A

“a system that never addresses the why behind a harm never actually contains the harm itself. Cages confine people, not the conditions that facilitated their harms or the mentalities that perpetuate violence.”
― Mariame Kaba, We Do This 'Til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice

“That does not mean, however, there should be no consequences. It means real consequences. Consequences that really matter. It means transforming the conditions that exist in the first place for this to even have happened. It is really critical for people to think about the difference between punishment and consequences. Punishment often is actually not the same as transformation. Even though it feels good to wear the “kill the rapists” T-shirt, that isn’t the thing that is actually going to get us the world we want to live in.”
― Mariame Kaba, We Do This 'til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice

“There is more to be learned from wearing a dress for a day, than there is from wearing a suit for a lifetime.”
― Larry Mitchell, The Faggots and Their Friends Between Revolutions

“The men believe that activity results from frustration and frustration results from never being able to get what you want. The perpetual out-of-reach. The men frantically scurry about with great schemes and much noise to try and reach the out-of-reach. Each tries to be the first or richest or strongest or most potent. Each compares himself to the others and each is always inadequate; less than first, not yet rich enough, or strong enough, or potent enough.
None of this leads to happiness, but then the men do not look approvingly at happiness. None of this leads to contentment but then the men care nothing for contentment. They fill their heads with inflated notions of total control and empire and strength and sexual conquest. They fill their bodies with meat and drugs and dirty air. And they rush about in a frenzy making messes and ugliness and fear everywhere.
And when they tire they sit with each other and lament and blabber how little they are appreciated and how hard they try and how nothing ever works out quite as they plan.”
― Larry Mitchell, The Faggots and Their Friends Between Revolutions