MARIAME KABA on Moving Past Punishment /151
Photo by Scott Webb
If we want a just & humane world, we must create one in which apparatuses of oppression are no longer considered reasonable. This week on For The Wild, we are joined by Mariame Kaba for an expansive conversation on Transformative Justice, community accountability, criminalization of survivors, & freedom on the horizon. Mariame addresses punishment as an issue of directionality while reminding us why it is vital to have the prison abolition movement in conversation with the movement for climate & environmental justice. When we engage with these issues & shape our actions out of a commitment to removing violence at its core, we are working to transform our world beyond recognition into something teeming with possibility, beauty, & life.
“The real safety comes from our ability to be able to get what we need to live dignified lives.”
Mariame Kaba by Gian Carlo
Mariame Kaba is an organizer, educator & curator who is active in movements for racial, gender, & transformative justice. She is the founder & director of Project NIA, a grassroots organization with a vision to end youth incarceration. She has co-founded multiple organizations & projects over the years including We Charge Genocide, the Chicago Freedom School, the Chicago Taskforce on Violence against Girls & Young Women, Love & Protect & most recently Survived & Punished.
As a Researcher in Residence at the Barnard Center for Research on Women (BCRW), Mariame Kaba works with Andrea J. Ritchie, fellow Researcher in Residence, on a new Social Justice Institute (SJI) initiative, Interrupting Criminalization: Research in Action.
Mariame is on the advisory boards of the Chicago Torture Justice Memorials, Critical Resistance & the Chicago Community Bond Fund. Her writing has appeared in numerous publications including The Nation Magazine, The Guardian, The Washington Post, In These Times, Teen Vogue, The New Inquiry & more. She runs Prison Culture blog. Mariame’s work has been recognized with several honors & awards.
For anyone who is dedicated to liberation, regardless of area of focus, conversations on criminalization, policing, & the prison industrial system need to be in orbit. As Mariame reminds us, if our focus is to end harm, there is no excuse to uphold inherently harmful institutions.
♫ Music by Wyclef Jean, Jason Marsalis & Irvin Mayfield
Reading Recommendations
Until We Reckon by Danielle Sered
Are Prisons Obsolete by Angela Davis
Missing Daddy by Mariame Kaba
Episode References
Prison Land: Mapping Carceral Power across Neoliberal America by Brett Story
A Green New Deal for Decarceration by Brett Story & Seth J. Prins
Are the Cops in Our Heads and Hearts? By Paula X. Rojas
“The Sexual Politics of the New Abolitionism” by Elizabeth Bernstein (coining of Carceral Feminism)
A New of Life Re-Entry Program
The Survived & Punished Commissary Fund
Take Action
Donate to Mariame’s Survived and Punished Commissary Fund for the Holidays
Donate to Survived and Punished’s Survivor Solidarity Fund
Learn more by visiting Transform Harm & Survived and Punished
Our episode with Mariame highlights the importance of community accountability & understanding what truly provides safety & security in society. We encourage you to think about where you reside, invest in your community, & get to know your neighbors as a small and meaningful act of resistance against the carceral state.
For The Wild is a slow media organization dedicated to land-based protection, co-liberation, and intersectional storytelling. We are rooted in a paradigm shift away from human supremacy, endless growth, and consumerism. As we dream towards a world of grounded justice and reciprocity, our work highlights impactful stories and deeply-felt meaning making as balms for these times.