Welcome to episode two of  “Over the Wall: The Abolitionist Hour with Critical Resistance.” For listeners new to Beyond Prisons or our collaboration with Critical Resistance, this is a new, regular series that premiered in September of 2023. Hosted by members of Critical Resistance’s The Abolitionist Editorial Collective, “Over the Wall” discusses articles and key interventions made by Critical Resistance’s cross-wall, bilingual newspaper, The Abolitionist. 

This episode—dedicated to Critical Resistance co-founder and long-standing member Masai Ehehosi—focuses on Issue 40 of The Abolitionist and is titled, "Snuffing Out Revolution: Control Units & Resistance." Dylan and Molly are back, and analyze the history, purpose, and proliferation of control units throughout the US and beyond. Together, they discuss key articles within the issue, which foreground organized resistance to control units while emphasizing the importance of rejecting cheap liberal reforms that dilute the long-standing abolitionist demand to abolish control units. This episode includes special guest Sahar Francis of Addameer, along with Issue 40 contributing authors Masai Ehehosi, Kenjuan Congo, and Stevie Wilson. 

On April 1 2024, as we were circulating this issue online, we received heartbreaking news that Masai suddenly passed away. With over 50 years of working for Black liberation, including decades of resisting control units and torture of imprisoned people, Masai was a pillar of Critical Resistance (CR) and had a profound presence in each of the organizations he was a part of. CR is releasing a tribute statement for Masai on April 8, and will continue to uplift his legacy for weeks, months, and years to come. Check for the post at: criticalresistance.org/updates/ to learn more about Masai’s movement contributions.  

Support Elder Sitawa Jamaa!

As mentioned in the episode, please give what you can to support movement elder Sitawa Jamaa! Sitawa spent over 40 years in prison, and due to severe strokes while imprisoned, he requires 24/7 nursing care to survive. Please go to bit.ly/sitawa-jamaa to donate today.

Resource—Surviving Solitary 

CR’s newest resource called “Surviving Solitary,” which includes  a series of interviews with solitary survivors, can be requested by prisoners by writing to our national office at: Critical Resistance, PO Box 22780, Oakland CA 94609. If you’re outside of a cage and would like to check it out for your work supporting imprisoned people, or share with your loved ones who are locked up, you will be able to download the resource for free from our website next month (in April) at criticalresistance.org/resources. 

Check out Issue 40 and Subscribe to The Abolitionist Newspaper! 

The time is always right to support radical political education! You can read two early-release articles from Issue 40 on CR’s website: an interview with Susan Rosenberg the fight to close a control unit for radical women, Lexington High Security Unit, and an article on the historic prisoner-led hunger strikes against solitary confinement in California in 2011 and 2013. 

Every single paid subscription on the outside allows CR to send the paper to thousands of people locked up inside prisons, jails, and detention centers to receive this valuable political education resource FOR FREE! Go to: criticalresistance.org/subscribe-to-the-abolitionist-newspaper/  to sign up for a sliding scale subscription to the paper, or to sign up an imprisoned loved one to receive a copy of our next issue. 

Host Bios: 

Dylan Brown is a 24 year old Black organizer and educator based in New York City, and has been a member of Critical Resistance since 2020. As a member of the New York City chapter of Critical Resistance, Dylan is organizing within the Abolish ICE New York/New Jersey Coalition on their current NY Dignity Not Detention campaign, which seeks to  build power to end immigrant detention throughout NY State. For the past three years, Dylan has been an editor for The Abolitionist Newspaper. 

Molly Porzig is a Bay Area based organizer and educator in California with nearly 20 years of organizing experience with Critical Resistance (CR). Molly is currently CR’s National Media & Communications Manager, as well as the organization’s project manager of The Abolitionist.

Follow Critical Resistance on X/Twitter at @C_Resistance or on Instagram @criticalresistance 

Music Credits:

• Show theme song: “Taste of Freedom” by Steven Beddall

• Transition sound effect: “I Wish - drum loop” by Artlist Original

• Special thanks to Molly’s former high school students and their protesting of policing in Oakland for the clip of them chanting a quote from Assata Shakur: “It is our duty to fight for our freedom; it is our duty to win; we must love and support each other; we have nothing to lose but our chains!”

Josh Davidson and Leslie James Pickering from the Certain Days collective join the show to talk about 2024’s Certain Days: Freedom for Political Prisoners calendar and the work of their collective. We previously spoke with Josh and other folks from the collective back in 2020 and we encourage you to go listen to that episode if you haven’t heard it yet. 

Josh and Leslie spoke to us about the works included in the 2024 calendar, how they’ve navigated increasingly oppressive mail policies to distribute it, Josh’s upcoming book with political prisoner Eric King, the impact that focusing their work around solidarity with political prisoners has had on their political analysis and organizing, and a lot more. 

The Certain Days Calendar is a joint fundraising and educational project between outside organizers in Montreal, New York, and Baltimore, and current and former political prisoners, including currently imprisoned Xinachtli (s/n Alvaro Luna Hernandez) in Texas. They welcomed founding members Herman Bell and Robert Seth Hayes (Rest in Power) home from prison in 2018, and David Gilbert in 2021, each of whom spent over forty years behind bars. All of the current members of the outside collective are grounded in day-to-day organizing work other than the calendar, on issues ranging from legal aid to community media, radical education to prisoner solidarity. And they work from an anti-imperialist, anti-racist, anti-capitalist, feminist, queer- and trans-liberationist position. All proceeds from the calendar go to abolitionist organizations working for a better world. We highly encourage you to pick up a few copies of the calendar if you haven’t already. 

Josh Davidson is an abolitionist who is involved in numerous projects, including the Certain Days: Freedom for Political Prisoners calendar collective and the Children’s Art Project with political prisoner Oso Blanco. Josh also works in communications with the Zinn Education Project, which promotes the teaching of radical people’s history in classrooms and provides free lessons and resources for educators. Along with political prisoner Eric King, Josh co-edited the anthology Rattling the Cages: Oral Histories of North American Political Prisoners (AK Press, 2023). He lives in Eugene, Oregon. 

Leslie James Pickering is a member of the Certain Days collective. He is a co-owner of Burning Books and was spokesperson for the Earth Liberation Front Press Office

Episode Resources & Notes

Buy the Certain Days calendar:

CertainDays.org (US)

Burning Books (US)

Left Wing Books (Canada)

Credits

Created and hosted by Kim Wilson and Brian Sonenstein

Website & volunteers managed by Victoria Nam

Support Beyond Prisons

Visit our website at beyond-prisons.com

Support our show and join us on Patreon. Check out our other donation options as well.

Please listen, subscribe, and rate/review our podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Play

Join our mailing list for updates on new episodes, events, and more

Send tips, comments, and questions to [email protected]

Kim Wilson is available for speaking engagements and to facilitate workshops. Please contact [email protected] for more information

Twitter: @Beyond_Prison

Facebook:@beyondprisonspodcast

Instagram:@beyondprisons

This is the first episode of  our new series titled “Over the Wall: The Abolitionist Hour with Critical Resistance.”

This will be a regular series on Beyond Prisons, hosted by members of Critical Resistance’s The Abolitionist Editorial Collective, in which they will discuss articles and key interventions made by Critical Resistance’s cross-wall, bilingual newspaper, The Abolitionist. The first episode of this series focuses on Issue 39 of The Abolitionist and is titled, “Beyond Abortion: Reproductive Justice and Abolitionist Struggle.” 

This episode is hosted by Molly Porzig and Dylan Brown, and discusses why reproductive justice is an essential field of struggle for prison industrial complex (PIC) abolition. Together, they analyze the political conditions shaping the struggle for PIC abolition and reproductive justice in this moment, discuss core points made by various articles in the issue, and weave in follow-up interviews with contributors from the latest issue of the newspaper—including Ash Williams, Moonlight Pulido, Targol Mesbah, and imprisoned columnist for The Abolitionist, Stevie Wilson. 

To learn more, make sure to check out Critical Resistance’s upcoming webinar this Thursday, September 21, “Our Bodies, Our Freedom: Abolishing the Prison Industrial Complex Post-Roe,” and register at bit.ly/OurBodies9-21  

Dylan Brown is a 24 year old Black organizer and educator based in New York City, and has been a member of Critical Resistance since 2020. As a member of the New York City chapter of Critical Resistance, Dylan is organizing within the Abolish ICE New York/New Jersey Coalition on their current NY Dignity Not Detention campaign, which seeks to  build power to end immigrant detention throughout NY State. For the past three years, Dylan has been an editor for The Abolitionist Newspaper. 

Molly Porzig is a Bay Area based organizer and educator in California with nearly 20 years of organizing experience with Critical Resistance (CR). Molly first became a member of CR in 2006 as a transitional-aged youth with experience in the juvenile system and systems-impacted youth-based, queer, and women-led anti-violence organizations. On behalf of CR, Molly has organized in Stop the Injunctions Coalition against the use of gang injunctions, Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity coalition against solitary confinement, No New SF Jail coalition to close a county jail in downtown San Francisco, Plan for a Safer Oakland in partnership with All of Us or None, the CR 10th Anniversary Conference organizing committee, the StoryTelling and Organizing Project with Creative Interventions, and more. In 2020, Molly joined CR’s national staff as CR’s National Media & Communications Manager, as well as the organization’s project manager of its cross-wall bilingual newspaper, The Abolitionist.

Follow Critical Resistance on Twitter at @C_Resistance

Music Credits

Taste of Freedom by Steven Beddall

I Wish - drum loop by Artlist Original

Special thanks to Freedom Archives for the clip of Assata Shakur

Support Beyond Prisons

Beyond Prisons is created and hosted by Kim Wilson and Brian Sonenstein

Visit our website at beyond-prisons.com

Support our show and join us on Patreon. Check out our other donation options as well.

Please listen, subscribe, and rate/review our podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Play

Join our mailing list for updates on new episodes, events, and more

Send tips, comments, and questions to [email protected]

Kim Wilson is available for speaking engagements and to facilitate workshops. Please contact [email protected] for more information

Twitter: @Beyond_Prison

Facebook:@beyondprisonspodcast

Instagram:@beyondprisons

CONTENT WARNING: This episode contains discussions of sexual violence.

Kim and Brian discuss Mark E. Kann’s “Penitence for the Privileged: Manhood, Race, and Penitentiaries in Early America.” This essay is a chapter in the book Prison Masculinities, edited by Don Sabo, Terry A. Kupers, and Willie London.

Our wide-ranging conversation examines the role of prisons in early America as a tool for sorting who was and was not American, which was understood exclusively as a white male citizen. We also discuss manhood, militarism, and self-discipline in the service of “liberty,” the logic behind protecting children from “criminals,” and a lot more.

Episode Resources & Notes

Prison Masculinities, edited by Don Sabo, Terry A. Kupers, and Willie London.

Support Beyond Prisons

Beyond Prisons is created and hosted by Kim Wilson and Brian Sonenstein

Visit our website at beyond-prisons.com

Support our show and join us on Patreon. Check out our other donation options as well.

Please listen, subscribe, and rate/review our podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Play

Join our mailing list for updates on new episodes, events, and more

Send tips, comments, and questions to [email protected]

Kim Wilson is available for speaking engagements and to facilitate workshops. Please contact [email protected] for more information

Twitter: @Beyond_Prison

Facebook:@beyondprisonspodcast

Instagram:@beyondprisons

For this episode, Kim sat down with Jeanie Austin, a Bay Area librarian and academic who focuses on library services for incarcerated people, and Sarah ball, a New York City public librarian working inside jails and prisons providing access to books and information for criminalized and incarcerated people and their families.

We explore the multifaceted role of prison libraries, and the challenges faced by prison librarians in providing access to information and literature within the confines of the correctional system. We delve into the delicate balance between offering valuable services to incarcerated individuals while navigating the authority and constraints imposed by prison officials. Join us as we investigate how prison librarians promote access to information, address potential challenges rooted in the philosophy of rehabilitation, and challenge the dynamic shaped by whiteness, information, and power within prison library systems. We also delve into the ways in which prison censorship specifically targets LGBTQIA plus individuals and discuss strategies for dismantling biases and inequities.

Additionally, we examine the historical and political contexts that have influenced the evolution of prison libraries, the impact of political ideologies and policies and the role of education and rehabilitation within prisons. For enlightening discussions, we uncover the transformative potential prison library programs, identify the challenges they face, and explore innovative approaches and best practices to enhance their effectiveness. Lastly, we explore future perspectives on prison libraries, emerging trends, the influence of technology, and the importance of raising public awareness and support for these vital programs.

This episode also incorporates insights from Dr. Austin's book, "Library Services and Incarceration: Recognizing Barriers, Strengthening Access," which offers a comprehensive exploration of the topic. We examine key chapters, including the historical context, the role of information in incarceration, models of direct service, reentry support and programming, and strategies for building institutional support. Furthermore, we discussed several thought provoking articles that shed light on the impact of prison censorship, content-based bands in the denial of access to books, as well as the crucial role of community organizations and library and information science professionals in addressing these issues and fostering a more equitable information environment within prisons. Get ready to expand your understanding of prison libraries, their significance within the criminal punishment system, and their potential to empower and transform lives.

Jeanie Austin (they/them) is a Bay Area librarian and academic who focuses on library services for incarcerated people. More about Jeanie is available at https://jeanieaustin.com/about/.

Sarah Ball (she/her) is a NYC public librarian working inside jails and prisons, providing access to books and information for criminalized and incarcerated people and their families, with a priority on patron privacy and autonomy.

Credits

Created and hosted by Kim Wilson and Brian Sonenstein

Website & volunteers managed by Victoria Nam

Support Beyond Prisons

Visit our website at beyond-prisons.com

Support our show and join us on Patreon. Check out our other donation options as well.

Please listen, subscribe, and rate/review our podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Play

Join our mailing list for updates on new episodes, events, and more

Send tips, comments, and questions to [email protected]

Kim Wilson is available for speaking engagements and to facilitate workshops. Please contact [email protected] for more information

Twitter: @Beyond_Prison

Facebook:@beyondprisonspodcast

Instagram:@beyondprisons

In this follow-up to our six-year anniversary episode, Kim shares some of what she has been going through in recent years. We recommend you listen to that previous episode before listening to this one.

You can support Kim on Cash App at https://cash.app/$BeyondPrisons

Credits

Created and hosted by Kim Wilson and Brian Sonenstein

Website & volunteers managed by Victoria Nam

Support Beyond Prisons

Visit our website at beyond-prisons.com

Support our show and join us on Patreon. Check out our other donation options as well.

Please listen, subscribe, and rate/review our podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Play

Join our mailing list for updates on new episodes, events, and more

Send tips, comments, and questions to [email protected]

Kim Wilson is available for speaking engagements and to facilitate workshops. Please contact [email protected] for more information

Twitter: @Beyond_Prison

Facebook:@beyondprisonspodcast

Instagram:@beyondprisons

April marks 6 years of Beyond Prisons! Thank you so much to everyone who has listened to the show and supported us over the years.

In this episode, Kim and Brian reflect on their work and their lives over the past several years. They discuss everything from their favorite episodes to how they work together, how doing the podcast influenced their lives, and what has brought them joy outside of the show.

Episode Resources & Notes

Check out Kim’s art at her website: https://www.kimwilsonart.net/

You can see Victoria’s bakery at https://siblings.me/ and on Instagram

Our recent audiobook recommendations:

Kim

When Life Gives You Mangos by Kereen Getten Furia by Yamile Saied Mendez High Spirits by Camille Gomera-Tavarez Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James The Lesson by Cadwell Turnbull Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi Wild Seed by Octavia Butler

Brian

Palo Alto by Malcolm Harris The Many-Headed Hydra by Peter Linebaugh Dancing in the Streets by Barbara Ehrenreich The Dawning of the Apocalypse by Gerald Horne

Credits

Created and hosted by Kim Wilson and Brian Sonenstein

Website & volunteers managed by Victoria Nam

Support Beyond Prisons

Visit our website at beyond-prisons.com

Support our show and join us on Patreon. Check out our other donation options as well.

Please listen, subscribe, and rate/review our podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Play

Join our mailing list for updates on new episodes, events, and more

Send tips, comments, and questions to [email protected]

Kim Wilson is available for speaking engagements and to facilitate workshops. Please contact [email protected] for more information

Twitter: @Beyond_Prison

Facebook:@beyondprisonspodcast

Instagram:@beyondprisons

This is the third episode in our Creative Interventions series, where we explore this fantastic and practical toolkit for stopping interpersonal violence and speak with some of the people whose organizing efforts directly informed it.

We speak with Mimi Kim and Shira Hassan once again, this time with reflections, observations, and other notes for people who are considering interventions. If you’ve got the toolkit at home, which you can purchase from AK press or access for free at creative-interventions.org, we’re touching on some of the topics in Section 2.3, which is entitled, “Violence Intervention: Some Important Lessons” and begins on page 93 of the toolkit. There’s a lot more in this section than what we get to in the episode, so we highly suggest checking it out.

In this conversation, Shira and Mimi answer some broad questions about common challenges with interventions. What can happen when people are asked to take accountability? What are the pro’s and con’s of an intervention involving people you know or may be close to? How long should an intervention last, or should it be ongoing? And a lot more.

The release of this episode coincides with the publication of a new workbook companion for the CI Toolkit which features useful and practical worksheets and tools. The CI workbook was just released through AK Press. A google doc version of the workbook which you can use to adapt to your own situation of harm is available for free at creative-interventions.org.

You can find links to further resources in the episode notes, including Shira’s amazing new anthology, Saving Our Own Lives: A Liberatory Practice of Harm Reduction, which is now available from Haymarket Books. We highly recommend you check that out and support Shira's work however you can.  

Shira Hassan has trained and spoken nationally on the sex trade, harm reduction, self-injury, healing justice and transformative justice. Currently working as a fellow at Interrupting Criminalization, Shira runs The Help Desk . The Help Desk offers supportive thought partnership to individuals and groups working to interrupt crises and violence without using the police. Along with Mariame Kaba, she is the co-author of Fumbling Towards Repair: A Workbook for Community Accountability Facilitators and the author of Saving Our Own Lives: A Liberatory Practice of Harm Reduction.

Mimi Kim is the founder of Creative Interventions and a co-founder of INCITE! She has been a long-time activist, advocate and researcher challenging gender-based violence at its intersection with state violence and creating community accountability, transformative justice and other community-based alternatives to criminalization. As a second generation Korean American, she locates her political work in global solidarity with feminist anti-imperialist struggles, seeking not only the end of oppression but of the creation of liberation here and now. Her recent publications include 2020’s “The Carceral Creep” and 2018’s “From Carceral Feminism to Transformative Justice”. She is currently working on The CHAT Project, a non-law enforcement restorative justice project addressing domestic and sexual violence in Contra Costa County, California.

Mimi and Shira are also partnering on a re-boot of the StoryTelling & Organizing Project or STOP featuring stories of everyday people creatively and collectively ending violence. Stay tuned.

Alright, that’s it for now. You can find links to the CI website and toolkit as well as other resources in the episode notes. Thanks for listening and here’s our conversation.

Episode Resources & Notes

Shira Hassan: 

Saving Our Own Lives: A Liberatory Practice of Harm Reduction.

Interrupting Criminalization - The Help Desk

Fumbling Towards Repair: A Workbook for Community Accountability Facilitators

 

Mimi Kim:

Creative Interventions Website

Creative Interventions Toolkit (Physical copy)

Creative Interventions Toolkit (Free PDF)

Creative Interventions Toolkit in Spanish (Free PDF)

Creative Interventions Workbook (Physical copy)

Creative Interventions Workbook (Google Doc)

The CHAT Project

StoryTelling & Organizing Project (STOP)

Follow CI on Facebook

Follow CI on IG

Follow CI on Twitter

Credits

Created and hosted by Kim Wilson and Brian Nam-Sonenstein

Edited by Brian Nam-Sonenstein

Website & volunteers managed by Victoria Nam

Theme music by Jared Ware

Support Beyond Prisons

Visit our website at beyond-prisons.com

Support our show and join us on Patreon. Check out our other donation options as well.

Please listen, subscribe, and rate/review our podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Play

Join our mailing list for updates on new episodes, events, and more

Send tips, comments, and questions to [email protected]

Kim Wilson is available for speaking engagements and to facilitate workshops. Please contact [email protected] for more information

Twitter: @Beyond_Prison

Facebook:@beyondprisonspodcast

Instagram:@beyondprisons

Brian Kaneda and Woods Ervin join the show to tell us about the Close California Prisons Campaign.

This campaign is led by the statewide coalition known as Californians United For A Responsible Budget (CURB), pressuring Governor Gavin Newsom and the California Department of Correction to close prisons across the state. 

Last year, CURB released The People’s Plan for Prison Closures, which they describe as “a visionary report that outlines the failures of California’s bloated carceral system, and offers bold, community-centered solutions for our jail problem.”

After setting the stage and explaining a bit about the current state of incarceration in California, Brian and Woods tell us about the campaign's goal to close 10 prisons by 2025 and release 50,000 people or 50% of the population—demands which they say represent the floor. We discuss the criteria the campaign developed for selecting which 10 prisons to close first, the work of their partners in the coalition, the lack of a plan put forth by state authorities, the plan’s reliance on a Just Transition framework, and a lot more.

This episode was recorded before news broke in early September that a judge ruled against the town of Susanville in a lawsuit attempting to stop the closure of the California Correctional Center or CCC. According to a press release [PDF] published by CURB, the judge’s ruling marked “the end of the town’s year-long fight to keep CCC––a six-decade-old facility requiring $503 million in repairs––open indefinitely.”

Brian Kaneda is the Deputy Director for Californians United For A Responsible Budget (CURB). He is a founding chapter member of California Coalition for Women Prisoners (CCWP) Los Angeles and has spent the past decade monitoring and challenging the incarceration crisis and advocating for the rights of incarcerated people. 

Woods Ervin (they/them) is a Black nonbinary trans person from the South who has been deeply immersed in movements for racial and gender justice for over a decade. Woods has been a member of Critical Resistance since 2010, and from 2014 to 2018 was part of rebuilding Transgender, Gender-variant, Intersex Justice Project (TGIJP). Through both organizations, Woods organized as part of multiple campaigns to halt jail construction and policing. Woods is a current Co-Director at Critical Resistance focusing on Communications. 

Episode Resources & Notes

Follow CURB on Twitter (@curbprisons) and instagram (@curbprisons)

CURB’s Prison Closure Campaign

The People’s Plan for Prison Closures (PDF)

Release: Judge Rules Prison Closure Must Move Forward (PDF)

Petition: Demand Governor Newsom Close at least 8 More Prisons by 2025!

CA Organizations: Join the coalition

Donate to CURB

Credits

Created and hosted by Kim Wilson and Brian Sonenstein

Edited by Ellis Maxwell

Website & volunteers managed by Victoria Nam

Theme music by Jared Ware

Support Beyond Prisons

Visit our website at beyond-prisons.com

Support our show and join us on Patreon. Check out our other donation options as well.

Please listen, subscribe, and rate/review our podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Play

Join our mailing list for updates on new episodes, events, and more

Send tips, comments, and questions to [email protected]

Kim Wilson is available for speaking engagements and to facilitate workshops. Please contact [email protected] for more information

Twitter: @Beyond_Prison

Facebook:@beyondprisonspodcast

Instagram:@beyondprisons

This is the second episode in our Creative Interventions series, where we explore this fantastic and practical toolkit for stopping interpersonal violence and speak with some of the people whose organizing efforts directly informed it.

We speak with Mimi and Shira Hassan about the basics of interpersonal violence as outlined in the Creative Interventions Toolkit. If you’ve got the toolkit at home, which you can purchase from AK press or access for free at creative-interventions.org, we’re touching on some of the topics in Section 2: Some Basics Everyone Should Know. There’s a lot more in this section than what we get to in the episode, so we highly suggest checking it out.

After Shira tells us a bit about her work including a follow-up workbook she and Mariame Kaba created to build upon the Creative Interventions Toolkit, she and Mimi share what the term "interpersonal violence" means to them, and what it can look like. They explain why it’s important to assess power dynamics when determining if an intervention should be attempted, and how we can recognize how interpersonal violence impacts people other than those most involved. 

The release of this episode coincides with the publication of a new workbook companion for the CI Toolkit which features useful and practical worksheets and tools. The CI workbook was just released through AK Press. A google doc version of the workbook which you can use to adapt to your own situation of harm is available for free at creative-interventions.org,

You can find links to further resources in the episode notes, including Shira’s amazing new anthology, Saving Our Own Lives: A Liberatory Practice of Harm Reduction, which is available for pre-order now and comes out on October 4 from Haymarket Books. We highly recommend you check that out and support Shira's work however you can. 

Shira Hassan has trained and spoken nationally on the sex trade, harm reduction, self-injury, healing justice and transformative justice. Currently working as a fellow at Interrupting Criminalization, Shira runs The Help Desk . The Help Desk offers supportive thought partnership to individuals and groups working to interrupt crises and violence without using the police. Along with Mariame Kaba, she is the co-author of Fumbling Towards Repair: A Workbook for Community Accountability Facilitators and the author of Saving Our Own Lives: A Liberatory Practice of Harm Reduction.

Mimi Kim is the founder of Creative Interventions and a co-founder of INCITE! She has been a long-time activist, advocate and researcher challenging gender-based violence at its intersection with state violence and creating community accountability, transformative justice and other community-based alternatives to criminalization. As a second generation Korean American, she locates her political work in global solidarity with feminist anti-imperialist struggles, seeking not only the end of oppression but of the creation of liberation here and now. Her recent publications include 2020’s “The Carceral Creep” and 2018’s “From Carceral Feminism to Transformative Justice”. She is currently working on The CHAT Project, a non-law enforcement restorative justice project addressing domestic and sexual violence in Contra Costa County, California.

Mimi and Shira are also partnering on a re-boot of the StoryTelling & Organizing Project or STOP featuring stories of everyday people creatively and collectively ending violence. Stay tuned.

Alright, that’s it for now. You can find links to the CI website and toolkit as well as other resources in the episode notes. Thanks for listening and here’s our conversation.

Episode Resources & Notes

Shira Hassan: 

Saving Our Own Lives: A Liberatory Practice of Harm Reduction.

Interrupting Criminalization - The Help Desk

Fumbling Towards Repair: A Workbook for Community Accountability Facilitators

Mimi Kim:

Creative Interventions Website

Creative Interventions Toolkit (Physical copy)

Creative Interventions Toolkit (Free PDF)

Creative Interventions Toolkit in Spanish (Free PDF)

Creative Interventions Workbook (Physical copy)

Creative Interventions Workbook (Google Doc)

The CHAT Project

StoryTelling & Organizing Project (STOP)

Follow CI on Facebook

Follow CI on IG

Follow CI on Twitter

Credits

Created and hosted by Kim Wilson and Brian Nam-Sonenstein

Edited by Brian Nam-Sonenstein

Website & volunteers managed by Victoria Nam

Theme music by Jared Ware

Support Beyond Prisons

Visit our website at beyond-prisons.com

Support our show and join us on Patreon. Check out our other donation options as well.

Please listen, subscribe, and rate/review our podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Play

Join our mailing list for updates on new episodes, events, and more

Send tips, comments, and questions to [email protected]

Kim Wilson is available for speaking engagements and to facilitate workshops. Please contact [email protected] for more information

Twitter: @Beyond_Prison

Facebook:@beyondprisonspodcast

Instagram:@beyondprisons

The following talk was delivered by Dr. Kim Wilson at the DecARcerate Arkansas 2022 conference in Little Rock. The conference was an opportunity for abolitionist and other organizers to come together to listen as speakers from around the state and the country talked about their work.

Kim interviewed organizers about their experience with boundary setting in movement spaces, and what they said illuminates a deeper problem that we seldom hear addressed, but that is nonetheless, important for liberation movements. As the mother of two sons currently sentenced to LWOP; as an organizer that provides education, direct support, and mobilizes resources for people in and out of prison; and as a Black disabled woman that is struggling with multiple health issues, she is emotionally, physically, and financially exhausted.

The talk was a collaborative effort that included the voices of women and femmes in the movement who felt that these things need to be said, and Kim had the opportunity to use her platform to say them. We invite you to listen and to act upon what she shares, and to use this talk as an entry point to engage people in your community and movement spaces about what all of the women and femmes said.

You can support Kim directly via Venmo (@Kim-Wilson-16) and CashApp ($BeyondPrisons)

Transcript

To borrow a phrase from the inimitable Fannie Lou Hamer, “I’ve been tired so long, now I am sick and tired of being sick and tired, and I want a change.”

Y’all I’m tired. I’m tired of arguing, of fighting, of feeling like we’re constantly having to remind people of our humanity. I’m tired of the suffering, of the trauma, and of watching people die. I’m tired of oppressive systems, of prisons, of poverty, homelessness, and hyper-individualism. I’m tired of watching my friends suffer. I’m tired of people treating incarcerated people as if they don’t matter. I’m tired of ableism. I’m tired of living in a white supremacist capitalist patriarchal society. I’m tired!!!! I’m tired of crisis management. I’m tired of sacrificing my physical and emotional well-being. I’m tired of people’s discomfort being the standard by which we decide on really important things. I’m tired of cynicism. I’m tired of the thinking that says that women, and particularly Black Women, femmes and other folks should be willing to do this work without question or limits. I’m tired of fighting for people that expect me to have their backs, when I know that they don’t have mine. Not really, really!

I’m tired of toxic masculinity. I’m tired of men acting like they’re doing women a favor when they are asked to do the absolute least necessary for us to survive. I’m tired of having to fear violence, anger, and passive aggression from men in general, but especially from men in movement spaces. I’m tired of the unspoken expectations that are placed on women in movement spaces that shift the burden onto women and femmes to do most of the work of organizing.

While we’re ALL suffering under these oppressive systems, women, femmes, trans, non-binary, gender non-confirming folks, and disabled people are disproportionately affected by these systems and we are still showing up and doing all of the things. This is not sustainable!

To be clear, this is NOT a call out or a call in. This is our reality. I’m not the only one that’s tired. Many of us are exhausted, physically, emotionally, mentally, and financially. I am bringing this forward so that we can set about the task of collectively changing things.

There is no healing in isolation. Part of the liberatory project is to heal our collective trauma, and HOW we work together is part of that work.

This work has to happen alongside the tearing down and building up. It’s not work that can be deferred until some magical date in the future when we have the time, OR conditions are perfect. When folks make that argument recognize that they are gaslighting and attempting to derail the conversation to escape accountability.

Audre Lorde wrote, “There is no such thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives.”

The conditions in which we organize are not separate issue buckets, but the literal material conditions through which we have to survive and help others.

Women, femmes, trans, non-binary, gender non conforming and disabled people are treated as disposable. We live in a society that doesn’t care about us, but how are we demonstrating that we care for each other?

We are still in the middle of a global pandemic that has killed 6.52 MILLION people worldwide, and 11,961 people in Arkansas alone, yet there are still people arguing that wearing a piece of cloth on their face infringes on their freedom.

Imani Barbarin, a Black disabled woman, and one of the baddest communications strategists and disability rights advocates around, has rightly called Covid “a mass disabling event.” This refers to the fact that many able bodied folks will find themselves disabled as a result of catching Covid. These newly disabled folks are now finding that they have to fight for things that we shouldn’t have to fight for. Now that They’re affected they’re outraged and want change.

Here’s my thing, You don’t have to learn the things the hard way. You could just trust what people are saying about their experience. Full stop. We’ve been saying for a long time that ableism is NOT the flex that people think it is.

Let’s consider how these things intersect, Black disabled women experience higher rates of houselessness and incarceration. There hasn’t been a federal minimum wage increase since 2009, and raising the federal minimum wage would have a positive impact on Women’s lives. We live in a country with no real social safety net, where people that work full time in minimum wage jobs cannot afford a two bedroom apartment in any state in the country.

An honest accounting of the houseless problem in this country has to include policies that criminalize houselessness. For example, we know that Black people are disproportionately impacted by homelessness and incarceration. A 2021 study by the Connecticut Coalition to End Homelessness found that “Most people with a history of incarceration and homelessness were homeless before going to prison. Suggesting that the criminalization of homelessness is a driver of incarceration.” (Prison Policy.Org) But the problem doesn’t end there, we also know that domestic violence is the leading cause of houselessness for women. We also know that trans people and gender non-conforming people experience houselessness at higher rates than their cis gender peers, and seventy percent of trans people using shelters report discrimination or violence by shelter staff.

Prison abolition isn’t just about working on prison issues. We need to consider what other institutions and systems are implicated. The many tentacles of the PIC means that our daily lives are lived being aware of its looming presence and power to destroy us. The PIC derives its power in part, from being simultaneously hyper-visible AND obscure because it is embedded into so many things.

Many of us recognize the hyper-visible expressions of the carceral state in their physical form such as prison buildings, police, etc., and in their more abstracted forms such as policies and practices. But there’s a cognitive dissonance that makes it difficult for some people to see that transphobia, ableism, sexism, toxic masculinity, and patriarchy are part and parcel of the same dehumanizing structure that includes prisons and policing.

All of these things are rooted in white supremacist capitalist heteropatriarchy, which is the logic that underpins the carceral state.

To get rid of prisons, to get rid of ALL systems of oppression, the liberatory project has to address these problems. That is our work. But the work is NOT evenly distributed.

The more women, femmes, trans, and other people that I talk with the more I hear that many of us are tired of doing this work.

We do this work because if we don’t we suffer. There are so many ways that we suffer that I won’t even try to list them. Suffice it to say that we suffer when we take on too much, when we do or are expected to do more than any one person reasonably can or should. We suffer and shorten our lives because we’re unable to rest without repercussions.

Prentis Hemphill wrote, “Boundaries are the distance at which I can love you and me simultaneously.” “Boundaries give us the space to do the work of loving ourselves. They might be, actually, the first and fundamental expression of self-love.”

I interviewed a handful of women organizers from around the country and here’s what they said in response to being asked to reflect on setting boundaries as women in movement spaces.

JULIE

Boundaries are really important especially in organizing-and especially in a kind of organizing that problematically glorifies when women ‘give their all’ to the movement, despite how they are affected or how it affects their relationships with their loved ones. We have a tendency in social justice movements to romanticize the ‘woman’ organizer. This mythic creature is fearless, boundless in energy, absolute in her devotion to the movement. She educates, she nurtures, she resources, she leads from the shadows. She never suffers, not from indecision or fatigue or loneliness or oppression. Rosa Parks, Ella Baker, Safiya Bukhari, Kathy Boudin. Women we asked everything of, took all we could from, and what did we leave them with? What if instead of glorifying their sacrifices we shared the work? And not just the sexy parts of organizing, but the monotony too.

MICHELLE

I would just say two things: One is that I often find that women in organizing spaces are just quicker / more likely to take on the labor of figuring out logistics, even when doing so is burdensome or requires navigating complex systems, whereas men will give up or just not even try to figure something out if it isn’t immediately clear. Often, I find that men need to be explicitly asked to do smaller logistical tasks, and are sometimes resistant to doing them, whereas women take on that work automatically. Often, when there are unsexy tasks like phone banking, it is women who show up much more so than men.

ANGIE

While men in the movement are often quick to make big statements and big decisions about how things SHOULD be done, it’s women and trans people and nonbinary folks who are OVERWHELMINGLY doing the actual work of keeping people alive. And that’s what the most fundamental work is in this movement: keeping people alive. It’s the mutual aid work, the financial support (including commissary, phones, housing support for people getting out), the emotional support, the caregiving for kids who’ve been left behind... It’s the person bringing over groceries when someone’s confined to their home on electronic monitoring. It’s the person coming to visit week after week so someone inside doesn’t lose hope, doesn’t lose their will to live. On a personal level — when my niece was incarcerated, I was so frustrated by the fact that her boyfriends, even her fiancé, would not do ANY of this work/support. Instead they complained that she wasn’t out here to be there for THEM. What does this mean for boundary-setting? For me, it has often meant that setting boundaries is way harder than it should be because some people (i.e. most men) are not pulling any weight, when it comes to this low-profile, behind-the-scenes, hard every day work of supporting our loved ones’ survival. So as we try (sometimes in vain) to help keep people alive, we end up letting our boundaries slip again and again...

JOYA

In every movement formation that I’ve been in, especially the abolitionist ones that have a spectrum of gender represented, it's 99 percent the femmes that start the google.doc, even that kind of infrastructural work is relegated to invisible care work. I don’t want to call it soft violence, because I don’t think it’s soft. It's part of the quiet, but violent extraction that happens when people don’t recognize people’s labor and people’s gendered labor. Regardless of what their gender is.

In terms of boundaries, we tend to think about boundaries as I’m not going to work on a Saturday or I’m not going to meet after ten o’clock at night, but people don’t think of a boundary as demanding that we all take turns doing the same amount of work. But I also feel like we are living in a time where there aren't a lot of other ways that people are allowed to take up space in movement work without violating those boundaries or without being affirmed for doing that work. By affirmed I don’t mean respected–it’s like thank you sis for doing this or like the snacks were provided by these people, how nice. That’s not respected as much as the people who are chaining themselves to the prison.

It’s not lost on me either that the venn diagram of movement space is often run by a certain masculanized organizer model, and for as much as people pretend they’re not for the Alinsky Model, they sure are. The venn diagram between certain organizing styles and the way that they devalue the google doc making, snacks bringing and setting up chairs work, and the type of abuser that emerges in movement spaces, and the kind of permission that’s given to a lot of –especially masculine rock star organizers who are also systematically abusive.

The venn diagram shows no respect for labor and boundaries and no respect for sharing work. Why is it that we think that so many of the letter writing spaces and the letter writing organizations and the relationship building organizations are run by femmes. Even when we’re doing coalitional relational work in abolition, relationship building, the nurturing, the crisis intervention work, the people who are fielding calls from jail, the people who are making sure that the commissary goes through are often feminized people. And the people who get to hold the megaphone are not often those people. And the people who are there to be on the front line of receiving the frustration of incarcerated people are the same people who are there to write the letters, to receive the phone calls, and who are there to make sure the commissary goes through on time are often the same people who bear the brunt of somebody’s frustration, who are there to pick up the pieces of the trauma that prison causes other people, the people who have to organize and mobilize and like themselves get traumatized by traumatized people because that emotional lash out is often reserved for the people on the front lines which are femmes and women, and those are the same people who show up with the snacks.

ANNE

Ok. So. Boundary setting. I think one of my biggest struggles in organizing spaces is the difference between people’s expressed values of self-determination, consent, muddling through, and care for one another, ON THE ONE HAND, and the way that people's struggle practices do not align with these values, ON THE OTHER. The work of having to point this out and make space for the inevitable conflicts it brings is exhausting. And it is not seen as work—it is seen as complaining, being trouble, or not getting it. There is no boundary that can be set ahead of time that will prevent the need for people to work through conflict together. So we need many of us to skill up and grow our capacities for conflict. But the work is often put on those seen as the ones who are supposed to nurture and take care of the feelings.

I’ll leave you with a few suggestions for how to proceed. This is NOT an exhaustive list, but a place to start. AND please note that there is no one size fits all for how to address these problems, but we need to address them.

One of the people that I interviewed suggested that, Men need to talk to their friends. That is, men have to get better at checking other men on their problematic behavior.

Second, Political Education: engage in a political education process where you study and discuss materials that address these issues. Read the work of women, femmes, trans, disabled people, etc.

Third, Do the work: actually begin doing the work. Abolition work is not constrained as a future project. It’s how we move today. It’s how we care for each other TODAY. It’s how we act in the world, and the communities and power we build TODAY!!! It’s a blueprint for today as much as it is a future society.

Finally, focus on relationship building beyond performative and surface level solidarity. Ruth Wilson Gilmore said that abolition is presence. I agree!!!

Engage in letter writing with incarcerated people. Visit people if you are able to gain access to prisons, go see folks inside on a regular basis. I’m in prison visiting rooms all the time and women are the majority of visitors.

I don’t have a pithy closing to offer you because I was too exhausted to write one. I’ll just say this, We are all working with limited capacity and resources, and those of us that are showing up in all the ways and doing all the things even when our bodies are

signaling that they need a break are giving more than there fair share. We don’t want to be mythologized for our sacrifices; instead we not only want, but need change. How we work together matters just as much as the work itself.

Thank you!