64 Search results for "punitive"

Stop Cop City: Atlanta Organizers Reimagine Community Safety
In the United States, police kill over 1,000 and injure more than 51,000 people each year, with evidence suggesting that these figures could be underreported by as much as 55%. In addition to these numbers being substantially higher than other developed nations, unfortunately, they are also plagued by biases and systematic failures which disproportionately affect […]
The Unpretty Everyday Practices of Prison Abolition
The man grabs her arm tightly and presses her against the gate, and in someone’s fantasy this, without context, might have been erotic. I want it to be—for her sake, I’d say if you asked—but I also want it for mine. I do not want to personally get involved in a violent dispute between strangers, […]
A New Education System without Police
by Mustafa Ali-Smith, Originally posted on June 30, 2020 As protests continue on both the national and global scale, widespread call-to-actions ramp up. Dismantling, defunding, and divesting from the police and providing police-free schools are becoming a part of everyday conversations. Early educational institutions have even begun to respond to these call-to-actions by ending their […]
There’s no such thing as a “progressive prosecutor” in a system designed to criminalize Blackness
Editor’s Note: This month at BYP, we will be exploring Black Liberation & Organizing, and we are interested in publishing works that address these topics. How do we hold politicians accountable to Black communities? Is that even possible? What should be our role in the electoral politics? What does abolition look like in practice? What […]
Anti-Asian Violence—it runs deeper than hate
by Diane Wong Since the start of the pandemic, there has been an alarming increase and series of violent hate crimes against Asian Americans. In the last two months alone, Pak Ho a 75 year old Chinese American was killed in Oakland Chinatown, Vicha Ratanapakdee a 84 year old Thai man was violently shoved to […]
Apologies that never were and probably never will be
My mom apologizes to me and I’m glad she does. Mostly for small things, but sometimes for big things too. Recently, she apologized for her fatphobia towards me and how damaging it was to me growing up. I was appreciative. I thanked her. Not long after that apology, she made no less than three fatphobic […]
Exclusive Interview: Hari Ziyad reveals the cover of their memoir
RaceBaitr editor-in-chief and writer Hari Ziyad describes their upcoming book Black Boy Out of Time (Little A, March 1, 2021) as part memoir, part social commentary, but its ambitions push it beyond even this genre-bending interpretation. What began as an attempt to detail their life as a Black queer person growing up with 18 siblings […]
Police-Free schools are necessary, as is abolishing the white supremacist state they are rooted in
by Mustafa Ali-Smith As protests continue on both the national and global scale, widespread call-to-actions ramp up. Dismantling, defunding, and divesting from policing and providing police-free schools are becoming a part of everyday conversations. Early educational institutions have even begun to respond to these call-to-actions by ending their relationship with local police departments and promising […]
Police brutality does not end because of a pandemic, it is made worse by it
Content warning: mentions of slavery, police brutality “The buyers paraded them and made them dance. They opened their clothing to check for wounds; they pinched their limbs and flexed their muscles. They searched earnestly for scars, since scars were said to be evidence of a rebellious nature. When they finished their inspections, they posed questions […]
COVID-19 shows how little we learned from the AIDS Epidemic
COVID-19 has quickly taken center stage in the lives of virtually everyone around the globe. As things have unfolded over the last couple of months, I can’t help but notice aspects of this pandemic that feel familiar. As someone who is living with HIV and has learned a lot about the AIDS epidemic over the […]
We need Restorative Justice in our schools, not more police
by Rann In The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander, she states, “The fate of millions of people—indeed the future of the Black community itself—may depend on the willingness of those who care about racial justice to re-examine their basic assumptions about the […]
Prison abolition is more than a lofty theoretical. It’s also unpretty, everyday practices of resisting state policing
The man grabs her arm tightly and presses her against the gate, and in someone’s fantasy this, without context, might have been erotic. I want it to be—for her sake, I’d say if you asked—but I also want it for mine. I do not want to personally get involved in a violent dispute between strangers, […]