*This page does not represent the views of the entire organizing committee. Due to a lack of time, we were unable to discuss the ideas on this page and thus come to a consensus on what to say here as we did with every other page on the virtual gathering website.
Definition: noun: ˌabəˈliSH(ə)n; the action or an act of abolishing a system, practice, or institution
Synonym: black african liberation from slavery and its dynamic variants
Antonym: worldliness or world, nation, empire building
Context: powers and power dynamics the world inherited based on the global position of the enslaved black african
Oh what a web carcerality weaves! Included in the demand to abolish is a coterminous ask. To also and contemporaneously usher in ruptures, raptures, fissures throughout the fabric of nonblack domination; how it infiltrates, encodes itself, reimagines itself and fortifies itself over time, place and space.
This is all new to me. The decision to name this a virtual gathering as opposed to a more formal conference came as an attempt to account for the unpredictability of the virtual realm. The best I can suggest is to review materials, if any, provided in advance. Though not mandatory, doing so may help limit the impact any technical glitches have on the overall experience. Identity politics coupled with substantive interrogations of power at large, its abuses and its dynamisms are welcome. Oppression Olympics in the form of disdain for how antiafrican antiblack harm serves as the activating force for all other forms of domination, continuously, prove counterproductive. Therefore, all critiques that raise the level of analysis relating to antiafrican antiblack domination and any of the agents it recruits are welcome.
Whose community is this. Given the asterisk on this page. It certainly is not mine as a black african. Who is seen as an outsider to community. Who is imagined as the antithesis to community. Whose inability to partake in community helps strengthen the bonds forged by those in community. More to come.
Often the political momentum needed to give movements and revolutions the traction they use to circulate is built off of the blood, sweat, deaths, tears, trauma and unacknowledged black african ancestors who died along African inlands and coasts, aboard slave ships, in the depths of various oceans, upon arrival to slavers’ intended and unintended final destinations, in transit to slave markets and auction blocks, under the supervision of both subtle and overt slave drivers, or over time while trapped in the routines of a slow and deathly subjugation. More question than demand, this section is at the very least an opportunity to witness the embodied legacies, or underrepresentation and overrepresentation shaping this particular event.
The data centers, servers, storage nodes and technological infrastructures needed to make this virtual gathering possible likely occupy lands situated all over the world. To account for such displacement however would be to reify the contentious legacies of land based advocacies. Most names ascribed to african countries are not authentic. The border disputes at the root of most conflicts throughout the continent and the diaspora result from demarcations and divisions laid out and instrumentalized by others to enslave and colonize. In this way, an antiafrican and antiblack world order leaves black and or african communities with no land to claim. So for those of us with no recognizeable land rights, or without unadulterated homelands to stay in or return to. What exactly does a land acknowledgement accomplish in tangible, material terms. More to come
What does it mean to demand the full complete and total abolition of wars. Edwin Star proclaimed in the 1970's: War: What is it good for. Absolutely nothing! Say it again. Managing the active scandals of: policing, a #covid19 pandemic, wars on poverty, wars on drugs, wars against terrorism and more, all and always seem more urgent. Routine violences, which forge society, civilization and morality as arenas for warfares in the first place, tend to evade scrutiny. Terms like: military, prison, police, medical, surveillance, nonprofit, and other industrial complexes try to use language to capture how interplays of power further antiafrican antiblack domination. In the end, these make clear that passive and active violences remain constitutive scandals of and routines for world making: a violence upon this sentient earth. However unrealistic, this demand to abolish war, as a concept and complex, begins with the wars staged by Arab, asian, indigenous and European explorers and traders. It reaches black and african leaders pitted against each other, manipulated, and captured themselves to fuel what would become known as the african holocaust: the ‘maafa.’ To abolish war is to both recall that the very strategies of genocide, mutilation and annihilation that the enslavement of africa by the Arab world, other territories along with the empires of Belgium, Germany and Amerikkka, all deployed on their colonies, on various non normative, queer, black africans. Those strategies first found practice ground with descendants of black africa as fodder. To abolish war is also to abolish citizenship and the sense of belonging, cohesion and national identity derived from such wars. It is to put in question the very urge to take up arms whether in defense of or in opposition to slavery, human rights violations, resource distribution and more. To demand that war be abolished is to refuse the gamification and normalization of drones and similar emerging technologies. It is to demand that we forge different ways for waging counter hegemonic violence and insurgent revolutions to achieve the very righteous outcomes movements for justice seek. With this as context, what could antiwar abolition as metatheory, logic, tactic, strategy, ethics, escapism, or praxis offer nonviolent abolitionists today.
What does it mean to demand the full, complete and total abolition of prisons. What would it mean to abolish its globalized, digitized and normalized forms exported and rendered part of the routine and landscape of localities all over the world. What would it mean to be vigilant to the way prisons metastasize, self reimagine, develop resilience and reinvigorate themselves and other aspects of society? To understand the violence of prisons is to understand the prison as a mechanism for reproducing civility. When arguments against prisons stagnate with refrains of cost benefit analyses, it conflates prison with an economic, or social problem. Assuming for fact that all forms of prisons as applied to solely the black african distribute social death in effect and at the existential level. What then does it mean for prisons to be a marker for both old and developing nations to show they are proactive about addressing chaos. Who is seen as the walking implement of chaos. Chaos with respect to what other or whom else. Prison studies, crime and justice studies, peace studies, like prison towns, now represent growing industry where carceral infrastructures become the hottest commodity for import and export all over the world. To address the demand stated is to realize that the who at the core of what organized society views as chaos, uncivillizeable or ungovernable matters more than the prison complex itself. If the prison is the byproduct, what or who sparks the need to imprison in the first place? For whom are prisons a pathway to redemption. And for whom are prisons a site for the genocidal annihilation of generations.
What does it mean to demand the full, complete and total abolition of borders. When sovereignty, the boundaries for delineating and designating which resources serve toward self determination and autonomy rely on borders and borderlines, what does it mean to abolish borders. When multinational conglomerates and corporations can pay their way in and out of territories, whose personhood deserves to be granted the agency to move without border and territorial restrictions. How do transnational approaches to social, economic and political capital predetermine which communities can not only cross borders but become junior partners to whiteness and nonblack supremacy. If abolition is inspired by formerly enslaved africans stealing themselves away and crossing borders into Mexico, Canada and through the back to africa movement, what does it mean for nonblacks to enable descendants of black africans into clinging onto empire, into herald citizenship and military power in furtherance of empire. Noting the metamorphosis: from the whip that nonblacks used to regulate, tame, civilize black african flesh; to cavity searches by way of the education at large and school to prison pipeline; to the modern black african family as a mere extension of the masters realm of power or slave quarter by function of the roles family, divorce and crimial law play in encroaching on black and african life force; to electronic tracking devices; to self imposed: restraints and cognitive or behavior modulations. How does the carceral world order shapeshift from wars to prisons to borders. What other forms and strategies does it employ, deploy. How are such seemingly distinct spheres constitutive of one another.
What would it mean to demand that carceral genders be abolished. Especially those gender and gendered formations structured by the arab and transatlantic slave trades, antiafrican-antiblack colonization and neoliberalism. When sojourner truth delivered her speech better known for the phrase ain’t I a woman, it could be said that the call to abolish gender found its originator. Homonormative slave masters abused the black africans they enslaved with the same fervor as heteronormative ones. Black african women experienced the same brutality reserved for black men while being subject to the reproductive terror of rape, dispossession and inbreeding. Whether addressing this demand begins with: an interrogation of the processes that assumed black africa as a race and genders of nothing but slaves, devoid of non Arab and non european gender formations comparable or worthy of parity and non interfernce by explorers and colonizers. Or whether the interrogation starts with: the state of gender today, both as a site for nonblack feminist carceral power moves, a site for mens rights movements to find new recruits, and a site for lgbtqia+ mechanisms of escheat and inheritance. Without conflating gender with sexuality and sexual orientation, what can be celebrated, reclaimed in the midst of such regulatory violence ?
Abolition can prompt a range of interpretations, from fringe to trendy: where interpersonal and individualized quick fixes supplant institutional, structural, or all around systemic demands. As a result, political capital and social capital occupy more space than the work of dissecting the relational dynamics keeping the black and or african as the activating imago for nonblacks’ routines and scandals of violence. What is a few degrees shy of bulldozing, flooding, burning down carceral implements so we avoid arrest but still throw down? The focus on relational violence deciphers the who of abolition to trace the capacities and potentialities of enablers and outright agents within the carceral apparatus. To focus on relational violence is to chart an escape from the traps of microlevel thinking and performative justice: devoid of a material impact toward liberation. More to come
The critique of reformists reforms as co-optations that impede actual abolition merely broaches the surface. Moreover, it names the nonblacks’ savior complex as a need to regulate and groom the black african sentient being. Not only do reformists reforms reinvigorate the carceral apparatus, they tend to reinscribe the very civilizing missions that instantiated slavery, the carceral world and its variations in the first place. How do alternatives to incarceration, diversion programs and similar endeavors recolonize the very communities being annihilated. Identifying why all this comes into being is the first step to interrupting the cycle of violence that progressive movements inherit from slavery, missionary work, nonprofit and military service tours, settlers, colonizers and their enablers. More to come
The way nonblaks deploy the carceral machine, irrespective of some minority status exposes the impossibility of allyship, solidarity and unity. When noblacks can deputize themselves to extend the reaches of the carceral world order into intimate encounters. To be of black arfrican descent throughout the world is to be at the mercy of their carceral whims. From carceral feminism to homonationalism, what would it mean to abolish gender: the violence of imposing western concepts of the human and its categories on the the black african being? More to come
When various scholars describe the relationship a founding father named Thomas Jefferson had with a young Sally Hemmings. Words like concubinage and breeding resurface, a sort of concubinage seen in the arab and indial slave trade of black africans throughout the continent and abroad. When shcolars focus on the fraught legacies of global movements toward abolition, people of black african descent are constantly relagated to the position of the supplicant. Mementoes and memorabilia from abolitionist movements around the world evidence this particularly troubling pattern. For example, to effectively compel nonblacks to confront antiblack antiafrican violence, black africans had to beg to partake in an animal kingdom that would treat the black african as less than kennel attendant; black africans had to beg to partake in a humanity wholly structured as the antithesis to black african beinghood. Worse, black africa still cowers in the face of a demand to finitely abolish nonblack presence and polity. In this way, the abolitionist imagination has always been a coercive project toward black africans. It imposes into movements for black and africans lives an everpresent nonblack community without questioning its need for continued existence. For example: since the Covid19 pandemic has normalized conversations on repatriation. What does it mean to be an abolitionist yet be afraid to engage in the idea of repatriating nonblacks out of africa. is it possible to disavow or dislodge from nonblacks those life affirming resources and forces which black africans need to survive and thrive? to sever from the power dynamics nonblacks attach on hierarchies so as to monopolize the distribution of those life affirming resources and life force.
In light of how the very communities being mined for revolutionary and movement energy are often left out, tokenized, erased, uncompensated, and treated as fodder for the purpose of redeeming nonblacks of their collective and generational sins. What would it mean to demand of nonblacks to stop erasing, maligning, gentrifying, colonizing, enslaving and co-opting african and black radical traditions. More to come
What would it mean to demand that civilizing violence be abolished because it strips and positions slave owning native, aboriginal, First Nation, indigenous communities and nonblack tribal structures as distinct formations. such formations enjoy parity with empires and their governing authorities. Meanwhile, descendants of black africa remain outside of civil society, civility, and therefore uncivilizable. Then again, who wants parity anyways? parity with what, whom, and to what ends? what violences would such recognitions reify? More to come
When most liberals, even moderates and conservatives can now articulate an analysis for defending political prisoners and those deemed innocent or redeemable and respectable. What would it mean to demand that the social construction of crime and intent be abolished. When society associates people of black african descent with criminality. Can crime and criminl intent be abolished if the socially constructed idea of race as blackness, as africaness remains an collective and embodied, lived, a violent surreal and violent reality, with tangible material deprivations and consequences. More to come
Can a carceral imagination yield liberation? consistent liberation and not happenstance. A lot can be accomplished even in the midst of naïveté and mere hope. However, how can one build when all aspects of the world thus far represent implements of the carceral world order. How can we decolonize decarcerate our imagination before diving into the desire to build. Could doing so prevent the carceral aparratus from reimagining itself as we speak? more to come
The dictionary defines the word analysis as the detailed examination of elements. So what exactly is an abolitionist analysis. And how does a movement based on free, freed, and enslaved black africans stealing themselves and others toward and away from carceral agents, also known as slavers and their enablers, turn into a call for
· participation into empire, nationhood and nation building,
· a legally induced codification of master to chattel rape culture and dispossession
· a rigidification of the originally exclusionary concept of person, human, commons, citizen and citizenship,
· and a stake in claims against open borders.
Where did the analysis go wrong? Even more pressing, what of the recent analytical moves by solidarities among nonblacks who remain eager to carve themselves out as the new winner of oppression olympics? a vengeful need to displace the black african narrative from the position of survivor into the position of oppressor. Is it possible to therefore recalibrate the analyses within abolitionist movements? to reframe reparations as an incomensurate sum as well as an analytical approach to processes toward root work? or is abolition too, like most things black african people instantiate being misappropriated, diluted; gentrified? More to come
What could it mean to abolish carceral histories? herstories? to abolish carceral narratives and story telling traditions. There are those concerned with uncovering a linear point in time when black africa did not see race, but rather kingdoms; a time when black africa had not had its people, resources, and mental, psychic, emotional, and spiritual cosmologies collapsed by nonblack meddling. Such a quest is done under the guise of Afrocentricity and seeking lessons from history. But just like history, afrocentricity are political projects. riddled with insuficiencies and aspirations. It could it be possible that antiafrican violence likely preceded civilizations, that it likely instantiated the divide between civilized and those conceived of as outside of the category of civilizable being: black africa. In the context then of an antiafrican world with a totalizing violence against people of black afircan descent as its rapture in manifest. How might we theorize how power operates at a macro level? What does abolition have to say to black african spiritualities and black africans as earth keepers. As the limits of contemporary tools to which abolition clings to become undeniable. Could there be a set of affective resources to focus on for help on how to reconfigure the theory in practice of abolition.
The goal is to be open to everyone. The ideal is to cater to those the world refuses to center. Disability is not a race but antiblack and antiafrican domination continues to maim, traumatize and brutalize. Any of the other conference organizers keeping track of the abolition 2021 gmail account may be able to respond promptly to time sensitive inquiries about accessibility and other related matters before during and after April 18 2021. When empire gatekeeps nonblacks out, such exclusions do not rise to the level of oppression. When nonblacks aspire to nation building and partaking in the distribution of death and violence, they become agents of empire because doing so lends subsequent universal harm legitimacy. In the event that you are not able to initially access the conference platform or drop back in and out at will, email the conference organizers generally. We will try our best to respond. As the creator of this specific page, links and brief details about the opening keynote, and a few other minor edits, sc cannot guarantee being available to help others troubleshoot their way in, out, throughout, or back into the virtual gathering. If all black africans and particularly women get free, everyone benefits. If however this needs to be said to help convince some to join up in struggle, then such proves that an oppressive world view still operates. Any indication that oppressive thougths may lead to actions carried out by someone or communities that have been in power historically can invite be undue burden onto some, or be an opening to stay committed to this work for others.
This is a listening session for nonblack members of the current and future organizing team. The goal is to address in real time any issues that can be resolved before the virtual gathering ends. For those adjustments that require time and hindsight so a more thorough and well researched, thoughful sort of redress follows: more details will follow.
tbd
Too often the focus of abolition is the grandiose or the minute. Abolition is so much more than the burning of plantations and the personal decision to misguidedly forgive slavers, settlers, colonizer and their enablers. Often the plantation was repaired, new land was bought, the master’s house was rebuilt. Similary, the prison was rendered invisible, extended into the home, the imagination, the body and spirit. Why however, are those the only forms through which abolition holds space in this contemporary moment? How is freedom or the seeking of freedom the scandal? and not the continued desire to enslave and incarcerate in the first place the scandal of centuries. Who do such scandals serve. Of course slave plantations and all its modern forms must be torn down. Pivoting between a bombastic enigma and an overly reductive set of self congratulatory performances, is a site rife with possibility. Which routines undergird sustained abolitionist efforts. How can we highlight, support such consistent persistent habits to build a longterm approach to abolition and subsequent black african liberation world wide?
After the scandals of abolition settle, who is left to sustain and remain vigilant for the ways the carceral world metastasizes, restructures, and reinvent itself. Are movements built to affront long term antagonisms, are they built to sustain liberation? How do we then build abolitionists formations robust enough to wage longterm battles but thorough enough to dis-imbricate the world as it is so that carcerality does not reemerge; ever.
Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe: An American Grammar Book by Hortense J. Spillers
Lose your mother by Saidiya Valerie Hartman
Afropessimism and the end of redemption by Frank Benjamin Wilderson
Tracking the figure of the unsovereign by Jared Sexton at UCI
The Invisible Threads of Gender, Race, and Slavery by Sasha Turner
5 Nations That Imported Europeans to Whiten The Population by A Moore
African samurai:
The enduring legacy of a black warrior in feudal Japan by Emiko Jozuka and Natalie Leung
India’s Siddis: little known part of slavery history by Sriram Khé
Slavery: new digital tools show how important slave trade was to Liverpool’s development by Nicholas Radburn and David Eltis
END VACCINE APARTHEID By The Boycott Times Editorial Board
http://www.finalcall.com/international/1999/africa8-31-99.htm
The image of the supplicant slave: the abolition of the slave trade
https://archives.history.ac.uk/1807commemorated/discussion/supplicant_slave.html
