Black Feminist Book Club #5: We Do This 'Til We Free Us by Mariame Kaba

An abolitionist guidebook for the moment.

Over the past decade, public interest in abolition (meaning the end of prisons and police) has grown drastically. This has been catalyzed by rampant police violence and killings of young Black people like Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Sandra Bland, and Korryn Gaines. Yet, while the word “abolition” seems ever present and nearly overused, many people still struggle with knowing how to get started. With her New York Times Bestseller, We Do This ‘Til We Free Us, Mariame Kaba offers a guidebook, map, and framework for how to engage in abolitionist work.

In this text, Kaba compiles conversations, interviews, speeches, articles, and other commentary over her decades-long career in social movement organizing and abolitionist teaching to create a comprehensive exploration of what it means to transform our current criminal justice system as we know it. She begins by explaining what the Prison-Industrial Complex (PIC) is and how it works. Kaba roots this work in political imagination. Kaba says that Black people’s bodies have always been seen as both disposable and dangerous (simultaneously).

Importantly, Kaba brings forth the name and case of Cyntoia Brown who was convicted of robbery and murder when she was only 16 years old. Brown had been engaging in the sex trade and survival sex when she was attacked by a man who picked her up for sex. He violently grabbed her and she shot him in defense. Brown served 15 years in prison in Tennessee. Connecting police violence and anti-Black racism to sexual violence, Kaba brings forward the indictment of former national team doctor for the U.S.A. Gymnastics team, Larry Nassar. While some have suggested that his indictment is transformative, Kaba states that this is another egregious misunderstanding of the term.

Kaba says that we should support reforms that offer reparations to victims of policing and prisons, that reduce police contact, that create accountability boards and work to discipline police, that disarm police, that increase transparency and that, overall, reduce the expansion of police and prisons.

Overall, in this text, Kaba works to not only define terms and set a clear base of knowledge regarding what abolition is, she also grapples with the calls for reform and the limits of the system to even administer justice to those who have been harmed or killed by police. Of special import is Kaba's intentional examination of the ways that the carceral state, prisons, and policing uniquely affect Black women and girls. I highly recommend this text to teachers, practitioners, activists, organizers, and researchers seeking a comprehensive picture of abolition in today’s world.

The next book is Killing The Black Body by Dorothy Roberts.

We Do This ‘Til We Free Us. By Mariame Kaba. Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books, 2021. 240 pages, $16.95 paperback. ISBN-13: 978-1642595253.