Hi Friends!
Let’s get one thing straight about abolition before we go any further, shall we? The misrepresentation of this word (I would go so far as to say the entire movement) has been so thorough and so deliberate that we need to clear the air before we can actually have the conversation. Abolition is not the belief that we simply have to choose not to harm each other. It is also not creating chaos. It is not creating a world with no process for accountability, repair or restoration. It is also not something only people who have never been at the receiving end of oppressive systems get to want. That is the caricature, and it was designed to shut the conversation down before it starts, water down the movement, and erase socially marginalized abolitionists.
So if that’s what it isn’t, what is it?
