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Angela Y. Davis, Gina Dent, Erica R. Meiners, and Beth E. Richie's Abolition. Feminism. Now., Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2022
Written by four of the sharpest and most respected scholar activists around, Abolition. Feminism. Now. gives us a powerful genealogy of the feminist roots of the twenty-first-century abolitionist movement and its urgent call to action. Angela Y. Davis, Gina Dent, Erica Meiners, and Beth E. Richie have the cumulative experience that covers a great swath of contemporary radical movements. The amalgam of that work, over many decades, deeply embedded in the work of many organizations, collectives, campaigns, and networks, has led all four coauthors to the place of "abolition feminism." In this book, they trace their collective journey and acknowledge all the "co-conspirators" they have embraced and worked with along the way. "Abolition feminism," the book reminds us, is both a "mode of analysis and a political practice." It insists that an end to state or interpersonal violence cannot occur without a larger feminist politics of justice, and conversely, feminists cannot rely upon oppressive carceral institutions to make women, LGBTQ, and especially trans folks, safe or free. The three major sections of the book address three questions implicit in its title: Why abolition? Why feminism? Why now? Abolition of prisons and the apparatuses of the prison industrial complex is what the new anti-state violence movement calls for.
Why abolition? This book insists that reforms alone cannot end the harm caused by policing and prisons. Making nicer, kinder prisons and nicer, kinder police just has not worked. Reform after reform has failed, and even the more robust reforms have been co-opted. The very logic and purpose of the "punishment industry," as Angela Davis calls it, is to harm, coerce, violate, and diminish those with whom it comes into contact. Moreover, the system doesn't do much to heal or help the survivors and victims of harm either. The only real solution, Abolition. Feminism. Now. argues, is the dismantling of prisons and the building of alternative mechanisms to ensure safety and accountability.
The "building" aspect of abolition is underscored by the authors. They are not ignoring...