Status Updates From Be a Revolution: How Everyd...

“Dahnweih also sees strong parallels between…gender-based violence…and the relationships between communities and the police…’it is textbook abusive behavior…People say, ‘Well, I just can’t believe it because he’s such a nice guy to me…’ And meanwhile they are harming the people who they see as more vulnerable or that they can assert power over.’”

“We can begin to see what an abolitionist world looks like now, by practicing it where we have the power to. ‘Like, parent in your values…Teach or do your job in your values’…Do I use authority and hierarchy to get my children to do what I want…?(what is the line between a consequence and a punishment, and what side of that line am I on?)…how am I working with the people I employ or partner with?”

“When a system has its boot on your neck, it’s quite easy to point to the boot and say, ‘Here-this boot needs to be removed’…Two questions make this work difficult: ‘How?’ and ‘What next?’ What if, while you’re focused on that boot, someone else is busy building a cage around you?”

“I talked of reform not because I didn’t believe in or want abolition but because I didn’t believe it was possible…I didn’t talk about the thing I wanted most of all: for it not to exist. Not any of it. The cops, the courts, the cells…And I realized that I had fallen victim to one of white supremacy’s greatest weapons: the war on imagination.”