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. 

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

Community Safety Looks Like…

A Green New Deal for Decarceration by Brett Story & Seth J. Prins

INCITE!

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.