 Welcome. Good afternoon. Welcome. Welcome back actually to the fierce urgency of now week 2020 reimagined. We're super happy to have folks again, hope you had a lovely rest day yesterday. And yeah, before we get started to deeper, we're gonna invite our friends from Bonneville English to give their little message for everyone. Thank you, Andy. Gracias, Andy. Saludos to this. Mi nombre es Lila y mis pronombres son ella y ella. Y estoy aquí con mi compa y con intérprete Maria Luisa, sus pronombres son ella. Somos miembros del colectivo de Justicia de lenguaje, Bacha Lenguas basado en Bulbancha Luisiana. Greetings everybody. My name is Lila and my pronouns are she and they I'm joined today by my comrade and co interpreter, Maria Luisa pronouns she we are members of the Bacha Lenguas Language Justice Collective based in Bulbancha Luisiana. The Justicia de lenguaje is en nuestro derecho en entender y ser en entendidas en el idioma en que nosotros nos sentimos más poderoses. Language Justice is our right to understand and be understood in the language in which we feel most powerful. Antes de comenzar queremos compartir con ustedes algunos tips on how we're going to create a bilingual space. Para quienes nos acompañan hoy por favor sepan a nos acompañan hoy por favor sepan que estamos provellendo para hacer esto de lenguaje. Por favor envíen un mensaje al chat de transmisión en vivo y nuestro equipo técnico le enviarán un enlace a cual pueden acceder. So for our viewers watching the livestream, please know that we are providing interpretation from Spanish to English and English to Spanish for language access. Please send a message to the livestream chat and our tech team will send a link for you to access. Aquí compartimos algunos unas buenas prácticas. So here's some best practices. Por favor hablen un paso lento y constante si esto si estás hablando muy rápido nos verás hacer una señal de manos que si nos verás hacer una señal de manos que significa ir más despacio invitamos que lo hagan también. Es posible que sea difícil ver nos en su pantalla así que pedimos que le echen un ojo al chat por si enviamos un mensaje pidiendo que vayas más despacio. So please speak out of slow and steady pace. If you are speaking too fast you will see us make this hand signal which means to slow down and we invite you to do this as well. It may be hard for us. It may be hard to see us on your screen. So we ask that you please keep an eye on the chat in case we send a message asking you to slow down. Grofono utiliza los haremos esta señal con la mano si no podemos escucharte. Están todas invitadas a hacer lo mismo. También enviaremos un mensaje a chance. So please speak loudly and clearly. If you have headphones with a mic please use them. We'll make this hand signal if we can't hear you and you're all invited to do the same. We'll also send a message to the chat. Thirdly otra otra vez también manteno tu micrófono en silencio si no estás hablando. So keep your mic on mute when you're not speaking y una persona a la vez les interpretes solamente pueden interpretar una voz a la vez y no queremos estar en la posición de tener que decidir cuál voz privilegiar sobre otra. So one speaker at a time please interpreters can only interpret one voice at a time and we don't ever want to be in a position to decide which voice to privilege over the other. Si eres bilingual en español en inglés sientate libre de cambiar de idioma solo pedimos que no cambias de idioma a medio de una ración. So if you're bilingual in Spanish and English feel free to switch back and forth between English and Spanish. We only ask that you please do not switch languages in the middle of a sentence. Y últimamente no sufras en silencio si hay algún problema con la interpretación por favor déjanos saber en el chat o envía un mensaje a los anfitriones. Crear un espacio bilingüe virtual es una experiencia nueva y requiere paciencia para ir más lentamente para así poder terminar juntas. Gracias al equipo the alternate routes que hizo esto posible y gracias por tu compromiso aprender con nosotros. So lastly don't suffer in silence. If any issues with interpretation arise please let us know in the chat box or send a message to one of the hosts. Creating a bilingual space is a new experience and it will take patients to move slower so that we can all get through this together. Thank you to alternate routes who made this possible and thank you for your commitment to learning with us. Thank you so much Lila. We really appreciate you friend and all the other folks at Boncha linguas has been really working and growing with us as we do this thing or make this attempt towards a bilingual space in ways that we never have before. So thanks y'all for being patient and for everyone who's doing all the work and labor behind the scenes. And again if you're watching in the live stream feel free to drop in the chat if you need access to get live translation or interpretation out there. So yeah hey I don't even think I said this my name is Indy. I'm super excited to be here hosting this session. I am the master's of cultural exuberance and agitation for alternate routes working on the cultural organizing team. And yeah super excited about this panel this conversation that we are having. Even my puppy's excited. She's like jumping up all over me right now. I'm trying to like get her to calm down and stay down. It's okay lady. But yeah this panel it's called Beyond Punishment a conversation about abolition. And so yeah before I get into the panel I think there's a few few things one again if you're watching on the stream so I should probably watch everyone's watching on the stream. Feel free to join in the conversation. You can do that by clicking the little icon on the top right of the screen and that says join chat. It'll prompt you to first add your name please add your pronouns in in addition to your name as we're trying to create a space that's inclusive and holds a multiplicity of gender identities. So we're asking everyone as a part of our community agreements to add their pronouns to their names. And then yeah and then you'll be able to engage with each other there. What else is there to say? Yeah the community agreements like so the pronouns is one of a few different agreements that we're supposed to hold at the beginning of each of these sessions. Wendy or someone is going to drop a longer list of the agreements we're not going to go through all of them now because we don't want to take away from the rich conversation that we have in store for you all and if you've been with us for a while you've heard those agreements a few times. They're important and it's a living document so please feel free to check it out and feel that we're honoring that and yeah I think the only last thing really to say before I start introducing people really it's just around our commitment to wellness this year as well like being in virtual space is very different and we know that it can be frustrating and hard and it's not the same and and it's also like exhausting in ways that being together physically isn't so we just want to make sure that we're honoring our physical bodies as we're you know giving a lot of energy and love to each other virtually so be sure to be taking all the time you need away from your screens we invite folks to go outside to take walks if you can sit and meditate and stone this away from screens whenever possible and also to definitely stay hydrated our body is mostly water and without that source of life we will be nothing so make sure you're drinking a lot of friends and taking your breaths and taking your breaks and yeah so I'm super excited first to to get into the dancing and introduce the the the brainchild of sorts behind this thing which is Caden so Caden reached out to us it was like hey I I have this idea we need to have this conversations it's going to be like amazing we need to talk about abolition and like really be clear about what this thing is and I'm like yes friend of course we need to be talking about these things and of course you're the person to help us share and shepherd and like hold this container to have these conversations she is a brilliant artist and organizer and I'm super excited and to yeah bring Caden. Yay Caden drop some love from Caden in the chat y'all. Hey y'all thanks everybody for being here my name is Caden she they pronouns only I am actually on this call from Oakland California right now where I live and work for the moment um and have been going through the pandemic going through my transition going through the uprising you know all of the things at the same time and yeah I wanted to say more like how did we get here what was on my mind like I think um yeah I guess wish I could see all your faces and we were together in person but I think you know year after year I've been to groups and we do the uprooting sessions and one question I think that a lot of people leave with this right how do we actualize um you know some of the things around uprooting oppressions into real work and it felt like a really clear way to do that and really specific way to do that right to the couch it and into abolition and so um I won't say much more about myself um because I think yeah like you can get into conversation and do a little bit more of that together but I wanted to start with you know each panelist introducing themselves um the pronouns where you currently the dining um and then I would say yeah like what is one the what's one central um issue right happening one central um problem right that your community is facing right now um from the pse so that feels like a good place to start if that's good with everybody else cool and I'll let you all do it you know as it comes to you so Landisa Cree or Mia take it away I'll go um my name is Nia Wilson aka um Mama Nia she her goddess um I am in Hillsborough North Carolina right now but my primary residence is in Durham North Carolina um yeah what are we dealing with with the PIC is that would that be just about everything um I think this current moment some of the big concerns that we have are of course um what's happening with the covid and um folks who are in the jail being held in the jail right now we have cases um within the jail um and so there's a there's a huge concern around around that um and then also I think um which I guess we could we'll get into more later in the discussion but I think that one of the things that um that we're really seeing is this current conversation around the defunding conversation um not necessarily being embraced by our communities that are most directly impacted by violence because there there seems to be a disconnect between what safety is and how to create safety in our communities and not relying on law enforcement and so I think it's a really deep conversation that we we need to really dig deep into in our community okay um I guess I will jump in there um my name is Cree I use they them pronouns I am currently residing in Richmond, Virginia um Powhatan lands and um yeah I would definitely say like the biggest thing that I'm seeing is covid and like people being held um and pre-child detention and like ICE facilities and having that experience on top of having their like physical health being at risk because of covid and that yeah hey fam um I'm Mandisa Moroneo and my pronouns are she her hers um I'm based in I'm from here I've lived here my entire life my ancestors blood has helped has spilled in the streets in New Orleans and um yeah so historically we were the hub of the domestic enslaved persons trade so in 1808 when folks have been um folks were taught that the international enslaved persons trade supposedly ended we know in the US that escalated the uh enslaved persons trade within the US and New Orleans as a port city was the hub of where our ancestors were trafficked um throughout the country and so to me it is no surprise that 200 years later we have the highest incarceration rate of anywhere else um in the state in the country in the world since um prisons and incarceration is a form of enslavement it hasn't shifted and so that to me is the context of what's happening in New Orleans um it is the criminalization of our people um it's I always say people love black culture black New Orleans culture and they hate the people that actually made the culture so even though we are constantly being extracted from our ways of life are constantly under increased surveillance um and policing um prior to covid prior to hiv and especially um in the hiv crisis which still exists um and and to me has been exacerbated via covid um and of course um as Cree mentioned if you talk about incarceration it's not just prisons and jails but our state has an unprecedentedly large number of ice centers and is building more and so I think that that is the context that I as a as a black feminist and an abolitionist who is married to a cultural worker but um I'm not sure if it's not any like that I currently have and like all of that is how I approach this um conversation. Cool yeah thanks so much Mandisa. I love you and Mia um two things that are coming to mind right is this relationship um between the community's most police right not necessarily um seeing the values right initially in um defunding right policing as a strategy to more safety right um and then the second part of it Mandisa is this relationship right um between the sort of trafficked and enslaved body right in the ways in which bodies are entrapped um in the PIC. So those those are two things that like feel like a really um interesting place of tension um to dive into if you all are you know more interested in that and so yeah I wanted to start with the question yeah defunding you know the police right um what ways are you all seeing those campaigns um happening in your communities right um and what struggles right are you coming up against so are people coming up against um to to really like make that case um to other people of color other black people other you know migrant people so on and so forth right um people who are experiencing the most direct sort of violence from PSU um so yeah I could talk about this uh all day long um because I think it's a really really interesting place to be um it's um it's an interesting dynamic to to experience and watch one of the things that I love most about being um a culture worker in addition to being an abolitionist is the ability to challenge people to actually use their imagination um the argument of uh or the the the campaign with even with so much um black death that we are witnessing in this moment um and the fact that even on a national scale the pain the heartache the grief is so apparent particularly from black people in this moment it is still difficult for our folks to imagine a world that doesn't involve using police um to solve our problems to address violence in our community um and so what I what I endure um some sort of what we're what we are experiencing and seeing excuse me is that although the abolitionists the organizers the activists are in the streets as they as as as they are everywhere else across the country um we have this um dichotomy where the support um the majority of the support is coming from people who are not um as impacted by the violence or by the either either the inter-communal violence or the police violence as those who are um and so um and and also a lot of folks are not necessarily locally rooted um and so the folks who are locally rooted and and and the demographics of Derm is almost a split when it comes to being the black and white um and so black folks in Durham have a really large voice and a very strong and powerful history and so oftentimes they uh they are talking about seeing people who are from the outside or people who are not black trying to move an agenda that they don't necessarily agree with and so it's been um it's been an interesting place to be in to be able to just ask folks to to breathe um to and to use their imagination um in addition to the calls to defund and so you know like the position that I sit in you know I completely support of course defunding I'm as abolitionist as any um but I begin my conversations around well you know what can you imagine you know suppose that the police did not exist they they have not always existed why is it so difficult to imagine something different um and and just sort of challenging people right there and then talking about the other things that we need um and hoping that that can get them to enter into the conversation around you know why it's important for us to think about using the our local funds to fund other things and so you know you know a lot of the times what folks will say is well I agree with you we need more programs we need more job training we need more this and this and this and that and then I'll always say and yes and our city officials know that too um but by the time we get to what we need because we've spent so much money funding law enforcement we never get that 1.5 million dollars that the police are getting or the 70 million dollars that the police are getting we never get those funds because we're not having this conversation around shifting the way that our dollars are spent so that often helps to open up the conversation um a little bit more but I feel like and I've also talked to other people across the country who've agreed that it feels like um we may be outpacing some of our the very people that we feel like we that we know that we need to be in this conversation um around what it means to create a world where we don't have policing at all it's not reform it's abolition um and so you know I I appreciate being able to use art and culture and and sort of get people into what it what it would take to imagine something different as a way of hopefully having folks enter into and join into the conversation. Cree did you wanna this is always like the question right like in terms uh because you know Mammonia I agree in terms of I'm seeing an experience very similar things here in New Orleans and my experience has been it's often of not someone like not only but it includes a framing because like I'm not introducing abolition to a damn person I'm talking about things that people already do even if we don't call it that so thinking of sex workers in New Orleans thinking of undocumented communities in New Orleans thinking of people who are engaged in informal economies and oftentimes when people say inform we think drugs okay it's also child care it's also doing hair doing quick weeds doing nails selling plates all those things are also part of the informal economies how do we like how do we live our entire life that's not mandated by the state how do we know that what I um tell the state I might make an income is not what actually I need to actually live and support five people on my block so like so I'm talking about how like we already have ways of existing outside the state um surveilling everything about us so like talking about um safety and conflict transformation there are so many people who know I can't just call the cops in this situation because I don't want the cops coming to my house and saying I'm doing child care for all my friends who can't afford child care institutions because it's too expensive so how do I have to solve this situation because I know I can't call them I don't trust calling the cops because I'm undocumented or I fuck with people who are undocumented who I love and want to help be safe so how do I have to make sure that we can take care of this person who's an abuser of this person who who maybe has out of control drug use in the moment in a way that's not centering something that could mess it up for all of us you know like in terms of especially in public housing where you know folks have all these rules about folks who are formerly incarcerated living there so I can't just have everybody in my house because it's gonna mess up the house arrangement for everybody else or thinking about well let's just talk about this in terms of of Ms. Deborah's son lives with her and if the cops come to your house and see Ms. Deborah's son on the porch it can mess up her situation he's bringing an income right now that is helping all of us so so like it's also a matter of we don't call that maybe like nonprofits do strategies outside of the police and we're doing it every damn day like we're doing these things that at the same time like I told my mom so like that's impossible that's some wild shit your when she was saying it was wild shit she was like that's some wildness that you're talking about Mandy and I'll be like okay and you're the one who taught me this strategy right here well yeah yeah but that's that different name to it so also just like talking about like and to me as an abolitionist I'm not invested if someone's calling it abolition I am invested in our people thinking of things outside the state as we always have so also think it's a matter of those of us maybe have this language being flexible about like our black feminist is it a requirement you call yourself one absolutely not do you know that black women and black femmes are inherently valuable and act accordingly because that's what matters so also just in terms of um it's a framing which the whole number of conversation about how our movements have become co-opted and um like really uh in the academy in ways that take it further and further but I'll pause there created you have anything to add I think the the academic question right becomes interesting I think the question around imagination becomes interesting um you know I think so much of the academy itself right is this container right that is is I don't you know like yeah like I would say a three a relationality right is it is a gatekeeper right to employment it is a gatekeeper to having certain forms of status right um that you know despite what I think black women right like being generally one of the most agreed you know populations of people right like you rarely see you know that same sort of um yeah identity reflected um in the people who have power in the academy and so um I think the academy both right um limits imagination in one way but in another way right like um controls right imagination and narrative far more than it probably needs to um and when we're talking about something like abolition maybe so you talked earlier about um yeah the history of slavery um in New Orleans and boncha right and that um relationship um to um the current moment of the over incarceration of black and brown people um in New Orleans and so um as we're sitting through this and we're sitting through this like one question you know I'm beginning to have for myself is how do we you know as culture workers as artists as you know people who are doing the work of um just mapping the PIC or abolition right like how do we um for the right like with return right I'd say um the philosophy return the wording return the language right um to the people in such a way that they can yeah realize right um we're you know we're within the struggle with them right I think I would be in agreement that um oftentimes right the hashtags um the academic language is really outputting the people and I think um that's because bias nature it is a little bit that is filled so how do we um return to um yeah like a common engagement um of language right and liberation in this particular topic in what are some strategies you all use what are things that you found um people really um yeah get connected to um ways to talk about abolition differently or defunding the police differently what are strategies you use yeah same working community to bring people um not necessarily bring people on board but to like yeah give people a sense that we're on board with them and they're already um a part of this um I really love the fact that we that um you Nia and Mandisa talked about not even just approaching people from the sense of like okay I'm gonna tell you about abolition but really on a human level like I feel like that is um really important way of engaging people just going into a space or like whenever you're in that space where you're interacting with people and you're wanting to connect being willing to just listen and connect on that human level and not making it such like okay this is what we're about doing and this is how we're going to get it done but just really like listening to like what people have to say and what their struggles are so that we can like address those things because again like there's this disconnect because the people who need this work are marginalized and they're in these systems that are making it difficult for them to live their lives so if they're already struggling to live their lives that make that as the extra barrier to like participating actively and like um achieving like abolitionist goals on a greater scale so I definitely believe like a tool is really just like getting connected like getting in community and not seeing I think something that I see a lot in my own community is this dehumanizing of people who come from who aren't in the academic spaces who don't understand these things and there's a lot of shame that comes with that so really being able to understand and come to come in that space with empathy. I agree with with all of that um I think you know I and I also agree with everything that Mandisa said you know when we think about the communities that we are a part of and the and the things that they have to weigh out if they would even consider calling a police officer because of what they could lose or because of what their families or their neighbors could lose as Mandisa said in a to a certain degree they're already in a particular practice around accountability around accountability that does not involve law enforcement and so I think when we use big academic terms or we make people think that they have to give up something um it is it becomes too much it's too hard there are too many things that folks are already struggling with and battling with and so you know in the community we don't necessarily use the the word the term abolition unless someone asks about it we do talk about accountability we talk about what you want so if there is and we also don't talk about it and the moment where harm has occurred because it's a practice it's a lifestyle so in order for us to begin to look at how we would hold uh each other accountable when harm occurs we have to have the conversations when we're not in the midst of harm um and so our work is the work of practicing something different we've all embodied a punitive punishment um mentality because that's this is the nature of the place that we were born into um and so we have to work to you know kai when i when she first because you know you all those of you who know kai she's the one who introduced me to abolition you know and she was like it how are you challenging the cop in your head every day every day how are you challenging the cop in your head how are you stopping yourself from surveilling people or from looking at people as a threat or from you know trying to figure out what a punishment is when you when you get into the practice of of sort of confronting the cop in your head when you get into the practice of thinking about how everyone has everything that they need you get into the practice of stop stopping looking at people as if they're wrong or as if they're threatening most of the time people who look just like you you know we've conditioned been conditioned to believe that people who look like us are a threat and so that's how we move so you know this work of creating a world that does not rely on law enforcement creating a world but we can abolish the p i c begins with our living differently every day um and that's not usually the conversation that's it's not always i don't want to say not usually because in our communities on the ground we're having those conversations with our people but in the academic world or you know when something occurs when abuse of force or black death occurs and folks want to have the conversation around you know dismantling the police my question is but what are you practicing every day what are you talking to your family about every day so that they can see it as a possibility for not having those conversations on a regular basis then the broader community that is not us that doesn't live this every day cannot possibly see it as a possibility so you know the academic world is important the definitions are important but the practice the practice for our people is paramount is it's absolutely crucial if we're going to do anything different and as Mandy said in so many ways the practice is already happening has been happening for generations and so we we already have examples that we can continue to reach into our toolbox and pull out and share with our folks so that they can embrace this and not be afraid i really love this question and i really love what Cree and mamania said so like as y'all were talking i was like scratching off things i was gonna say it's like great it's been said very special something else so um thinking of strategies um one of the things like that i find super helpful is using examples of pop culture like to talk about abolition like in almost every action movie at some point somebody caused the cops and then they find a solution to like deal with the alien or whatever it is and then the cops kind of come at the end like that's a plot that happens a lot so i use that to be like so in this movie yes the person called the cops it took them two hours and then in the movies when they came what did they do in between that solved the problem they were having so you know something that folks are like that's a yeah yeah the cop came with a gun and the alien um needs water in order not to harm people so even when the cop came the tools they have were actually ineffective at the problem that was occurring and how that's also true in our actual lives as people are like actually in need of housing and the response is to shoot them people like are actually in need of um folks to listen to them which no cop ever has or will ever do so like it's a way to talk to people like about things that are like happening now um and i also i'm a black feminist and i'm an attorney and the reason why i say that is i spend a lot of time talking to other lawyers about abolition i don't just spend time talking to people who are not black professionals and the reason why i think that's important is because i believe i have to gather my people and that to me is a part of the daily praxis of being abolitionist it's not just talking to people who i'm in community with who are not just lawyers or judges or whatever but it's also talking to people who are most simply situated as me in terms of how powers are ranging it's having honest conversation but the end of the day it's also the nonprofit industrial competence that is coming for our people like thinking of um how you talked about abolishing the cop inside how many times have nonprofit leaders nonprofit workers been the like person who has brought the cops the situation i'm thinking of the young woman of the child grace in the midwest she was a teenager who was already incarcerated and didn't do her homework or something her social worker put on the report she was incarcerated so i'm concerned because that's problematic and in so many of our conversations of defunding we're saying more social workers absolutely not like something more than just social workers like i don't want to act like social workers um case managers are also people who are part of the criminal legal system in so many ways so like and also public defenders private attorneys or how are we also doing this work with folks who have such power over the lives of our people so how are we talking about abolition with public defenders who may be doing pleas how do we say look how do we support them and being like okay so there are some other ways this can go yes you're underfunded yes your caseload is five times the average of what the american barclay station says should happen so how do people so not everyone but people like myself support you in doing something different in this situation because how is but then also being clear that that is not the same thing as organizing so i also think it's a matter of acknowledging the ways that i'm a gatekeeper and being responsible about that and acknowledging it's not sustainable and it's something that has to shift and how do you have conversations with other people who are gatekeepers and what that means and are we the hiv world taught me this are we actually trying to end the epidemic or are we just trying to keep our jobs are we actually trying to do this work is that one day i actually don't need a bar license or the idea to make sure i'm able to always have cases and when folks say well abolition isn't going to happen in your lifetime it doesn't matter i still have to live my life as if it's like it is simultaneously a goal as much as it is a strategy as much as it is a daily practice so even though that goal may not be actualizing my lifetime since it is also a practice how is that showing up not just in how i show up on panels but how i show up in my bar car how i talk to other colleagues about um what they think other poor black people are deserving of as if that's anyone's business but the person in the situation so um and also just encouraging people to commit class suicide you know like it like in a very way of yes you could do that or you could do something else am i like and i don't even say the word wealth indy because i think that trips people up because like not all like most black people are not wealthy and because we're not wealthy a lot of people think oh well this don't apply to me as if we don't live in majority black cities and see the ways that black politicians black judges black doctors black lawyers continue to keep their boots on the neck support black people so it's it's the wealthy and people who have some money even if it's not wealth per se so yes and me like a strategy as well is gathering my people i love the the questioning the cop inside of me right um and talked about accountability and punishment and why is this whole thing made beyond punishment one because people need money for things i don't really like labels but indy looks like what's they going to be made and i was sitting out and i've been you know just to be really transparent about it one thing that i've been really you know working on internally and thinking through internally um internally um since yeah since i had an interview a few months ago and someone asked me in interview what's the difference between restorative justice and transformative justice and i was like i feel like that's like five steps from where i want to be in this topic let's go back to the fact that we have a punitive and retributive system and we're trying to get to that right and so you know this this question right this they call the cops in the movie and the cops come far after the problem has been fixed right like what do they ask when they always get on the scene like who's to blame who messed up something here who do we take to jail right those are the primary um questions right that our punitive and retributive system is interesting and so beyond punishment is really me asking like how do we go past right how do we move past who is to blame right to what happened here and who needs to heal what kind of parmots happen here how do we you know repair people how do we create reparations right um for the people in this situation how do we improve you know life for those around us how do we move closer to safety um in late meal we're talking about earlier how do we get to accountability because in my work right we do workshops and political education or community you know sometimes in spaces more academic sometimes in spaces less so one question always comes up what about the rapists and murderers and you know just to be to be quite honest you know i answer this question all the time and it's just like my rapist is is free right now you know like there are rapists that are free there are a lot of rapists that are free that don't go to jail right there's a lot of like sexual harm that trigger warring sorry i should have dated beforehand but there's a lot of sexual harm right there's a lot of physical harm there's a lot of emotional harm going on in communities um in communities that don't have access to therapy don't have access to you know the social workers who will even you know go ahead and possibly get someone locked up in a criminal legal system right so how do we do this work of moving you know beyond punishment into active healing into active accountability around harm into actively um working through right the mess right actively working through the pain right so that we can have more healthy whole and safe communities um and yeah how do you all practice this in your individual life i know we got a little bit onto that topic and i want to also go um yeah get to like some very real things that aren't just um how we practice it in our personal life but how does you get into work right and just you know i don't want to i'll just be sitting at home readers you know doing i love i know y'all i love y'all so much we love doing that into personal work right but how do we get that work right like out into community and and do start doing that work structurally as well right like for more than like just our fields and we could just be for people right you know but like how do we expand um the circle right the the no harm done as i think me it would say harm free zone um harm free sorry i was that's okay that that also is it was a gift from kai and critical resistance and so um i try to get it right all the time because she trusted us um with that um and i didn't mean to jump in first pre do you uh want to jump in or mendisa because i've been talking early okay because i'll be i'm gonna be brief because i want to hear what other folks um have to say um i would love so this for all you readers out there um and this i don't this may be a little harsh but um don't jump on the abolition train if you're not if you haven't been in practice because it's confusing so i start it really is very personal um just with a daily practice we don't talk enough about prevention we talk about intervention we talk about accountability but we don't talk enough about preventing harm so that we um have less need for interventions we need to have those tools for when harm happens but what about how we prevent harm all together and you know one of the things that i have to do every day is to just not lie um and i mean in little things like when i'm sending a text reply i don't say if i saw the text when it came in and i didn't respond i don't now send a text message that says oh i'm sorry i missed your text because that's a lie i say you know i didn't get to your sorry i didn't get to your text earlier here's my response same goes for email same goes for a phone call because part of the reason that um it is hard for people to admit when they've harmed others um and to begin to understand what accountability looks like is because of the fact that we have embodied punitive punishment so we lie because we don't want to deal with whatever the consequences is for whatever has happened so we we are not accountable for our actions because we believe we're going to be punished no one wants to be punished so we have to make it easier to be accountable first and foremost to ourselves but to be accountable to the people who we're close to to be accountable to the communities that we are a part of to understand that accountability is a tool for healing and not for punishment and so you know abolition means that um in addition to you know the whole thing around what do we how do we get rid of the police how do we get rid of cages you know in our and as as mendisa said you know i i'm sure that it won't happen in my lifetime but i'm doing this work for seven generations down the road and so the work of constantly talking there's a you know the ten-year-old who lives in in my house and you know the work for getting her to understand that she shouldn't always have a quick response or answer back or uh to tell whoever harmed her what they did wrong before being accountable for her actions is a lot of work um and so you know i people sort of kind of feel like well you know all this you're talking about individual work and we want to know what to do as a group as an organization we don't know want to know where to you know to send you know what's the north star for our organization and i will tell you that if you don't do these daily practices your organization is going to mess it up for that's not the word i wanted to use but i don't know who's on here but if you you know there's absolutely no way that what you do will will be sustainable if folks are not in a daily practice of liberation of accountability and you can use the word abolition if you'd like but see it as being in a daily practice of accountability in order for it to ripple out into the work that that um that we do and then you know routers artists you know use your imagination really really really every day imagine a world where accountability is the buzzword um and what does that world look like what how do you ensure that everyone in your um in your arms reach or in your community has everything that they need that's accountability and and from there you can build out the tools for what happens when harm occurs because that's actually not the most difficult thing we can figure that out thank you for that um yeah i definitely would say it is um i think it's an issue of also accessibility because people need to have that space to feel safe to make mistakes and um yeah i think that without that space like there's you need that space is basically what i'm saying i had more to say but it's kind of escaped me i appreciate that kree um that's one of the things that um is really important in abolition of spaces and when i say abolitionist spaces you know it was never just about jails and prisons um like to me and this is deeply influenced by kaii who you know is a teacher so many of us um and marion kaba um and it's not a surprise that a lot of the people who have a lot of things to say about abolition that is helpful for us our black women and femmes and g and c people that's me being shady but not really um you know like in terms of marion kaba said it it's about abolishing a system that can have jails and that can have prisons and that can have the wage and that can have these different types of inequality so i think that is also influenced you know like where yes it's about cages and it's about how do we have society that says if you do this thing that's a mistake sometimes you go in a cage um and i also think that how as we again back to nonprofits have a theme um how do we internalize that in terms of how do we say that we're justice focused and then have some of the most rigid as policies and procedures like how do we have these ideas how do we get funding how do we write grant saying i do x y z and it doesn't show up in the people we employ sometimes and it doesn't show up in the work that we say that we do in communities and how is that not only on the nonprofits how's it also on this whole funding system that makes you exceptionalize your work in ways that aren't always sustainable and so like that's something else i'm thinking about like you know in so far as abolition is a daily practice how is it showing up in the institutions that we live in again to me people matter over institutions definitely and within institutions that we do have how do we make space to actually like to actualize these things and folks often say oh it's not possible it often is possible like oh legally no no like a lot of the things like that we say that we want to do but the law won't let us it's ways of making it work if you have a mind to want to actually do those things um so i also think of um of that and your question kate and it was also about where do we get our start insight insight um woman of color against violence um it was a vibrant chapter here in new orleans and i was a 20 year old member and um insight and critical resistance have always worked together and it deeply politicized me so i met um folks like mama nia you know in that work um and it was through that like that i i got to see the a radical anti-violence world led by mostly black queer women you know and i and i saw that you know how i have been taught to see that the anti-violence world was only a small part of how that world actually exists and it was um it was deeply formative thank you thank you thank you all for that and shout out thanks for the shout out to critical resistance i want to critical resistance now um i wanted to say though it's funny because like when we talk about nonprofit industrial complex and i think about like what role i play in critical resistance i feel like a lot of what what i bring to the table was learned like in ultimate roots in this community but even before that i feel like a lot of yeah my questions around like how do we you know move past harm and the psc started with my own need to heal from from harms that people had done to me and then you know finding myself in relationship with people who had either been harmed or had done some harm who were trying to work through that and that very so thank you that very individual right individual personal like practice of like how do i heal with these people then let me to ask these bigger questions around yeah how do more people heal um around these sorts of topics like someone said to me the other day we actually harm happens a lot we all know harm happens a lot and we all talk about how often harm happens privately um the reality is though like once it becomes this public conversation right we do run up against right what are the implications for this in the criminal legal system and so a lot of harm then doesn't actually come to light right a lot of people can then you know in inside of right that sort of like private sphere of people not wanting you know someone to get locked up in the jail can then go continue right in there not being accountable um i don't know why this question is coming to me right now what are some yeah ways that you all feel that you know even in route so that you all have seen other organizations that we can be in deeper accountability practices as a community inside of our organizations together um and in ways in which right like um yeah landi so you talk a lot about the npi c right like that we can start to dismantle right um some of those ways the npi c um participate um in continuing right um the thinking around harm right the thinking around surveillance the thinking that's like unaccountable i think for me it's a practice of personal like grace and generosity self-compassion and that allows me to like hold that space for myself when i know that i have done something or shown up in a way that wasn't that doesn't reflect how i want to show up to people or it has been harmful to others um and i think also just like something that i have really appreciated and the spaces that i've been in is really naming things so like when somebody shows up in a way or some somebody apologizes for something that they have done um out of ignorance or whatever out of a lack of some sort of need um naming that as like thank you for that modeling of this behavior because like we need that modeling also so yeah just having that practice of generosity with myself and with others i i really appreciate that i i also think that it's um again it's about modeling it's about um you know so if you are living um a a sort of you know way of being that where nobody gets thrown away like i really appreciate everything that mendice is saying about like the non-profit industrial complex and how we get caught up in you know practices that are legal or you know the the way that business is set up and then we don't actually live out fully our own values and so you know um for us living out the values that nobody gets thrown away means exactly that um and so and then and then it also means that folks also have that value um and understand that that take that that value then takes all of us to work through when there is any kind of conflict um it's it's a it's a trust building process it's it's a it's a slow process we can't do things too quickly because we have to be able to we have to be able to um do the work of growing and changing and shifting again i will continue to talk about you know what we've embodied um and so pacing is actually really really really important which is why some of these um you know like you know uh year-long campaigns or anything like that it's not gonna work it's absolutely not gonna work we are trying to transform the world um we are transforming the world we're not trying we are transforming the world we didn't get here overnight and we're not gonna get to um the the world that we deserve overnight um and so um doing some things to get rid of all of those you know yes there is accountability so we're not saying that folks shouldn't be held accountable for whatever standards that you agree to but they should be agreed upon so you can't hold someone to some sort of standard that they didn't agree to no matter what you believe no matter what your value system is if they have not agreed to whatever it is that you're asking them to do then you cannot hold them accountable for that that is once again where punishment comes in and where um abuse of power comes in and so you know you've got to be able to make sure that the standards are agreed to um and then like i said accountability is not about punishment it's about how do we move through this situation and how do we heal from and so in a lot of ways it's difficult for us to to do the trust building because we haven't done the work that we need to do to heal from harms that we've experienced our entire lives and so it's difficult to build trust with other people and so it's difficult to then begin to hold folks accountable because we walk in without with a lack of trust in in every and and some places just absolutely are not safe so we need to trust ourselves if we walk into a room and and we and it's not safe then it's not safe and either we do the work with the folks that are there to create it to make the place more safe or we walk away and we find our safe spaces and we keep it moving who their last part yeah um one of the things that i think about is the ways that um this capitalistic society that we are in um and the wizard that we have internalized capitalism tells like encourages like these like super fast processes right these things that like have to happen like so i experienced this active violence last week and sometimes if we intend to or not folks who are trying to be a support may feel like okay well next week we have to have the accountability process and it has to start and it'll be finished and like how is that again it's not our intentions but how is that buying into like these capitalistic ideas of now now quick quick and that's not how things work a lot of times because one thing that i've learned as somebody who is doing accountability work is the importance of relationship building and you can't rush that how do these nonprofits and these grant cycles and encourage that you know in terms of you can't like you know of like in one year please give me you know the language goals and deliverables and all of that and unfortunately we can't really quantify that sort of work in those weights i mean it's possible like i'm not sure if a process needs to take 20 years but i also can't say that it doesn't like like i can't say what process is for all the different types of harm that's what is one thing else that i see is we think that one process works for if i'm somebody who screams at people as i talk to them and folks like me you know you please you need to stop that that's a whole different process than a serial rapist out here that's a whole different process because what i'm needing to account for which i've agreed to account for it is different but there's this way in which i've experienced folks almost try to commodify transformative justice where it's like okay like like you know this is the formula and to me like that also something i'm seeing in the academy in the npic and it's like no you can't well you can do that it's not going to be transformative justice like what let's be clear about that it's going to be whatever nonprofit thing you've decided it's going to be fundable over the next five years and so like that's something else that i said that um yeah like this has been challenged i mean it's been challenging um a concern that i have is and to me when mama neah said just don't lie you hit the nail on the head of we have these words of harm and violence and sometimes it's okay to just say what happened he harmed somebody maybe it's just me but when i hear that i think the most extreme thing it's okay to say when she talks at people she screams at them and people have like and and people have experiences with that no one's saying that that's not a form of harm it's okay to be a little bit more explicit as to what's happened then what i experience is we then say they harm people you can't put somebody who um has engaged in what i would consider non like verbally not sustainable ways of communication with somebody who like has a history of sexual violence there's layers to this and it's not to say one's more important that's a that's a game that we don't need to play but it is to say it's this way that i'm seeing i want some people see it too like this way that things are commodified almost and we just have like blanket terms of harm and violence and it's like first of all why would the person who perhaps needs some more verbal skills want to be in the same zoom group as somebody who's a predator and why do we think the support that the predator needs and that person does need support of some sort is the same as a person with the verbal you know challenges is one thing something else i've experienced um is folks have conflated setting boundaries with disposing of people you know well um if you continue to do this this is not a space you will have access to that is not disposing of somebody disposing is when you say you should be in a cage you do not matter no you cannot have access to x y z space and and still give the support and love that you need over there and that's something that um i think that we are contending with still of like not every space will everyone have access to um and there are ways that our movements have disposed of people and setting a boundary is not necessarily the same thing it's actually disposing of people which is what the state does to people it's funny right like their language of boundaries right we talk a lot about that i think in this like in our culture right and culture broadly american culture right um of like relationship boundaries and so on and so forth right i've started to talk about them as like boundaries and permissions right like i'm saying you can't do these things and you can't do these things um one thing that though is coming up for me um that i'm hearing from all of you and that that feels also truthful to myself and this work is i think that um and then we'll get to a question um we actually had a question near the other knee not near what's up but one thing that's sitting with me right now is i think that yeah when you talk about like there's no one process right there's like that there are going to be many different processes and you can you know write out your process and get your grant and you can call a tj but if that process is it's trying to hold all these different people that have um either created discomfort in others or um overstepped boundaries or like done from like you know harm that calls trauma right but those are different processes and i think um what feels real to me right now i think to me is that to to be in the work right it's not just um in the the individual part that um mama mea brought up earlier is hella important but i think the the second part to me that feels important and necessary right is that imaginative piece right and like leaning into the uncertainty of stepping into right that space where you can't depend upon the state where there are no you know state processes that um work that don't reinstitute harm and that is an important practice that one i think may be to be committed to or develop comfort with right to become an abolitionist right um is to lean into that uncertainty i don't want to like like the word lean in shell fanberg really messed up me but you know to like really be inside of that discomfort right as an imaginative space so i want to thank you all for for everything that you brought here um mea natalie fogg is asking um what are some of the ways folks have seen organizations or individuals manifest right these imaginative practices in ways that encourage folks to dream alternatives or right are there some suggestions that you all have on practice exercises and how to create containers and i think that the second part might be you know a little bit more of where we can go into because i think we've talked about the first half of that question um in different ways already like so how do we create these containers i think we talked a lot about modeling but what are some ways you all have created these containers or approach creating containers to um either you know hold a tj process or you know to you know hold people in some other kind of way um that's not dependent upon and that's outside of practice state system outside of the criminal community well we have lots of tools and and practices um but i think the most important one is the process of again of getting to know who your people are um you know we've got practice called where i'm from where we take folks through an exercise so that we understand who people are so that again we understand where your roots have come from what uh what kind of lifestyle kind of is the thing that informs your values we do a practice we do a process of who you're going to call so we make sure that folks have in their toolkit the people who they need to be able to and again where there is consent right that you have spoken with someone and they've consented to being the person on your list to call if you get stopped by a police officer or if you need if you have to go to the store you know people have consented to being in you and i know in other spaces they call them pods but it's the same kind of um framework where you are building community before things happen so that when things happen you have something to step in who are the people in your neighborhood we use a lot of um pop culture terminology because that's what people can identify with we use pop culture um you know we we we talk about your superpowers like what are your superpowers what is your kryptonite what is the thing that is that prevents you from being able to use your superpowers who who are the people that you fuse with what are your fusions so you know there's we just talked about superman steven universe like we literally use all of those different things that people can look at and go huh i actually fit here i fit here so the who you're going to call is ghostbusters the who are the people in your neighborhood or mr rogers or sesame street one of those things they they help folks feel like they they actually have a place where where they belong and that we are building it together so there's not like any specific one thing that will work for any community at any time because we're not and that's a really important thing to also understand we're not a monolith we don't want a monolithic community that's part of the problem that we've had is by people looking at each other or wanting to create some monolithic community with one set of values that we all have to buy into absolutely not what we have to do is figure out a way i mean some things are unacceptable you know like mandi said and i really appreciate you stressing that point because when i say nobody gets thrown away it does not mean that accountability doesn't look like absolutely it's not safe for you to be in this place with with us here but it does mean that that we are not asking for you to be put in a cage that there is somewhere where you can be safe and hopefully and that you know that place is will be made available to you so it's really important when we say no one gets thrown away that we also don't want folks to think that we're saying therefore keep yourself in a situation that's unsafe for you that doesn't feel good for you that's absolutely not what we're doing but we do want to make sure that we create spaces where people who may think differently or may move differently can work together so we always say you know when you're attempting to create safety for yourself is your attempt to create safety possibly causing harm for someone else um and if it is then what needs to happen so that everyone can be safe and then that may mean that someone is not able to stay in that space but then there are other people in the community because you've built trust because you've worked together there are other people in that community will help figure out what needs to happen so you know you know we don't we have tools we created tools and everybody is brilliant enough to figure out and create the tools like trust yourselves to create the tools that that you need um in your community but it does you know and pop culture is great it's great because that is how we ingested our values it's how we how we you know as as as we were coming up culture is so important and understanding the power of culture is absolutely important as we begin to figure out what world it is that we um that we deserve i'm gonna give a few things that uh we do um yeah i was gonna talk real quick um yeah so one one thing we do Natalie is we actually write down scenarios and in workshop we ask people to approach the scenario and work through how they would find a solution to that scenario without calling the police so it can be as simple as you're in your apartment and you hear your neighbors are arguing and having like a really um heated fight right um and so how do you intervene right or find a way to kind of disrupt that process right um or you know make sure that like the police aren't called so on and so forth or what do you do if the police are called um so we just give people like actual scenarios and I generally find that um when you when you put people um in the situation that where they have to start imagining an alternative to calling the police they get really creative and they come up with a lot of things on their own so i think giving people scenarios and trusting that they can um model it right like come to uh different approaches together collectively um is one good way to give more of these practices out um and then fire Mandy so I'll let you go in and take it away um I'm just gonna jump in um so one of the ways or um that I see like us creating these spaces or that I've experienced creating these spaces is just intentionally empowering and encouraging those that you're in space with um and so I think for me a lot of that involves like I said before like accessibility but also like inclusion and welcoming not just not just um acceptance but like embrace um and then yeah I do love that exercises where we are actively imagining how can we um respond to situations without the police that's something that I definitely have done before um and then another thing that I wanted to say was just also making sure that people are taken care of so like if you're going to be in a space making sure that people are fed or that they have child care that they need um just like really simple things but that can be the big difference between whether people can be in a space or whether people have the capacity to do that work um yeah sorry of course I've turned off the video you're meant to unmute myself um I've been thinking of of some examples and I'll share a few in the interest only only a couple in the interest of time um and the first one that comes to mind is um intentionally messy when I say messy I don't mean drama I mean messy in terms of like when I first came into this work I was like oh yes there are solutions and they're going to be clear cut and they're not going to be complicated so I was like turned off when like when the solutions that that are being told are like the lives that we live right like complicated all of these things so not long after Katrina the um New Orleans chapter of critical resistance um invited Angela Davis down and she came because she's Angela Davis it's from the resistance um and so being that it was absolutely like it wasn't like it wasn't that many large venues and so it was important to have one like like a be black um owned or benefit black people some concrete way so folks chose this black church um and the church like uh was like you know here's the you know fee you know whatever whatever um the only thing is we require some sort of security it doesn't have to be the cost but it does have to be some sort of security and it's up to you who you pick like just let us know and we'll move forward and the chapter was like well shit who are we going to go with of course not the N. O. P. D. not share you know nothing like that not private security because after Katrina private security was also a part of the harm that our communities experience folks chose the nation of Islam and asked them to do security and I love it as an example in terms of you know I'm sure I can spend five years talking about the ways in which maybe the nation of Islam and I or people who organize events don't share politics and in that moment it was a black security group that had a similar enough politic and they were not the cops and yes we could have said well aren't there some black feminists or such and such we can ask but the reality is if they were we didn't know them and so it would be irresponsible to ask people who we knew to serve in a role that was maybe new to them right so also like like that was the answer the chapter came up with and because to me it just kind of illustrates when like here's a situation here are the options how do we find things that are most in alignment I also think of I'm a chapter member of the chapter here of BIP 100 and you know being that abolition sits at the intersections of climate justice every chapter member here has a safety plan and in that safety plan is an evacuation plan or a hurricane plan in the event of the storms that come to us multiple times in a year you know and how safety for us has to include climate justice has to include climate change is such a core part of our existence and is a core part of sometimes how people have experienced violence is evacuating during or coming back from a storm so also how you know like each member and we try and spend like every year we try and update those safety plans because people change as do our needs last example I could think of is I'm a member of a hurricane resistance group and basically it's a group of people across the city who try to meet about once a month and we share resources we share strategies and we map out what to do in the event like you know at the on the onslaught of hurricane season and it's super intentional hats off to Shayna Turner who started the group it's many like them you know in the region I know in the Gulf Coast and other areas that are prone to natural disasters that are always human induced but you know it's something that one of the things we have is for folks who could possibly host you know folks who are leaving in the event that folks are leaving for a hurricane and it asks questions on the survey like how do you respond like like how do you deal with safety like in the event of situation what's your response you know it's people in our group who are undocumented it's people in our group who are on papers but like so it's important that you know if you're offering to host like that you're clear um that you're clear like about what this means for the people that we see ourselves as um as accountable to thank you for mentioning that about um BIP 100 because it is hard to join that like you do have to be black you have to be 18 to 35 it is a chapter-based group you know and there are some natural members so it's something like that works in that situation I agree it's not something that can work but like we don't know it can work in terms of safety plans aren't something like that we invented in BIP 100 it's something like that we learn from folks like you you know who who who taught us these things so the same way that not everyone can join BIP it's materials like that we have that exist outside of just you know this chapter but thank you for highlighting that yeah I mentioned that in response to Caden asking for us to name organizations and I as I was trying to think of organizations to name I just realized how difficult it is to do that because our work is so intimate because our work requires trust building um requires deep healing you can't just you know decide to join because it's about our very lives um and to do that work at this deep intimate level you can't just decide today that what I heard sounded good and I want to join that organization um you have to do there has to be work that has to be done and then you find where you fit and what fits and so you can reach out and ask questions and you know maybe learn and be involved in some of the work but it's not easy to just we don't have at well I mean I just keep for spirit house we don't have like just a sign-up sheet sometimes it's hard even to we don't even have a lot of volunteer opportunities because we want to be sure that when you are working with us you have been in practice in practice because you can unintentionally cause harm because you have not been in practice um and so you know folks go oh you know y'all are so exclusive or exclusionary no we're just we're we're fighting for our lives and so the work is is deep it's hard it's transformative and it takes years um to actually be able to do this work in a way that's accountable um for our communities plus one on that but if nothing else yeah they can shoot you some money they can shoot 100 some money they can shoot absolutely absolutely right like there are other ways to support the work and yeah at times I think volunteer opportunities might come up but yeah they're the long-term community I was more so thinking about organizations the ways of who we're doing the work that yeah people can give money to and they might have some volunteer opportunities or might even have um I know CR we often have um webinars things of that sort where people can like constantly you know think about more things um together around abolition or the did more into the meet and different kinds of things um somebody brought a question out and I was just gonna yeah um there's a question from Mike uh Mike said I truly appreciate this conversation one question I have is what are some abolitionist ideas for dealing with people who wish to do harm on others and are not reformable um I'm sorry I want to give y'all a question I have some thoughts right now um but I want to give y'all a chance to tackle what was the last part of the question I'm sorry you said it's in the chat didn't you I can just read it yes what are some abolitionist ideas for dealing with people who wish to do harm others and are not reformable I have I'm gonna say I have feelings about the question because I think that part of even our criminal justice system is so I'm not gonna say the word I almost said the word because I don't have the party mouse right but it's so out of whack is because um the system the sets of laws have been created um or we're told that they've been created right to handle all these edge cases when actuality right there's just um more like right brown PG and C like poor people of all colors right um into the system of incarceration so like for me coming in to answer this question I feel like the first thing that I grapple with right is this idea that uh that the work of doing harm should be focused on you know the edge cases the serial rapists and serial murderers right um rather than like focusing it on um the everyday person in community with us right um who is is struggling right um to be you know in better relationship with others so that's that's where I'm at right now on being able to answer this and I'm also as we have said earlier as Mandy said earlier um safe spaces mean sometimes people can't be in the space and so I want to like reiterate that too yeah we're not here to or you know to try to convince anybody or to indoctrinate anybody with anything so you know our work is our work and we work with folks who can imagine things differently um and if harm happens or if someone um really is committed to causing harm then we have to find a way to create safety that moves the person who's committed to causing harm um away from uh those of us who have committed to a particular way of being so there aren't um we can you cannot indoctrinate somebody into something that they are opposed to um and imagine how much energy we're putting into trying to change someone when we have so many people who are willing and wanting to change and not and are doing the work so I'll give you I but I will give you one example several years ago there was a a couple here um who a queer couple here who lived in a neighborhood where across the street from them there was a man who was homophobic and he used to come out on his porch and scream at them um when they would be on their porch and so you know one of the suggestions that we had for them was to um and to get the rest of their neighbors to also be involved in what it would mean to hold him accountable for what he was doing so when he started the screaming that everyone comes out on their porch turns on their porch like you don't have to respond you don't have to say anything you just come out on your porch and you support the person who's been harmed by saying we're here we see you we love you we're going to make sure that you have everything that you need in this moment and he'll go back inside um eventually I do think that the police were had to be called in this situation but it was because we can't say if we don't have something to we can't tell people that don't ever call the police if we don't have another number for them to call so that's also really important it does not make you less of an abolitionist to make the statement that I just made but it is irresponsible irresponsible of me to say don't ever call the police and you're feeling like your life is in danger you get to evaluate that situation for yourself but the first response was to enlist the rest of the neighbors to help keep them safe and to let him know that his behavior was unacceptable not just to them but it was unacceptable to the whole neighborhood and so you know that is sort of the way that you have to move with people who don't want to who don't want to change they have to see that their behavior is unacceptable to everyone not just to you or a few people so you know we again shame has caused us to keep these things secret um and secrecy is the exact opposite of what we need for accountability and so we have to find a way but again because accountability is connected to shame and punishment we don't see it as a form of healing as a form of repair and so we have to change our mentality around accountability see it as a form of repair see it as a tool for healing so that then we can hold folks accountable and say this is why you're being held accountable for your behavior and it needs to change because it's not safe for any of us um and and we have to bring other people into the situation we have to let go of shame we cannot shame people into being that's what the system has taught us to do we cannot shame people we cannot punish people into transformation I don't have much to say about this question but um I do want to say like I personally don't hold the belief that people are non-reformable and I think that's like a function of disposability but I think one thing is you know shifting the way that you react to other people when they're doing harm because yeah um and engaging from a more human level more like of course like with respect with your to your boundaries and like if you're being directly affected you know honoring that but more compassionately um and yeah oh I was just going to add that you can't make anybody just like um Mamania was saying you can't make anybody transform or grow in any way like you can create the setting you can create the setting to which they might be able to do that but you can't make them do that so one of the things that has I'm still learning and it's taken me a while to understand punishment and consequences for your actions are not the same thing and that it's possible to to share consequences and have it and have it not be like punishment so um I have some loved ones who had a pop-up and um it was here and it was it was like a pop-up but it was also like they had like food and and clothing and it was a whole experience is what they called it and it was a couple of like markets that they had were like it was kind of cool you can get food you can get some jewelry clothes music little cocktail you know whole thing date night situation and so um it was maybe like the second one that they did and it came out that one of the vendors um you know had been accused of of a few um you know incidences of sexual violence as I appreciate that immediately they you know it was no question you know it was no you know did this really happen situations with the people who came for it was I believe you the next thing is they called people in the community who they thought it was like like as accountable to and shared here's the situation and I would like some support and how to respond like you know and what to do next and so to me it was important in terms of sometimes we may actually have the resources to um you know but it's not just the two of us it's like asking about like you know more support as far as you know I'm not somebody who has experienced this harm and I have asked this person like you know to take part in something that I'm doing and this is against my politics long story short like the person was you know asked not to participate and you know was asked um you know and this person said that he was he was interested in a transformative process and they said um we're you know in communication you know as far as like as the people who you know who you've harmed you know if let's check in after that process because it's not like we would never want to work with you because we know people can transform and grow but at this point this is a consequence that we have not being you know he still has a business ain't nobody you know called the secretary of state and said you know he should not be able to sell his jewelry you know ain't nobody you cannot participate in this event that we have curated because you are out of alignment with our values so I also think that um I think sometimes like we focus on what the other person is doing well I don't feel like he was apologetic enough hold your boundary because we don't actually have control of where anybody does but myself and I think this is something again that institutions can do because how many times have we been apart or connected to institutions namely non-profits who are well aware of somebody who is engaged in behavior and they play this whole white feminine thing of I didn't have any power to do something different actually you did you could have chosen not to move forward with this person there are thousands of brilliant people in the city of New Orleans who could speak on this topic you had to pick this person for your panel there was no one else to talk about arts in New Orleans but this one predator really really in a city that birth jazz and bounce music only one you know only one person could talk about this so also think that like like having people know and remember and I've got to be all mean there are consequences to your actions and that we hold ourselves to that of you know not saying oh well this person will have consequences and this person won't but just like holding that line for ourselves of like here are the values that we have and again this is not a lot you know this is not a permanent thing it could be but it doesn't have to be something like that if it if the consequence was this I'm not saying that in 10 years it will still be this for you but I just want to be clear as like as to what's happening now and I also agree that you know I don't think that I think the state is non-reformable but I don't think that people are non-reformable thank y'all so much I want to check in with our support team how much time do we have left in this panel so like we're coming up on time if I don't want to dive into another topic and then have to cut it out apparently yeah we can I can close out now or do you have any last things to say before we close and I come back Kaden? No I would just thank Mabisa and Cree and Mia for being here bringing their best self in this moment that they were able to bring sharing all of their knowledge their love but also I would say yeah that strict compassion right that like really is focused on what it means to be in healing and community with people right but also the do that in a principled way right to do that in a disciplined way to do that in a way where everybody's being taken care of right but we're not trying to do that in a way that's like a one at five cents all approved so I just want to thank them so much for bringing that knowledge that wisdom and keeping us in the complicated and messy space while doing so not you know making it seem as if there's a right way and there's a wrong way and here are the models that you use and that's the only way to do it so I just want to thank them for that and I want to thank everybody in the audience who asked questions right and engage with us and watch this live stream so thank you all so much. Yes thanks y'all hey um yes this is so beautiful again my name is Indy my pronouns are they and he um yeah I want to like second what Kayden saying and just like one shows so much gratitude for Cree and Mendeesa and Nina for being on this call with us and engaging in this conversation with us um and yeah I agree like I think the thing that I'm really taking from this is just like this daily this reminder of like the daily work to be done you know what I mean that it's not just this thing that abolition isn't just this thing that we can just like tag on to like hashtag abolition now or something like that like it is this like work that we're doing every day that we're integrating into like our everything um so yes thank you all for that reminder um thank you Kayden for being in the spark for this conversation and holding this conversation so well friend um what what brilliance and so yeah great gushing over here just been like y'all can't see me but just been yeah really appreciating everything but everyone's been saying um and the way that you've been holding the space skating um so yeah there's so a couple different things so this is like the first the precursor of sorts to a second more intimate engagement with Kayden actually as a workshop facilitator so this is part one part two will be next Tuesday um come check out the workshop if you're pre-registered if you haven't it's okay sorry um I guess you can't do it this time and we can't do everything it's okay there's always time to continue um and to continue learning with each other and so for example if today you're like I am so uh I just like need to keep talking about this and one of there's some ideas around with folks we have already dropped in the the live stream chat uh link for you to join this like post uh panel conversation um Kayden might be dropping in and out and it also open invitation to you three um andy saying you too mom and yeah if you all want to have like a next level engagement with folks um but no pressure because I've been talking for you know about two hours now so um I encourage folks to take breaks and stuff and thank you so much for tuning in um that's all we have for today friends and we hope that we'll find um that you'll find us again again what is it on Thursday in the morning we're gonna be having another panel um our partners um with the roots panel so it's the partners for change folks and also the partners in action folks coming together in conversation um so join us then I think that's all the announcements if not Wendy or Lauren this is the moment to say that there's another announcement that I'm forgetting which I don't think I am so thanks y'all peace peace enjoy the rest of your tuesday drink some water thank you bye bye black people love you