Book tv. Org. Good evening everyone. My name is ware harmon, and im the executive director of town hall seattle on behalf of our team as well as our friends at Elliot Bay Book company. Its a pleasure to welcome you to tonights presentation of dereka pernell in conversation with Nikkita Oliver and darnell, elmore. As we get underway, i want to acknowledge that our institution stands on the unceded traditional territory of the coast salish people in particularly the duwamish we thank them for our continuing use of the Natural Resources of their ancestral homeland. Were very glad youve joined us for tonights virtual event, which will likely run around 60 minutes including q a. Integrate our audience experiences on those nights when we have live audiences in the building. Weve changed the q a platform this year to submit your question. 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With all of that dereka pernell is a human rights lawyer writer and organizer who works to end police and prison violence by providing Legal Assistance research and trainings and communitybased organizations through an abolitionist framework a graduate of harvard law. She is the former editorinchief of the harvard journal of African AmericanPublic Policy and her writing has been seen in New York Times the atlantic the guardian cosmopolitan Harpers Bazaar and team vogue among many other spots. Cornell is also appeared on npr democracy now slates. Whats next and msnbc among other Media Outlets erica is in conversation when the key to oliver a seattlebased Creative Community organizer abolitionist educator and attorney. They are the executive director of Creative Justice a youthled communitybased Program Offering and artsbased alternative to incarceration all of our also organizes with no new youth jail. He criminalized seattle covid19 mutual aid seattle and the seattle peoples party. Currently director of inclusion and for content in marketing at netflix darnell l. Moore is a media maker educator and writer focused on marginal Identity Youth Development and other social justice issues in the us and abroad prolific writer. Darnell has been published in various Media Outlets including the New York Times book review the guardian Huffington Post ebony and many more and in 2018. He published the memoir no ashes in the fire. Cornells new book becoming abolitionists Police Protests and the pursuit of freedom is the subject of this evenings discussion. Please join me in welcoming Nikita Oliver darnell, elmore and derrica purnell. Wow. Wow. Derek and nikita higher hello. Hello how to you both . Um, listen, i i know nikita and i are going to go back and forth with some questions for you dereka, but i wanted to start by one thinking seattle town hall for hosting this conversation for hosting you such such an honor to be here supporting you my friend and sister and i just got to say before i jump into a question like its one thing to write a book and i know what it takes to write a book right . Its another thing to write a book that is engaging. Textually rich that possesses clarity of voice thats driven thats even paced at astutely researched necessary and good so kudos to you. Kudos to you. Thank you. So borrowing from what nikita really prompted us to to sort of think through when we talked on the side. Lets start with grounding ourselves grounding you like talking about context that through which you you come to be and the words that you write, who are your people . Where is home what is home or homes . And what are the traditions that you locate yourself in within that have ultimately shaped your abolitionist politics. Wow, thats a beautiful and very very very hard question. Thank you both for being here tonight. Im just so enthusiastic. I have so much respect and excitement for what which i have done in the world, which i continue to do in the world and whatever future holds. So, thank you. Thank you. Thank you both yall my people so start there. Where is home for me . So when i think of the word home the first place that comes to mind in, st. Louis . Just saint louis. I realized how midwestern i am whenever i go to new york city or la and im just like well, its a lot of people here a lot of moving a lot of stairs a lot of hustling. And so when i think of home, i think of saint louis i think of hickory street i think of you know, my neighbors on the south side, i think of particular rec centers and particular basketball courts, i think of buddha i think of wolves i think like thats thats what i think of and i think of home i think of my great grandmothers house right where when home was less tumultuous we would gather and celebrate and talk trash and celebrate some more and eat homeless tumbling on top of mattresses and an alley with my little brother before we were getting in trouble. Like thats very much home to me. And home is home is where my where my people are and so over the more and i guess over the last year and i have i have been so lucky to have been quarantined with my sisters. Im the oldest of six i have three younger sisters and weve all been quarantining together and its just been so beautiful because its the first time as adults weve all lived together. Like i kicked out of my mamas house and i was 16 and have gone a bunch of different journeys and have been fortunate to be around people who love me and to care for me and pushed me and challenged me and to be in a space with my sisters. I mean, the circumstances are obviously like ridiculous but to celebrate birthdays with them to spend time with them has just been so rewarding home is my children. Home is my partner and i mean home is at your house my favorite pink bathroom. Its literally like where my people are people i have or people have joy and people are true tellers even when it hurts and so i find some political spaces. I can send them my home right . Its its where i find people are willing to tell the truth when it hurts so that thank you for that question. I mean i want to think think about that some more. For sure go please please i was thinking about the traditions too because its its so much of it is related to like culture and then our political traditions and then theres this marriage between them right so when i think of which traditions i belong to i would say that i belong to people who tell the truth when it hurts. Sometimes they lie to and they take care of each other. They take care of each other. So i would see my mom fights with my aunties and they were still make sure we have food right like its is that like thats a traditional come from like you may Say Something that hurt me or upset me. I may Say Something i offend you and we know that thats temporary. Were gonna try to figure it out. Even if we take our time and im gonna make sure you eat im gonna make sure you have someone to live and then the political traditions. I find the best of them have that too. Its like when people think they ask me hard questions about abolition the hardest questions ive been asked and i ask of others are in those political homes where we fight were over talk each other. Well try to get to the bottom of a campaign and then its like did you get food . Like what you what you ordering for lunch, right . Is that like i consider myself to be a part of that. Addition and i think that tradition is long and storied and i hope to be a good steward of it. Thats so dope, i have a question for you and then i think probably in gleaning from your company from your answer im sure the key does not have something for you too abolitionism and specifically prison and Police Abolition foreign part of a broader tradition right and you trace this across time and place in your book but its one that has reenter the Public Domain and a really interesting way right with force with the type of popularity and you answer this in many ways of your book, but your book is a unique contribution to conversations on abolitionism one that pays homage to the feminist genealogy to decolonizing internationalists Disability JusticeClimate Justice. Racial justice politics, right you do all of that and the pages of less than 300 pages and amid all of the necessary chatter and there i say performative utterances of a type of abolitionism that profits us to sort of talk talk a good game, but not practice abolitionists at like well talk about abolitionists and where the abolitionist shirt and still rely on cars for logics. Im just saying. Yes you youre doing something. Guinness book and it isnt it isnt its a looking back. Its also looking forward. Its a pain homage, but its also a unique intervention why that approach . Why now . Why you why are you writing this book . Right . And what is a particular intervention youre trying to make that you did not come to play. Okay. Wow, so. I think the first thing ill say is that what i hear you describe that i think what i tried to do in the book is pulled together acquire right of all these people who have been singing various songs of liberation. Like its i think thats what that is if i have one way to describe this book. I will hope that im like a quiet director or at least someone who a medium whatever right and so you have all these people from various different traditions right from you know, organizers activists parents lovers people in different parts of the world people with different identities that they organize through and live through what i try to do. Its like show like look at how all these people are influencing this tradition and making this tradition and criticizing this tradition around abolitionism because i dont think its enough for me to be like, hey, derica write a book. Thats like this is what you think. What abolitionist is right. Its i think its so much more complicated than that. What i hope to do is show that well, this is why i learned right . This is how people push me and challenged me. This is how it shaped the person who i am right now and hopefully the person im constantly becoming and here all the interventions that they made not only on some in to my life but into the movement so and so i find myself to be a student of all these people like the idea that some people would say like, oh your expert can you come speak your can you do that . I find myself to be a perpetual student of everyone i talk about in this book. Everyone are right about this book. I remember having a conversation with someone about the Disability Justice chapter and just trembling just trembling because its one of the areas i want to learn more about that. Im like trying to figure out how am i making sure im like, this is a main part when im in organ. Spaces im like bringing this up. Im making sure were include like how it i was so nervous to talk about it, but then to not talk about the role of Disability Justice at activism like and its interventions entire movement would just be wrong. I couldnt tell the story about abolition without telling the story of Climate Change and climate activism and resistance to the warming earth right i couldnt tell a story about abolitionist about talking about the people who survive all kinds of violence Sexual Violence who escaped murder. I mean i couldnt talk about it with out engaging with all of these people who continue to teach me and so i think that the book its someone caught his genre bending which makes me feel like a film or something, but i think the book ultimately came out the way that it came out. Its because ive been very fortunate to be, you know, a student of so many radical thinkers activists storytellers artist. And they have influenced me greatly and continue to influence me. So hopefully that homage it just goes all the way through because thats thats me. Thats who i am. Like thats what made me and so if i do any of them justice, i will be very very very proud of that and the second thing. Ill say really quickly. Is that what i didnt want to happen. Is that precisely for the what you said that you know abolition would you call it perform it performative utterances. I didnt want people to be like i want to be an abolition miss like derica, right . What i hopefully tried to do is say look at all of these people doing so many different kinds of work and theres a entry point for everybody who are trying to figure out how to get free and here are countless examples here different organizations here in different stories. He i tried to do that with a lot of intentionality and so hopefully people can find their people too. Yeah, i love that. Um and also the intersectionality of abolition, i think that often gets overlooked it gets distilled down to being just about prisons or police but ignoring that there are so many factors that actually lead to our dependency upon the carceral system impunative systems which includes Climate Justice it includes, you know justice for survivors. It is a multifaceted abolition should exist in all of our movements, right . You know, you have so many accolades and the thing that actually draws me to you is im also a midwesterner and hearing you talk about saint louis. I almost immediately think about ferguson which for a lot of people was their first entrance into blm as a movement or being aware that about how people were moving and defensive black lives and i remember for myself as an abolitionist or when the worlds abolitionist views very distinctly sitting in a childrens jail here in seattle with a young woman a who was around the age of 17, and she was telling me that she did not feel she could live outside of a jail that she was institutionalized and she 17 telling me this and i had a very distinct moment in a very long journey of thinking wow, we are doing something wrong and i couldnt fully put my finger on what it was, but i knew having a child sitting in front of me telling me that this was the only place they could live for the rest of their life. Man, we were doing something wrong, and i know that for a lot of people saint Louis Ferguson and honestly as an attorney, missouri because of its its its laws, you know, hold a lot of of those moments. Is there a moment in your life that connects to why you wrote this book that really triggered your journey into abolition as a part of your world view. Wow. Wow, i mean, i just just send it so much. Love to that baby. Its just its heartbreaking. You know, its heartbreaking and i mean, we know that its not true, but its heartbreaking and thankful that you know, she has you. I think that before when i used to when i was first access question, i would say its ferguson where i would say, oh, yeah, you know as started law school right after the ferguson uprising Michael Brown was killed about 10 minutes from my house right before i was set to become this civil rights lawyer, but then when i tried to write that in the book like, okay, where would i put this i started remembering all of these other moments of not only National Tragedy but resistance to it. And it was like, oh right like i cant talk about, you know, justice and ferguson the uprising. Its like being a catalyst for abolitionists thinking because i had all these other influences like along the way. And so its hard to say one particular moment. But in the book, i list several that i guess was starting to prepare me, right . I talk about the genesics in louisiana, right the group of black boys who were charged with assault of the Deadly Weapon after they fought a group of white boys and put one of them in the hospital after the white kids told them. They couldnt sit at the race tree and they hung up nooses there. I remember watching that as a kid and learning that a prosecutor could charge it a black kid essentially with assault with the daily weapon because he used a sneaker right like thats so that was like wow. Okay, and then you had sean bell being murdered in and new york city the night before his wedding. You had Hurricane Katrina happened, right . And i remember the images of police. I remember looting the first time i heard looting was during Hurricane Katrina. I was like, oh, whats this this people are drowning. Yeah worried about theft right and and it wasnt so much later because of critical resistances work that i learned that the very first thing that was built and after the aftermath of hurricane. Katrina was a jail, right the very First Institution that that was a jail was built, right and so yeah, so there are all these moments that were quite politicizing not just be again because of the violence but because of the resistance, you know listening to different questions that people were asking at the time. You know watching people fight for justice and equality and justice and quality and me assuming that i knew that what they meant when they said that right appealing to be, you know humanized and not really these words made sense to me, but i didnt have a political analysis around them. Right and so there is so i mean Trayvon Martin when i was in College Jordan davis like troy davis, right all of these people who just experienced immense violence and then there was a response, you know to what happened and much like what happened last year i think in an aftermath of joy of George Floyds murder its like for a lot of people that was new it was it was like, whoa, whats this . Whats this thing thats happening and it politicized them in a particular way. And so i think with each iteration of that freedom then that violence in that resistance. I think it i was very fortunate to find people who made me act different sets of questions. This time there was an uprising and i think that iterative process helped me become an abolitionist. So dope also im over here like nikita got the questions coming with the question thats my fan. I dont even look. This is family right here. I i look at somebody who spent a lot of time out in the world talking about a book and for the most part so much of the content of the book. Was the center of conversation as opposed to the actual . Art of writing it okay, so i do want to ask a writerly question because i also want to underscore that your ability to sort of tackle so much in your writing right tracing like traditions of i had to write this because im like i cannot believe she did all of this like youre tracing traditions of policing and crossword practices globally and across centuries, right you tackle Police Reform constitutional policing consent degrees movements, but you tie all of these dreads around an absolutely like enthralling narrative layer it with social history legal theory and history and life narrative for anybody listening. Im telling you as a writer that that is not some easy to do. Im just gonna be very clear so it is not a small task talk about your writing process and how you pull together those pieces how you threaded that in a way that did not leave me as a reader joe art by any movement. Clean, it felt very cohesive that is hard work to do. I would just love to hear you talk a bit about that. Wow, you making me want to read this book. Thank you. Wow. Wow, how am i writing process . So i cheated thats what happened. I cheated i cheated there all there was all this scholarship and theory and questions that people have been asking for decades some for centuries other and that i cheated because i was able to use a lot of their stuff to inform my thinking right like thats like thats you know, so i yeah, we actually earlier about the traditions like im in inherit of several grand traditions, right . So i i didnt have to do stuff from scratch right i found myself mostly being in conversation or intervening when i found something cool in the archives. I tried to talk about it, right but its its its its because i am i tried to be faithful and critical and curious about the traditions. I find myself to be a steward of so thats like the big things i cheat i had start on writing this right. I think the second thing that i that i have been doing throughout my entire life is just writing notes to myself keeping track of articles ideas questions people or whenever i will come across something that was related to abolitionist or capitalism or colonialism. I started keep it in this google doc and this is back my 20152016. And so i had written just endless amounts of like notes and questions that every page is like what about the violence . Look at this study. Look at you know study murders more look at murders in particular cities. Why do they happen . Why do they happen and the more questions that i had the more that it took me out of the law, right . So i was finding myself reading psychology and sociology and critical criminal so, you know trying to learn as much as i can because i was like, wow when people ask me what about the murderers i want to like make sure that i at least stand at least what the field says. I know i say. I know my people say i know my blocks and what cops say but whats whats this other stuff. I wanted to know i took it seriously, so that all got into this like massive goo goo docs. I had just been keeping for a long time and then separately. I guess lewiss around. 2016 so maybe right after i had garvey yeah garvey my youngest hell be five in like two weeks is alright that i had him i was going through depression. I was experiencing like just depression and darkness and loneliness and i found myself just writing these short little paragraphs about my life like just just Different Things i had gone through i felt it. So therapeutic. I like shared them with a friend like yeah. I just need to like get this stuff out. Of me so like the stories especially in the first chapter where i talk about wanting to bring my my father back from the dead right doing these seances with like my cousins when im like five and six they came out of a set of lyrics that i wrote doing that time because i was just i was like now what was was going on with me just searching for something. So a lot of those stories about the chocolate milk like all of these pieces like that came from actually a really really tough time in my life. And so what happened i think with the book you have this google doc. You have these sets of like personal stories of me trying to just to figure out who i am whats going on with me like those things are happening. Theres like new ideas that are being put on the table and question and challenge. I belong to organizations. So theres social movements, you know, im in reading groups with people who are you know, arguing about the boys not just for scholarly reasons because were trying to figure out how we can use the boys to like implement a campaign, right . So its i just all of those, you know mess with a time where people were asking a sort of hit the mainstream and so the writing process was just all of that and then lots and lots and lots of mistakes lots of that right and the first three months of writing i couldnt even use any of that stuff. It was so bad. Its just october to december. Its terrible is bad stuff alessandra will tell you its just not good and so by the time january came around i figured out like, okay. Think i have some rhythm. I think i have some way to you know, put this down on paper and now even when i read the book now, im just like wow. Okay, like i got that off and some stuff like man. I wish i would have said this word instead of that word, right . And so, you know, the writing process again was challenging, but im grateful for the other people, you know written before me who sang who done all kinds of stuff so i was able to build on our work for this book. Thank you. Thank you for that question. I love that. I that whole story just maybe want to sit down and write, you know because its as black people reading and writing is a liberatory tradition. Our language and access to written language, you know when brought to Turtle Island was an intentional thing to keep us from being able to interact in both the legal and social spaces that were happening around us. So reading and writing is a part of a liberatory tradition that we come from and i love that youre talking about sets of questions and it kind of drives me down to two lines of thought. I think you can tie them together. Um one is i think that our generation is now also creating our own tradition. Theres something very powerful about the intersectional text that we are bringing forward and darnell already, you know touched on this some about you bringing it from the divine feminine. Active of bringing it in a way that is decolonized and grounded in climate and Environmental Justice and im wondering within the tradition that i would say youre giving birth to now for us. Where do you see yourself fitting in the multitude of materials that are coming out right now for folks to access and when you were writing this book, what question did you hope that people would be left with because for me when i deliver something, im not necessarily always helping to leave someone with an idea. I love the idea that a person left with their own questions, and i just wondering you know, where where are you in the tradition . What questions are you wanting to leave us with for the next generation to be building on . Wow, so let me get clarity on the first one. So you said among the people who are writing right now. What do you say more about that question . Yeah, you know, im reading miriam kaba. Im reading a i got a list of books. I cant even think of all living understands. Theres so many Brilliant Minds that are leading the way many of them black and indigenous films guiding us towards understanding abolition in a holistic way. Youre bringing something unique here. Where do you see yourself in that tradition . And what question are you hoping lingers with folks when they engage with the tradition that youre helping to birth right now because i feel like 50 years from now. Someone gonna be reading this book. And and theyre gonna say to someone like their no. I was reading becoming abolitionist and i cheated to write the next version, you know. I hope that way oh my gosh. Thats just too much. Where do i see myself . So in the beginning when darnell acts like how did i pull out this together . And i said, well, hopefully its a choir of all these, you know voices and thinkers and artists, right . The inverse like for your question i see myself as like one person this larger choir of people who are singing to get free. Were trying to figure out like how do we attack it at all of these different ways and so i dont i think hopefully my my work is an offering alongside a lot of the texts that are entered into the mainstream and most importantly like to showcase like the work thats actually being done. Like thats thats sort of what i hope. I mean, i think that the format maybe i would say the format is probably a bit unique because there is a lot of personal storytelling so people like have urges to call it, you know, memoir i resist memoir, but if that helps people get through the book is a memoir. You can call it a memoir. I know why caseworks think whatever you can whatever you need to do to finish the book. You can call it that i think what what its also true about this book is that i try to think about its weird that i tried to think about because it wasnt like super intentional like i just wrote from the place of like who i am, but i also tried to think about different communities that i belong to as sometimes i was saying the mainstream fall outside of abolitionist conversations like my faith. I read about my faith, you know throughout the book. I have an interesting relationship to the church, you know, so you probably see that throughout the text. Sometimes im like defending it and protecting and other times. Im like whoa. Whoa, this is wrong. We have to fight it right and so its you know, my face my spirituality is a very very important part of my life, you know, and when i you know, pray with my kids at night, we pray against capitalism we pray for the organizers we pray for the workers right that these are our prayers, right . And so i was just thinking well, thats an important side of me that i dont know if people usually put together. Like faith in abolition, right . But its very very important. I try to talk about my parents a lot because sometimes abolition gets treated as this thing for like young people with a lot of energy with nothing but time on a Hands College students and its like whoa. Yeah. Im divorced. Im coparenting. I got two kids. I gotta like i gotta run errands like theres so many people who i think are trying to figure out how to erase our children to be great people and with the good political analysis or out view on the world. So thats a part of me that i wanted to be honest about and writing the book and yeah, i think there theres some like benefits to that because its its a different kind of offering than a text. Thats like only about the history of abolition or only about examples, right . Its like well like here we get to see a person whos navigating lots of different identities and roles and responsibilities and still have time to read and study and debate and a part of an organiz. It and so hopefully this offering its unique in that way, but i hope its not solely unique in that way, right which is why theres also theory in here. Thats why theres also you know to all of this stuff. So yeah, its a lot going on, but i think it i think it accomplishes what at least why i try to do is be honest. And talk about you know, the i want the freedom to grow and to be wrong and what thats all another thing too. I gotta talk about how wrong i was before we got on. You know, she said about how you wear a 17 why i didnt went through so many i was so wrong and so popular about things i was wrong about my early 20s, like im so happy that i have the freedom to like not worried about being canceled or being dragged for like some of my ideas. Its like, yeah. Hopefully we changed you want people to stay the same, you know, youre free with nobody stand the same. So that is i think part of it and the second part of the question. Yeah, you know, is there a question that you you hope people and its reading your book . Question. Oh i have this like really naive dream that people are like, where do i sign up . But thats not thats probably not the best question. Hopefully the the next question is where can i learn more who i could who can i learn it with . That those are the questions that will help people like where if this is the first book someone read on abolitionist. Hopefully, its not the last right. This isnt the last book. I hope that it contributes, you know more information or different perspective in addition to other books. They read but most importantly, you know, what what else can i do . What can i learn and and who can i do with . I love that i um i have this this thing that i have to do when im talking to writers because i know how much we can talk about the written word and never really engaged the words that they write. So in law of a question, i just want to read words back to you that you wrote because theyre glimmering moments of like poetic clarity and power. And reminds me of the beauty that exists in the radical politics that that we uphold and uplift right and i think that it is what you did as art you write for example, unlike and im not camera. I know no you dont know youre not youre gonna stay right there. Because i want i want i think theres a lesson here. Im talking about this very literally, but there is a lesson in how we can find beauty. Beauty and the ashes yes, but also beauty in the work that we do. I think theres a way that we talk about this as if as if its direct of joy and beauty when in fact it is beautiful work you write unlike any other generation of black students ever my freshman year of college coincided with the election of the first black president. Barack obama was my kite. Kites are beautiful. Watching a colorful thread sore made me feel like i was having a conversation with with the butterfly. Like i could hold on one for a while. With with when kites rise, we are supposed to let them fly then pull in on the line to manage the climb tights rewarded reward us when we allow them to work with when space and control. Otherwise, they disappoint become tangled crash obama was supposed to be proof that the United States could let people of color soar with the right space control and when beneath their wings i voted for him twice filled with hope i set up Voter Registration sites organized get out the rallies and the second time whos elected. I saved money to fly to washington dc to attend his inauguration. I stood several hours in a corner in dc for inauguration tickets in january 2013. Not because there was a line stretching around a capital but because my best friend was lost in a pre inauguration track that and i forgot where she had dropped me off anyway. I want it to be like obama a black lawyer who spoke truth about freedom and justice for everyone. Bags are not as beautiful to me. Kites thats stunning writing. And your ability to capture . So much of the heft and power. Of abolitionism grounded in a very deeply into sectional politic and do it beautifully is to be celebrated. Well, thank you darnell. Thank you so much. I know where i know theres questions from audience. Were supposed to take right so maybe nikita and i could be looking out for them if they send them. Yeah, i have a few i have a few counties and thank you for reading that section. Theres so much in that metaphor and also, you know as someone who was also originally very excited when obama was elected thinking through the pressure we put on so many of our black folks whether the writers or lawyers or doctors or nurses or sanitation workers or check out clerks, you know, wherever you are. Theres so much expectation for us to be able to deliver on liberation. Um and that could become something that weighs people down but the image of the kite is just such a strong opportunity to think about. What it means for us to fly and to soar and at the same time acknowledge their limitations a kite has a string on it, right . Yeah, and um we can achieve nothing on our own which i think ties into this next question your youre not just a writer and youre not just a lawyer, you know in my opinion. Youre also an organizer and im wondering if you could speak to some of the work that you do in ending or addressing Police Violence addressing decarceration and and building, you know, a world beyond prisons and police. Whats the work that youre doing . What are some of the orgs that your partnering with what are some of the trainings or Community Campaigns that you might be focused on that is taking what you wrote in a book that is actually symbiotic with what you wrote in your book, right . Its work thats feeding itself. Its cyclical, you know. Yes. Yes, so well for before the pandemic it was just so much easier like just just so much easier, right . And so before the pandemic most of that work i had done was with this Organization Called ferguson collaborative. So the ferguson collaborative does is trying to figure out how to reduce power that the police have in ferguson, missouri. Im especially through whats been granted to them from the Consent Decree in order to improve or reform their policing and so for example, i would think about well, what are the ways we could use this Consent Decree to then figure out how to maximize Community Power in this area had a free people from the cars through the state either by clearing their warrants or helping get cases dismissed or you know, revising the policies that are coming through the doj because the doj has a provision that allows the community to give input on use of force policies. What does it mean how to prepare to go to court and like, you know prepare testimony to show the judge. Hey look for example Police Department is not being cooperative with the terms of the Consent Decree the do they dont really care that much. So how do we figure out how to make sure we raise the Community States and buying in this process . And so that was happening. I was very very excited to be working with that group again. But with so messed up is that since the pandemic has happened a lot of those Court Hearings have moved to tele like tell a hearings and now the community has even less input like less opportunity to they dont get a chance to participate right and even they, you know, write a letter and say hey look we know we want to figure out how to do this. We want to figure out how to you know to even reform the police because not all of them are abolitionists. We want to figure out how to input the court now wont even accept their comments. It was just give a directly to the police. So its just like a mess that im like trying to figure out how to get back involved in that particular fight and ive been literally in the last month ever since the book has been done. Its like, okay. Like lets go like lets go. So thats one other political work. I actually dont talk about a lot because im usually afraid of those particular campaigns being targeted and so theres an organization. Im trying to for the last year and a half have been trying to help build and get off the ground that im actually very excited about. I think its gonna give a lot of people of color, you know, especially in this country just an opportunity to like push back on capitalism like in a way thats really concrete and exciting. So thats something i spend honestly most of my weeks trying to figure out how to like be in struggle. I know earlier when i said there are questions that people ask me about abolition or about capitalism that they think a hard questions or they think are gotcha questions, but these are questions every week that im Like Fighting with people over it. Im struggling with people over it like its its like thats intense some examples of trainings that i do so early this year. No, i dont every single train that i do. I do it like in communities. I almost struggle with so its not like a consultant thing. Im not getting paid all the none of this stuff is is paid its like were commerce were trying to figure out how to get free. This is my political work and so earlier this year. I had a chance to work with this Organization Called the Freedom Community center. Its in north saint louis. Yeah, the the founding ed of this organization. I dont even get off on like nonprofits, but hes legit like his names mike milton. He was a member of this other organization actually saint louis and then he ran the bell project autonomously in st. Louis. Left the bell project to create this organization to do so many Different Things. One thing that it does is it figures out how to divert people even people convict accused or charged with Violent Crimes divert them from going to jail. So this is the First Program of the country that Diverse People who are charged with Violent Crimes out of jail and into like this particular program. Hes trying to figure out well, how instead of incarcerating people how can we figure out how to get them everything they need and also expect them to be members of this organization to build power and so every one of the team right now that he works with all people with radical politics all people who are formally incarcerated. And so thats who we like, you know, figuring out abolition capitalism how to you know, make sure you doing street violence interrupting programs for people who are nervous if were going to try to close down in jail. So thats a Community Organization that i like. Am i am the most excited about like the potential of because people would say of abolitions like you dont care about murderous young care about black communities and if all places in st. Louis that mike and that team opened up on the north side in that neighborhood where they are. Its just it means the world like thats actually the work right and so that is like the kind of so its like how we read them together how we thinking about this campaign you want to do how do we figure out how to like make sure that theres Like Community buying with this campaign once our political education was our public education. What is an internally what is it externally, right . How do we figure out if like like which stakeholders what fun all of that stuff to like make sure that were pushing to reduce our reliance on incarceration on police. Were also making sure that people in that Community Get the needs that they get right and so that i feel incredibly lucky that people trust me to be in struggle with them. Yeah to be in constant conversation with them and i think of my people i think of accessing lewis, i think if dream defenders who i done lots of work. It and florida. I mean, its just yeah, its just a lie, and now signing my own organization. Its just i feel very very lucky and i i continue to learn from them too. Thats why they all in this book. So amazing. Im at we have two questions that are quite connected that ill ask together one. You mentioned your faith. Can you talk about the connection of your faith to abolition and in a second part, you know, im really you already know me derek, you know, this is like my thing, so im sitting over here like im ready. But um as you speak of weaving your face with your abolitionist ism, are they biblical narratives that have are impacted your abolitionist work . Wow. Wow, what a question. Okay my faith in abolition. Yes, oh my gosh, so this is like im in strangely emotional about my faith and abolitionist. I think that. In the beginning of the last chapter i talked about when i let go of the idea of heaven and hell and how that was very scary for me, especially as someone who tried to evangelize people so they wouldnt go to a place where they were burned and internally and that how Climate Change made me much more afraid than hell because it was much more real it was happening right now and letting go of these stories of heaven and hell increase my urgency as a as a activist right now. It was just like these material conditions need to be changed right now. Like how do we figure out how to meet peoples material needs right now . Its not enough to say that youre suffering is going to be over and and unless you cross into the afterlife that wasnt enough for me. And so i found abolition to be just one way of many ways. Just one way of figuring out how to eliminate. Unnecessary suffering thats in the world so much of it so much of it right . Its like yeah we can just we deserve to live better lives right now and even if im not gonna see it the people who are fighting for me like who are fighting for that future deserve to do that. And so i dont know who i was just in conversation with who said you know faith is a substance of things hopeful in the evidence of things not seen and thats the definition of abolitionist. And i was like, oh, yeah, youre right. Youre right it is. A substance of things. Hopefully it is the evidence of things unseen, right because im not gonna see a future without police. Theres no almost a million cops. Its 18,000 Law Enforcement agencies, right . Theres 2,300 gels in prisons. Im not gonna see those things closed, but thats a substance of what i hope to become right and what we do now is going to be the evidence. Its the fruits of what hopefully i work is on a bear so that the scripture and then just the sense of urgency of doing that liberation work right now. And now christianity christianity, i guess i consider myself a christian. Its more complicated because i dont consider myself like evangelical christian, i believe and im like a jeremiah right christian. Im like as kind of christian because i believe in people who tell the truth and i dont yeah. Yeah, i believe in people tell the truth and so when i think about jesus i think about someone who turns over tables who was you know, unarmed executed person by the state right for being a true teller like thats the traditional i see myself in someone who curses an entire tree because the fruit is riding. He dont say what about the bad apples he say, what about the bag fix . He cursed the whole tree. Come on. Its so easy. Its right there. Its literally right there if you a christian and i abolitionist, right . Theres always text right so that sort of the traditions. I think that jesus missed the mark a lot. You know, its very unfortunate i think about the story of the one whos getting stoned. It was about to get stoned and jesus. Theres everyone who is just like look, you know like he without saying cast the first stone. And instead of saying like go get the man. Were about the stone. Both of them. Jesus is like no ones about to die right now, right and sometimes im nervous that when when black people are fighting for like equality. Theyre fighting to get the same level of treatment. Sometimes i worry that thats gonna increase punishment for everybody right . Its gonna i i think its gonna be like go get the other people will stone them, too to make sure that with equal that its just instead of fighting for everyone to put their stones down. So i see abolition as a as a politic that way like in my face like Everyone Needs to put their stones down. Lets get to the problem whats happening. So yeah, i think that im a casual jeremiah right christian. Um, and yeah, thats i mean a subject to change right now that works for me. And yeah, im just learning. Im still draining. Im still becoming oh, theyre so powerful, you know, i often call myself a recovering christian. Okay very much in the church, but you know one of the things that really resonates with me not just as an abolitionist but a restorative and transformative justice practitioner is a scene the way we collectively contribute to harm or collectively contribute to quote unquote sin that that is not an individualized thing that a Single Person needs to own a ford is something as a community that we need to do work around and when you talk about Meeting Basic Needs or doing mutual aid, you know, those are things for me that i still you know, though. I dont go to church anymore still find in the scripture like a firm this idea of us collectively restoring ourselves to wholeness as a collective. Um, and so one of the questions and i think you know, you probably hear this a lot um is i think folks can think of as a small group of angry activists, but i really think there is actually a much larger tradition that is really a Worldwide Vision of abolition. Can you speak to some of the the global tradition around abolition that connects but you know us both north and global south Indigenous People worldwide. Yeah, so i actually dont know about the global tradition of abolition. So thats something i want to know if i would characterize it. I think that there are fights that have been abolitionists in spirit and i dont im not also one of the people who think that abolition can accomplish everything right . I dont think that abolition is inherently anticolonial right . I think that there people can make an argument that it is or im not necessarily i havent yet at least been convinced by those arguments. And so at least what i try to do in the book is say well i was like trying to figure out learn about this abolition thing and i was watching people in south africa and br so, you know argue and fight for decolonization and i was like, oh wow that i think theres lots of opportunity for like both of these things sound form each other, but i dont think theyre the same. I remember one time i was listening to this south african student. Use intersectionality use kimberly crenshaws work as to say that black women this country needs to be protected and if we want to protect them we would you know charge someone automatically when we accuse them of Sexual Violence, right . So im like hearing like bits and pieces of like, you know ideas that have liberatory potential and then also nervous because in practice the way theyre being deployed and i think that happens also the United States and so i dont know if theres like a global app. Well, i know that theres a global abolitionist tradition because i know that there are people in other countries who are fighting to reduce the carson state i met a number of them at this conference i went to in 2018 not the International Conference on penile abolition. It was in london. Theres an Organization Australia called sisters inside. They do incredible abolition work, especially with indigenous and aboriginal women and australia, right . Theyre trying to get people out and you know reduce the incarceration there and theres organizations like tyler salud in puerto rico who i mean i dont consider the United States and that was something that i had to like like come to understand. I dont know if i remember when the hurricane happened and people were fighting like, oh man, this is this is our country. Theyre americans too and remember all the Puerto Ricans i met when i was there were just like we want to be free. We dont want to be a state. Were not trying to be americans. We trying to be free. Um, so yeah, so learning about their resistance to incarceration especially as people, who are often displaced because of Climate Change, so trying to free people from prisons that are set up at the periphery of the island. And so i know that there are these traditions and fights and that also like emerged and messy and complicated and nuanced and i think that as much as we can we shall learn from these traditions and you know, share what we learn too, but i think abolition is part of this broader struggle liberation and even though people may not call it abolition or sometimes they will or sometimes its different. Its important that we are like taking time to study that thats a good question. Its a great question. I have one final one from the audience. I know were at time, but i thought it might its its pretty easy when i think as a new lawyer. Yes as a new lawyer who was engaging with abolitionist ideas and practices increasingly which sections of the book will you suggest i recommend to fellow lawyers who may not be on a track to become an abolitionist just yet. Wow, which sections of the book all of it, but i mean, but you may have be all of the above and lawyers know how to read we have to read so much. This is one night of reading if you a lawyer what section of the book i would definitely say love an abolition. Love i think yeah, i would say loving abolition only because it it goes for me being in law school through me becoming a new lawyer and it yeah, like it talks about my first time representing somebody in court and just being like, this is court like i had known core i had been a quiet family moves in court. Ive been in ive gone through like cussing removes. I know like court but to represent someone in this particular system it like it shows that it details that and takes me its thats happening alongside the development of my abolition. Its politics and so i would say that chapter if you have to choose and then probably the conclusion. Well, the chapter is like yeah, first chapter of fourth chapter conclusion. Maybe fifth chapter 2 and 6 because its like its about violence like you got to read it. You got to read the stuff about violence. So pretty much yall. She said all of it. Its just oh and then chapter 7 the stuff around humanization because i know clients there are lots of lawyers whos like yeah, you know the course they just dont see our client. Our clients is human. You know, we just need to humanize our clients. And so i chapter 7 yes, its like well, you can humanize your clients all you want. They gonna be humans in a cage. Like thats whats gonna happen. Theyll be humans in front of the courtroom. Theyre gonna be census as humans like its not enough right until a chapter sevens also really important for for lawyers who think that can humanize our way out of carceral logics and powers like no we gotta we got to do more gotta do much more than that. So yes whole book but one four seven conclusion five and six two and then two and three thank you so much and thank you for taking time to engage and with nikita and i i can speak for myself for engaging me and the kid i like you speak for yourself in a this has been glorious. Yes, thank you so much how much you want to bet a professor just asked you to write their syllabus for them. But thank you so much for sharing your wisdom for intention into this book and for the work because i know youre about that work in that organizing youll continue to do i really thank you for the the fruit of that labor and being a part of this tradition of seeing our communities be liberated and free. Oh, wow, of course. Thank god so much. I was so exhausted today has been such a day and like yeah, i got my spirits all up. Its ten oclock. Im all like where we gonna after but i guess were not going nowhere because we virtual in three different places, but thank you all for yall work. Thank you for all what youve done to inspire me and just fire so many people thank you for meeting peoples needs for me. My familys to the blocks like just literally think out so much. Im just so grateful for this and i dont want it to end but i guess i guess it has to on behalf of town hall. I want to thank all three of you for such a rich conversation everything. He said erica was so enlightening so lots take away from this. I think that we all found our next read for sure. I want to thank the audience as well. Thanks for your questions, and we didnt get to all of them. But thank you for submitting them. And i encourage you to purchase to all the interpreters and the people. Yeah with that everyone can attend this event. I want to encourage you if you are interested in purchasing a copy of the book that you use the link in the chat so we can support elliott bay a local store tonight. And yeah, i hope that we get to host all of you in person someday soon. But until then i hope you have a great night. You betcha. Its Larry Oconnor here on our what were live now everywhere honestly, but we wont be live everywhere for long. But right now were streaming live on our youtube channel. Were streaming live on facebook. Were also connected directly to the live stream at our locals page and we love doing these live streams whether its long form interviews like weve done with david marcus and kira davis encourage schlichter and earlier