Abolition for the People
The Movement for a Future Without Policing & Prisons
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Narrated by:
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Arami Malaise
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Sterling Sulieman
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Kyle Chapple
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Avi Roque
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Victoire Charles
About this listen
Edited by activist and former San Francisco 49ers Super Bowl quarterback Colin Kaepernick, Abolition for the People is a manifesto calling for a world beyond prisons and policing.
Abolition for the People brings together 30 essays representing a diversity of voices - political prisoners, grassroots organizers, scholars, and relatives of those killed by the anti-Black terrorism of policing and prisons. This collection presents listeners with a moral choice: “Will you continue to be actively complicit in the perpetuation of these systems,” Kaepernick asks in his introduction, “or will you take action to dismantle them for the benefit of a just future?”
Powered by courageous hope and imagination, Abolition for the People provides a blueprint and vision for creating an abolitionist future where communities can be safe, valued, and truly free. “Another world is possible,” Kaepernick writes, “a world grounded in love, justice, and accountability, a world grounded in safety and good health, a world grounded in meeting the needs of the people.”
The complexity of abolitionist concepts and the enormity of the task at hand can be overwhelming. To help listeners on their journey toward a greater understanding, each essay in the collection is followed by a listener's guide that offers further provocations on the subject.
Newcomers to these ideas might ask: Is the abolition of the prison industrial complex too drastic? Can we really get rid of prisons and policing altogether? As writes organizer and New York Times best-selling author Mariame Kaba, “The short answer: We can. We must. We are.”
Abolition for the People begins by uncovering the lethal anti-Black histories of policing and incarceration in the United States. Juxtaposing today’s moment with 19th-century movements for the abolition of slavery, freedom fighter Angela Y. Davis writes, “Just as we hear calls today for a more humane policing, people then called for a more humane slavery.” Drawing on decades of scholarship and personal experience, each author deftly refutes the notion that police and prisons can be made fairer and more humane through piecemeal reformation. As Derecka Purnell argues, “reforms do not make the criminal legal system more just, but obscure its violence more efficiently.”
Blending rigorous analysis with first-person narratives, Abolition for the People definitively makes the case that the only political future worth building is one without and beyond police and prisons.
You won’t find all the answers here, but you will find the right questions - questions that open up radical possibilities for a future where all communities can thrive.
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Critic reviews
“Abolition is persistence. Abolition for the People combines examples and interpretations to show how people can and do achieve extraordinary change. We do so by combining analysis with socially powerful - organized - human energy. Such energy is renewable because we build on the past while inventing as we go. At the end of the day what matters is not what we say but what we do and do again: take a knee, build a movement, strengthen communities, share practices and resources, and fight for a world in which life is precious.” (Ruth Wilson Gilmore, author of Golden Gulag)
“This book brings clarity to the centuries-old systems of racialized policing and carceral control, and the impact of these systems on our lives now, and in the future. The short, rich essays in Abolition for the People are vital for the education of young people.” (Ericka Huggins, restorative justice practitioner and facilitator)
“Carefully curated, incisively conceptualized anthologies like Alain Locke's The New Negro and Toni Cade Bambara's The Black Woman can transform worlds. Abolition for the People is in this tradition. Kaepernick has assembled a community of visionary thinkers who unequivocally show that the path to freedom requires abolition.” (Barbara Smith, cofounder, the Combahee River Collective)
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Story
Policing the Black Man explores and critiques the many ways the criminal justice system impacts the lives of African American boys and men at every stage of the criminal process, from arrest through sentencing. Essays range from an explication of the historical roots of racism in the criminal justice system to an examination of modern-day police killings of unarmed black men.
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A Book Every Young White Male Should Read
- By danielwead on 08-04-17
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Locking Up Our Own
- Crime and Punishment in Black America
- By: James Forman Jr.
- Narrated by: Kevin R. Free
- Length: 8 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Today, Americans are debating our criminal justice system with new urgency. Mass incarceration and aggressive police tactics - and their impact on people of color - are feeding outrage and a consensus that something must be done. But what if we only know half the story? In Locking Up Our Own, the Yale legal scholar and former public defender James Forman Jr. weighs the tragic role that some African Americans themselves played in escalating the war on crime.
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Outstanding Book
- By Andrew on 12-13-17
By: James Forman Jr.
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A Savage Order
- How the World's Deadliest Countries Can Forge a Path to Security
- By: Rachel Kleinfeld
- Narrated by: Joyce Bean
- Length: 12 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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From Georgia to Colombia to Ghana and Italy - crime exists in every democratic nation on earth, but in some places, it runs rampant, shaping all aspects of civic life. A Savage Order investigates why and how some places, riddled by inept government and states, are able to recover. Drawing on fifteen years of both academic and firsthand field research, Dr. Rachel Kleinfeld documents the unambiguous measures that societies have taken to empower the strong civic movements, governments, and institutions that protect countries and mitigate atrocities that damage people's lives.
By: Rachel Kleinfeld
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America's Original Sin
- Racism, White Privilege, and the Bridge to a New America
- By: Jim Wallis
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 10 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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America's problem with race has deep roots, with the country's foundation tied to the near extermination of one race of people and the enslavement of another. Racism is truly our nation's original sin. "It's time we right this unacceptable wrong", says best-selling author and leading Christian activist Jim Wallis. Fifty years ago, Wallis was driven away from his faith by a white church that considered dealing with racism to be taboo.
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Important book, but narrator was an amateur
- By RevReader on 06-01-18
By: Jim Wallis
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Con Job
- How Democrats Gave Us Crime, Sanctuary Cities, Abortion Profiteering, and Racial Division
- By: Crystal Wright
- Narrated by: Crystal Wright
- Length: 9 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Black voters have overwhelmingly supported the Democratic Party for the last fifty years - and for their loyalty, black Americans have been rewarded with worsening schools, collapsed families, skyrocketed incarceration rates, disappearing jobs, and rising crime. Crystal Wright, editor of the blog Conservative Black Chick, exposes how the Democratic Party has systematically betrayed black voters.
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Awesome!
- By Tracy on 05-11-16
By: Crystal Wright
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Beyond the Messy Truth
- How We Came Apart, How We Come Together
- By: Van Jones
- Narrated by: Prentice Onayemi
- Length: 7 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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In Beyond the Messy Truth, Jones offers a blueprint for transforming our collective anxiety into meaningful change. Tough on Donald Trump but showing respect and empathy for his supporters, Jones takes aim at the failures of both parties before and after Trump's victory. He urges both sides to abandon the politics of accusation and focus on real solutions. Calling us to a deeper patriotism, he shows us how to get down to the vital business of solving, together, some of our toughest problems.
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I never hated anyone before
- By Joanna Bugajska on 11-17-17
By: Van Jones
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White Rage
- The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide
- By: Carol Anderson
- Narrated by: Pamela Gibson
- Length: 6 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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As Ferguson, Missouri, erupted in August 2014 and media commentators across the ideological spectrum referred to the angry response of African Americans as 'Black rage', historian Carol Anderson wrote a remarkable op-ed in the Washington Post showing that this was, instead, 'white rage at work. With so much attention on the flames,' she wrote, 'everyone had ignored the kindling.'
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Good History, Was Hoping For More Insight
- By Mike on 09-08-16
By: Carol Anderson
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American Exceptionalism and American Innocence
- A People's History of Fake News - From The Revolutionary War to The War on Terror
- By: Roberto Sirvent, Danny Haiphong, Ajamu Baraka - foreword, and others
- Narrated by: Timothy Andrés Pabon
- Length: 12 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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American Exceptionalism and American Innocence examines the stories we’re told that lead us to think that the U.S. is a force for good in the world, regardless of slavery, the genocide of indigenous people, and the more than a century’s worth of imperialist war that the U.S. has wrought on the planet. Roberto Sirvent and Danny Haiphong detail just what Captain America’s shield tells us about the pretensions of U.S. foreign policy, how Angelina Jolie and Bill Gates engage in humanitarian imperialism, and more.
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Still processing
- By D'Juan Eastman on 07-03-19
By: Roberto Sirvent, and others
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Viral Justice
- How We Grow the World We Want
- By: Ruha Benjamin
- Narrated by: Ruha Benjamin
- Length: 13 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Long before the pandemic, Ruha Benjamin was doing groundbreaking research on race, technology, and justice, focusing on big, structural changes. But the twin plagues of COVID-19 and anti-Black police violence inspired her to rethink the importance of small, individual actions. Part memoir, part manifesto, Viral Justice is a sweeping and deeply personal exploration of how we can transform society through the choices we make every day.
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Fantastic book!
- By Avie Kearney on 05-21-23
By: Ruha Benjamin
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Black Against Empire
- The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party
- By: Joshua Bloom, Waldo E. Martin Jr.
- Narrated by: Ron Butler
- Length: 18 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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In Oakland, California, in 1966, community college students Bobby Seale and Huey Newton armed themselves, began patrolling the police, and promised to prevent police brutality. Unlike the Civil Rights Movement that called for full citizenship rights for blacks within the US, the Black Panther Party rejected the legitimacy of the US government and positioned itself as part of a global struggle against American imperialism.
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the explanation of rise and fall Black Panther
- By Antwine Hurst on 03-24-17
By: Joshua Bloom, and others
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Inventing Latinos
- A New Story of American Racism
- By: Laura E. Gómez
- Narrated by: Joana Garcia
- Length: 8 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Latinos have long influenced everything from electoral politics to popular culture‚ yet many people instinctively regard them as recent immigrants rather than a longstanding racial group. In Inventing Latinos‚ Laura Gomez illuminates the fascinating race-making‚ unmaking‚ and remaking of Latino identity that has spanned centuries‚ leaving a permanent imprint on how race operates in the United States today.
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mixed reaction
- By david on 09-24-21
By: Laura E. Gómez
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The Third Reconstruction
- America's Struggle for Racial Justice in the Twenty-First Century
- By: Peniel E. Joseph
- Narrated by: Peniel E. Joseph
- Length: 7 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Distinguished historian Peniel E. Joseph offers a powerful and personal new interpretation of recent history. The racial reckoning that unfolded in 2020, he argues, marked the climax of a Third Reconstruction: a new struggle for citizenship and dignity for Black Americans, just as momentous as the movements that arose after the Civil War and during the civil rights era. Joseph draws revealing connections and insights across centuries as he traces this Third Reconstruction from the election of Barack Obama to the rise of Black Lives Matter to the failed assault on the Capitol.
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Revealing & powerful.
- By Terry Carmon on 02-08-24
By: Peniel E. Joseph
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We Gon' Be Alright
- Notes on Race and Resegregation
- By: Jeff Chang
- Narrated by: Jeff Chang
- Length: 5 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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In these provocative, powerful essays acclaimed writer/journalist Jeff Chang (Can't Stop Won't Stop, Who We Be) takes an incisive and wide-ranging look at the recent tragedies and widespread protests that have shaken the country. Through deep reporting with key activists and thinkers, passionately personal writing, and distinguished cultural criticism, We Gon' Be Alright links #BlackLivesMatter to #OscarsSoWhite, Ferguson to Washington, DC, and more.
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a conversation that needs to happen
- By Angie B on 03-11-17
By: Jeff Chang
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We Are Not Yet Equal
- Understanding Our Racial Divide
- By: Carol Anderson, Tonya Bolden
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 6 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Carol Anderson's White Rage took the world by storm, landing on the New York Times best seller list and best book of the year lists from New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, and Chicago Review of Books. It launched her as an in-demand commentator on contemporary race issues for national print and television media and garnered her an invitation to speak to the Democratic Congressional Caucus. This compelling young adult adaptation brings her ideas to a new audience.
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Great
- By JD on 07-06-20
By: Carol Anderson, and others
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Automating Inequality
- How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police, and Punish the Poor
- By: Virginia Eubanks
- Narrated by: Teri Schnaubelt
- Length: 7 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Since the dawn of the digital age, decision-making in finance, politics, health, and human services has undergone revolutionary change. Today, automated systems control which neighborhoods get policed, which families attain needed resources, and who is investigated for fraud. While we all live under this new regime of data, the most invasive and punitive systems are aimed at the poor. In Automating Inequality, Virginia Eubanks systematically investigates the impacts of data mining, policy algorithms, and predictive risk models on poor and working-class people in America.
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Outstanding, Through, Well Researched Book!
- By LISA on 07-11-24
By: Virginia Eubanks
What listeners say about Abolition for the People
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- Tina Luna
- 06-03-23
Inspiring
Books like this give me hope that we can build a better world. Free them all!
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- Grady
- 07-13-24
Not made for me.
The point of “don’t fix the police, but use those resources to better society so we don’t have the problems police are reacting to” is something I can get my head around. What I found frustrating was described what this post police world would look like. Through out the book they bring up that question multiple times but never answer it, stating “abolition is not centered around this question”. This is why I got the book, so it is not made for me or anyone wondering how a post police world would work. Expect to hear “readers guide” a lot.
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