I sit in a cell that is right above the COs’ desk in my unit. It provides me a unique opportunity to hear the psychology of staff in their thought-to-be-secure area, in their conversations with each other. The reason I write about this is because hearing their conversations, I witness first hand what the caste…
Editor’s note: This June 2020 op-ed by Mariame Kaba bears rereading and sharing. Congressional Democrats want to make it easier to identify and prosecute police misconduct; Joe Biden wants to give police departments $300 million. But efforts to solve police violence through liberal reforms like these have failed for nearly a century. Enough. We can’t…
My mind, made and built by image and experience, producing thoughts, turned to actions. Reflection allowing me the opportunity to see myself, I wonder how and who I really am. Does systematic racism and disenfranchisement from birth to right-before-this-moment declare my value, or did it begin long before I was a thought, at the beginning…
Many weeks ago, on November 15th, abolitionists in so-called Michigan held a car caravan protest in the town of St. Louis, Michigan, to call attention to the start of what has become a devastating outbreak of COVID-19 Central Michigan Correctional Facility (STF). At that time we had just learned that the positive cases in the…
Hey J., I hope you are doing good and staying safe, this COVID-19 stuff has gotten crazy in here. They were bringing the National Guard in here to test us every week, but they said they weren’t coming in anymore because so many people coming in caught COVID while administering the test. Then our newly…
A communiqué from H.H. Gonzales, sent 11/6/2020, before prisoners rose up and were locked down on Wed. 11/10 I sit in a cell about 5 feet by 10 feet with a bunk bed, two lockers, a sink, a toilet, and a chair, with a “bunkie” (a cellmate). The walls are concrete with many different levels…
Today we continue to struggle in Aura Rosser’s memory. Aura was a beautiful artist who loved to cook. She had three children and was struggling with mental health. Instead of helping her, Ann Arbor Police officer David Ried fired the shots that killed her on the night of November 10, 2014. What’s happened since then?…
Early Friday morning (10/30), two banners appeared in Ann Arbor attributing the current rise in local COVID cases to the University of Michigan. One banner, flying near the intersection of State and Liberty, reads “UM BROUGHT THIS OUTBREAK HERE”; the other reads “UM FIRES, SUES, ARRESTS STUDENTS, FUNDS COPS. WHY?” For months, many in the…
This was written by some anonymous students who attended the October 17th march to abolish Northwestern University’s police department. It provides a detailed account of the march and its moments of experimentation with moving in the streets ungovernable, and some positive feedback on the process of escalation. Escalation is good. Polarization is good. Burn down…
In this piece, an anonymous abolitionist in so-called Ann Arbor presents six reflections on the fallout of the GEO 3550 Strike at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. After a week and a half of strike actions, and nation-wide attention on the demands for a demilitarized campus, it became clear that what is needed is…
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