Abolition: A Strategy and Vision
“Abolition is deliberately everything-ist; it’s about the entirety of human-environmental relations.” — Ruth Wilson Gilmore
Reform is not DESIGNED to work.
Reform is the primary tool in the colonizer’s arsenal to respond to crisis.
The United States has tried to solve issues of anti-Blackness and dehumanization, vis-à-vis police brutality, through reform for centuries and all of those efforts have failed magnificently. Don’t believe me? Read: Dr. Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, Mariame Kaba, and Dr. Angela Y. Davis to learn how reform is designed to fail.
The systems created by white supremacy to address racism, anti-Blackness, and dehumanization are themselves fundamentally exploitative, violent, and anti-restorative. Instead of doubling down on failing systems we must devote our resources and energy to creating new systems built on a foundation of healing, restoration, and justice.
What is abolition?
Abolition is the radical imagination of the oppressed.
Abolition is a philosophical ethic. In other words, it is a set of moral principles that require us to transform our way of thinking about society. It calls for a change in our broad cultural attitudes — a complete paradigm shift. It creates the necessary space for history to be acknowledged, for marginalized people to be centered, for reparations to be disbursed and ultimately for us to design and decide our future.
What is it exactly?
- Abolition IS a political vision to eliminate anti-Blackness and economic exploitation
- Abolition IS an offensive strategy to eliminate anti-Blackness, police, and prisons
- Abolition IS a demand for self-determination and reorganization of power
- Abolition IS a sacrifice of comfort for mutual liberation
- Abolition IS a practical organizing tool and a long-term goal
What isn’t it?
- Abolition IS NOT a single choice
- Abolition IS NOT a task or series of tasks
- Abolition IS NOT a performative act
- Abolition IS NOT a negotiation
- Abolition IS NOT divestment from the community
The first revolution is internal.
The single most important step to becoming an abolitionist is to embark on a journey of transforming the way you think and what you do. This internal revolution is facilitated in three parts:
Analysis: A political pedagogy
Engage in a steadfast and consistent political education regimen which requires you and me to grow our political awareness and feed our curiosities. The development of a political analysis is a multi-directional and continual pursuit of teaching and learning.
Accountability: A political community
Create or find a political home and/or community that encourages your critical thinking and radical imagination. There is no progress without struggle, therefore a necessary element of a political community is accountability, proximity, and encouragement.
Activism (not action): A political praxis
Exercise your influence to inspire and develop others’ leadership. Engage in disciplined and rigorous community organizing to bring about a new vision of liberation.
Abolition calls us to be courageous and build models today that can represent how we want to live in the future. The abolition of anti-Blackness, in the end, is a project of radical reconstruction.
About the Author
Aida Mariam Davis is the founder of Decolonize Design. Her primary interests lie in advancing African Diaspora and Indigenous Philosophies in community centered design.
