abolition now – not decades from now

I’m re­al­iz­ing something.

Peo­ple that want the world to be a bet­ter place, con­cede that it has to hap­pen in steps be­cause they think they have to con­vince oth­er peo­ple of it.

And sure, some peo­ple need new ed­u­ca­tion and to have their eyes opened up.

But you know who sets the pace for things hap­pen­ing in slow steps?

Peo­ple who are giv­ing you “change takes time” as a plat­i­tude, who ac­tu­al­ly think the world op­er­ates fine as it is —

com­plete­ly aware that it is need­less­ly cru­el and unfair.

They hope the cold syrup pace will make you give up, so they can keep ben­e­fit­ing from the suffering.

 

imag­ine if you said “abol­ish slav­ery” a bunch of elites were trot­ted out to say “don’t wor­ry, they don’t ac­tu­al­ly mean *abol­ish­ing* slavery—just REIMAG­IN­ING slav­ery!” but I sup­pose that’s what they did to cre­ate our prison system

— shereen (@shereeny) June 8, 2020

 

Six years ago,
I went to a col­lege that taught me about prison abo­li­tion when it was an in­sane con­spir­a­cy the­o­ry about the ma­te­r­i­al con­di­tions that im­pact people’s lives and lim­it their abil­i­ties to excel —

And then the mo­ment I got a job at the school they hand­ed me a copy of The Oz Prin­ci­ple and were, like,

“good luck, we’re about to fuck you so hard and then blame you for not ex­celling im­me­di­ate­ly in pro­gres­sive­ly more im­pos­si­ble circumstances!”

 

I don’t know how to say this, but as some­one who has spent time in a psy­chi­atric ward, fel­low white peo­ple sug­gest­ing that “men­tal health pro­fes­sion­als” al­ways re­spond to men­tal health crises in com­pas­sion­ate ways is … a lot. Peo­ple with­in the sys­tem bru­tal­ize, co­erce & oppress

— Anne Théri­ault (@anne_theriault) June 6, 2020

I don’t fault any­one. There are no good an­swers to who should re­spond to a well­ness check, and high on the list of who ab­solute­ly shouldn’t is the cops. I just don’t think the doctors/nurses/social work­ers with­in the sys­tem are what you think. I could tell stories.

— Anne Théri­ault (@anne_theriault) June 6, 2020

But of course the prob­lem is that once you are in the sys­tem as a pa­tient, you be­come an un­re­li­able nar­ra­tor. The only way out is com­pli­ance. Oth­er­wise there is so much harm, dis­em­pow­er­ment and de­hu­man­iza­tion that can be done to you “for your own good.”

— Anne Théri­ault (@anne_theriault) June 6, 2020

Any­way. I’ve been very for­tu­nate to en­counter some great peo­ple with­in the men­tal health sys­tem. But I’ve also en­coun­tered some peo­ple who are on tru­ly ter­ri­fy­ing pow­er trips. And I’ve bare­ly seen the tip of the ice­berg, be­cause I’m white, mid­dle class and can pass as sane

— Anne Théri­ault (@anne_theriault) June 6, 2020

I try not to have shame when I talk about this be­cause every­one is like “men­tal health is health, end the stig­ma!!!” but they’re talk­ing about the re­lat­able kind of men­tal ill­ness. They don’t want to hear from the bad cra­zies who end up on locked wards or worse.

— Anne Théri­ault (@anne_theriault) June 6, 2020

And men­tal health care con­ver­sa­tions are chal­leng­ing be­cause lots of peo­ple do have lived ex­pe­ri­ence but there’s such a vast gulf be­tween “went to my doc­tor for anx­i­ety and got a pre­scrip­tion for Zoloft” and “watched my psych ward room­mate get punched and put into restraints”

— Anne Théri­ault (@anne_theriault) June 6, 2020

 

This is why ABO­LI­TION is important.

Abo­li­tion is not about end­ing cops, it’s about ul­ti­mate­ly end­ing the prison model.

We should not be tak­ing free­dom away from sur­vival crim­i­nals, sex work­ers, the men­tal­ly ill, ad­dicts, etc. be­cause we’re afraid of the one in every thou­sand se­r­i­al killer.

Piv­ot­ing away from pun­ish­ment and con­tain­ment, piv­ot­ing away from pa­ter­nal­is­tic con­trol, piv­ot­ing to­wards com­mu­ni­ty care, pre­ven­tion of so­ci­etal woes by ad­dress­ing in­di­vid­ual needs, rad­i­cal forgiveness. 

Yes, you might still have SOME RARE peo­ple who have to be sep­a­rat­ed from so­ci­ety. But as­sum­ing ‘crim­i­nals’ (which is a class of peo­ple that ex­pands be­yond just law break­ing, don’t even start me on how so­cial groups over­lap and form each oth­er) are per­ma­nent­ly marred by mis­takes or ill­ness, that they can’t re­deem or re­cov­er tru­ly, is a mod­el that only seems to ben­e­fit peo­ple hun­gry for pow­er over those types of people.

 

Like se­ri­ous­ly,
let me for ar­gu­ments sake ac­cept the most lib­er­al de­f­i­n­i­tion of de­fund­ing po­lice, where we don’t elim­i­nate po­lice, but we shrink them down dra­mat­i­cal­ly and fo­cus on oth­er, most­ly so­cial work­er-based so­lu­tions for crime.

What im­pact ex­act­ly do you think that’s go­ing to have on ar­rests, on head counts of prisons and jails, on head counts of peo­ple in the le­gal system?

+

Note to self: fin­ish in the morning:

 

—mel­ony ppenosyne

Flom­mist Mel­ony Ppenosyne is a writer and weird artist type. In the last year alone, she’s trav­eled to Vir­ginia as a com­pet­ing poet, co-writ­ten a play on men­tal ill­ness that is present­ly be­ing pro­duced, and craft­ed a pub­lished es­say check­ing the priv­i­lege and scope of art gal­leries. Copy­right © 2020 Mel­ony Ppenosyne.

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