The abolitionists interviewed in the book — luminaries such as Ruth Wilson Gilmore , Andrea Ritchie , Cat Brooks , and Penniman — want to see a transformation of our current economic framework , one that enables the destruction of communities and enforces capitalism ’ s inequities through policing and prisons . They use the same descriptor for themselves — abolitionist — that people working to dismantle slavery used generations ago .
What does abolishing police and prisons have to do with climate change and the devastating Southern California fires ? The answer is everything . Today ’ s economic and social status quo accepts ongoing climate change as a necessary price to pay for market capitalism and deregulated industries . This is the same status quo maintaining inequities along lines of race , gender , national origin , and sexual orientation — what Penniman calls “ racial capitalism .”
In such a world , climate disasters like the Los Angeles fires are an inevitable part of our lives . We must suffer , see our homes burn , and our air and water turn toxic , to ensure profits for the oil and gas industry .
In such a world we must also pay our tax dollars to clean the damage their carbon emissions have caused and pay to police our own communities against small-time petty criminals while the bigger corporate perpetrators of climate change go free .
In such a world we must also pay out of our pockets to have private insurers protect our homes and health and then accept their refusal to cover the costs of repairing our homes and health .
In such a world , everything is upside down . We pay to be damaged , violated , and policed and we pay to repair the damage , and still we remain broken .
An abolitionist vision for the world turns it right side up . What if we invested in our own safety by paying to prevent harm in the first place ?
In Talking About Abolition , Andrea
Ritchie , a nationally recognized expert on policing and prisons , described abolition as “ a call to take resources , power , and legitimacy away from institutions rooted in anti-Blackness , in racial capitalism , and death making : policing , punishment , surveillance , and exile . It ’ s a call to reinvest in the commons , a society built around the notion of the common good , and everyone ’ s needs being met .”
This may sound like a pipe dream even to those who agree that our priorities need to be reconfigured . But abolitionists — led primarily by Black women — are not waiting for power brokers to adopt this big idea . After all , progressive change rarely happens from the top-down . Activists such as Cat Brooks in Oakland are already implementing local abolitionist projects . Brooks is the co-founder and executive director of the Anti Police-Terror Project ( APTP ) where she was instrumental in the formation of MH First Oakland , a nonpolice alternative for people experiencing mental health crises .
“ We are responsible for creating the world that we want ,” said Brooks . “ Organizing is what gets the goods . We are responsible for creating these replicable models , and we need to stop begging the state for the money , the resources , etc ., to create these models .”
Since the Eaton Fire that destroyed my community , victims , survivors , neighbors , local officials , and leaders have been attempting to identify the culprits , to understand why this horrific , catastrophic disaster happened . Some are fixated on power lines as the source of the fire , whipped up by strong winds . Others are angry about the low water resources available for firefighters to douse fires . Still , others are rightly pointing out our reliance on incarcerated and obscenely underpaid firefighters at the same time as fire departments are severely understaffed .
All of these are important and critical issues . But they do not address the biggest source of the problem — climate change — and its resultant confluence of “ weather whiplash ,” unnaturally low humidity , and unusually strong Santa Ana winds .
We cannot eradicate fire to protect ourselves from climate change-fueled wildfires . Fire is a part of life . Similarly , there is not enough water in any given place to douse thousands of homes exploding in fire all at once . Fire trucks , even ones with full tanks , sped past burning houses in Altadena , rightly prioritizing saving lives over homes .
What we can do is stop pumping carbon into our atmosphere , right now . We can pour money into the things that keep us safe — renewable energy , energy conservation , public transportation , local economies , and more — and stop investing in things that endanger us , such as oil and gas profits , policing , and prisons .
We human beings are hardwired , especially in times of disaster , to help one another and to work in collective ways to keep each other safe . Such sentiments are visible on the edges of barricaded and burned Altadena , in my community of north Pasadena . On the border between the two towns , the state ’ s financial priorities are on full display to the north , with police and National Guard forces standing armed and ready to arrest anyone violating curfew . Meanwhile , to the south , community mutual aid hubs have spontaneously popped up , sharing food , water , clothing , toys , and other necessities with those who have lost everything .
As Robin D . G . Kelley said in the foreword to Talking About Abolition , “ Abolitionists seek to replace deathdealing ugliness with life-sustaining beauty .”
We have been trained to go against human nature and normalize the funding of our own destruction . We must return to our human instinct to think collectively and embrace an abolitionist approach to ensure our world remains standing for our children . If not , today Altadena is on fire ; tomorrow it ’ s your hometown .
54 The Trial Lawyer