We changed the name of our resource page because this is what we mean and what we have always meant.
Abolition now.
Because anti-racist action and education is not separate from seeing the world through the lens of abolition.
This is a list of resources, tools, readings, methodologies, talks, podcasts, interviews, calls to action that engage the philosophies, teachings, histories, and actions of prison and police abolition that are inherent to transformative and racial justice. We can’t separate the fact that carceral systems, ideologies, and institutions are inherently anti-Black and anti-Indigenous, built from and for a colonial world view.
We are inspired by Black and Indigenous feminist scholarship and activism, the Black Lives Matter movement, The Unist’ot’en campaign, and the anti-colonial struggles here and around the world that strategize, organize, and build on alternatives for a world without colonial violence and white supremacy, which means a world without police, prisons, pipelines, and the insidious militarism that conditions our spaces and cities. “Decolonization is not a metaphor,” that’s what we learned from Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang, “Decolonization is not an ‘and.’ It is an elsewhere.” And abolition can get us there too. Imagining a world without police and prisons is imagining a world where everyone thrives because health care, education, the waters and lands, housing, community-led services are a priority, and are the focus of how we build a safe world where no more lives are stolen by sanctioned violence.
Calls to Action / Events
Past
Happy Birthday, Marsha!
Screening, performance, reading and discussion with adrienne maree brown, Black Obsidian Sound System and Tourmaline, chaired by Lola Olufemi
Monday, August 24, 2020 | 1 PM CT
Call to Action for Justice for Eishia Hudson
Friday, August 21, 2020 | 6 PM
At the Manitoba Legislative Building
System Errors: Abolitionist Technologies and Aesthetics
Panel discussion with American Artist, Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley and Sondra Perry, chaired by Legacy Russell
Monday, August 17, 2020 | 1 PM CT
Anti-Racist Educator Reads: Policing Black Lives by Robyn Maynard
Wednesday, August 12, 2020 | 6:30pm CT
Poetry is Not a Luxury: The Poetics of Abolition
Panel discussion with Saidiya Hartman, Canisia Lubrin, Nat Raha and Christina Sharpe, chaired by Nydia A. Swaby
Monday, August 10, 2020 | 1 PM CT
The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House: Abolitionist Feminist Futures
Panel discussion with Gail Lewis, Miss Major, Zoé Samudzi and Hortense Spillers, chaired by Akwugo Emejulu
Monday, August 3, 2020 | 1 PM CT
Abolition Can’t Wait: A Teach-In with #8toAbolition
Thursday, June 25, 2020 | 4:00 PM – 5:30 PM CT
Scholars for Social Justice Webinar
Saturday, June 20, 2020 | 10 AM CT
Call to Action for Justice for Eishia Hudson
Friday, June 19, 2020 | 6 PM
At the Manitoba Legislative Building
A Night of Poetry, Song, and Abolition hosted by Saskatchewan-Manitoba-Alberta Abolition Coalition (SMAAC)
In support of the Prairie Province Prisoner Support Fund
Thursday, June 18, 2020 | 7:30 PM CT
Live discussion between John Akomfrah, Tina Campt, Ekow Eshun, and Saidiya Hartman
Thursday, June 18, 2020 | 2 PM CT
Esi Edugyan, Robyn Maynard, Syrus Marcus Ware, and Ian Williams join Desmond Cole on Maclean’s Live
Wednesday, June 17, 2020 | 6 PM CT
Zoom webinar link
Call to Action No Evictions on Stolen Land
Wednesday, June 10, 2020 | 1 PM
Manitoba Métis Federation, 150 Henry Ave.
Call and email your city representatives
Call to Action Organized by Justice 4 Black Lives Winnipeg
Friday, June 5, 2020 | 6 PM
At the Manitoba Legislative Building
Articles to Read / Interviews to Watch and Listen to
#DefundPolice Toolkit by Interrupting Criminalization
10 documentaries that explore race, racism and policing in North America
A Syllabus for Antifascist Cinema (part I) by Gelare Khoshgozaran
Abolishing Policing Also Means Abolishing Family Regulation by Dorothy Roberts
Abolition Playlist: Podcast Episodes complied by Rebel Steps
Against Innocence by Jackie Wang
Akilah Oliver: Good Grief by Susie DeFord
An Indigenous Abolitionist Study Guide by Toronto Abolition Convergence
Anti-Black Racism in Canada (CTV Interview with Robyn Maynard and Sandy Hudson)
Author Ingrid Waldron on Africville and the history of environmental racism in Canada by Sierra Bein
BAR Book Forum: Robyn Maynard’s “Policing Black Lives” and Alex Vitale’s “The End of Policing” by Roberto Sirven
Being in the negative: An interview with Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme by Amal Issa
Black AfterLives Matter by Ruha Benjamin
Body cameras are not the answer by Phillip Dwight Morgan
Calls to defund police grow, but Toronto’s mayor not buying in by Alastair Sharp
Canada police under scrutiny after two women die after encounters with officers by Leyland Cecco
Canadian Education is Steeped in Anti-Black Racism by Robyn Maynard
Defunding police: what it means and how it could work on Front Burner
Defunding The Police Will Save Black And Indigenous Lives In Canada by Sandy Hudson
Desmond Cole on Anti-Black Racism in Canada & US on Warrior Life by Pam Palmater
Dionne Brand: On narrative, reckoning and the calculus of living and dying by Dionne Brand
Drop the Charges and Defund the Police, Says New Artists’ Letter for Black Lives by Leah Sandals
Enforcing injustice, keeping the colonial peace by Julia-Simone Rutgers
Filmmaker and Activist Tourmaline on How to Freedom Dream by Tourmaline
Forget “Looting.” Capitalism Is the Real Robbery. by William C. Anderson
Freedom House Ambulance Service by 99% Invisible
Give Us Permanence—Ending Anti-Black Racism in Canada’s Art Institutions by Syrus Marcus Ware
How Artists Are Trying to Solve the World’s Problems by Zachary Small
How Surveillance Has Always Reinforced Racism by Simone Browne
How Visual Culture Is Implicated in Mass Incarceration by Jessica Lynne
How Would Prison Abolition Actually Work? by Gabriella Paiella
Indigenous woman killed by Edmundston, N.B., police during wellness check by
Interview with Canisia Lubrin, Room’s Poetry Contest Judge 2020 by Hope Lauterbach
Inquiry Needed Into Police Violence Against Indigenous Peoples by Pam Palmater
It’s long-past time to talk about policing of Black women in Canada by Robyn Maynard
Is Prison Necessary? Ruth Wilson Gilmore Might Change Your Mind by Rachel Kushner
Justice in America Episode 20: Mariame Kaba and Prison Abolition by Josie Duffy Rice and Clint Smith
Kicked by a Mosquito by Gelare Khoshgozaran
Layli Long Soldier on Wounded Knee and the Murder of George Floyd by Layli Long Soldier
On Basquiat, the Black Body, and a Strange Sensation in My Neck by Aisha Sabatini Sloan
Police “Reforms” You Should Always Oppose by Mariame Kaba
Police Violence against Black People in Canada by Dr. Delia Douglas
Policing the Pandemic: Tracking the Policing of COVID-19 Across Canada
Prison Unions: Briarpatch July/August 2020
Reading as resistance? The rise of the anti-racist book list by Gwen Aviles
Rise of the SWAT team: Routine police work in Canada is now militarized by by
Robyn Maynard on Police Anti-Black Racism & Violence on Warrior Life by Pam Palmater
Ruth Wilson Gilmore Makes the Case for Abolition produced by Intercepted with Jeremy Scahill
Saidiya Hartman on insurgent histories and the abolitionist imaginary as told to Catherine Damman
The End of White Supremacy, An American Romance by Saidiya Hartman
The ‘Latinx’ Label Centers European Heritage. We Should Stop Using It. by Adriana Maestas
The Order of Time by Renee Gladman
The Problem With “Community Policing” by Maya Schenwar and Victoria Law
Thoughts of Liberation by Nataleah Hunter-Young and Sarah Mason-Case
To Bear Witness: Real Talk about White Supremacy in Art Museums Today by Dr. Kelli Morgan
Toni Morrison transformed the texture of English by Damon Winter
Toward the Horizon of Abolition a Conversation with Mariame Kaba
‘We can enact the future we want now’: a black feminist history of abolition by Lola Olufemi
We must defund the police. It is the only option. by Sandy Hudson
We must work toward an abolitionist future for our world by Rinaldo Walcott
What Did Cedric Robinson Mean by Racial Capitalism? by Robin D. G. Kelley
What Is an Anti-Racist Reading List For? by Lauren Michele Jackson
What Kind of Society Values Property Over Black Lives? by Robin D. G. Kelley
Who does Winnipeg’s city council work for, anyway? by James Wilt and Rebecca Hume
Yes, We Mean Literally Abolish the Police by Mariame Kaba
Books to Read / Films to Watch
Support your local bookstores!
As Black as Resistance by Zoé Samudzi and William C. Anderson
Assata: An Autobiography
Are Prisons Obsolete? by Angela Davis
Questions to ask yourself while reading this text (Chapter 1) created by @urdoingreat
BlackLife: Post BLM and The Struggle for Freedom by Rinaldo Walcott and Idil Abdillahi
Captive Genders: Trans Embodiment and the Prison Industrial Complex, eds. Eric A. Stanley and Nat Smith
Demonic Grounds: Black Women and The Cartographies of Struggle by Katherine McKittrick
Freedom Dreams by Robin D.G. Kelley
Freedom is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement by Angela Davis
Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis, and Opposition in Globalizing California by Ruth Wilson Gilmore
Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine by Noura Erakat
Living for Change by Grace Lee Boggs
nîpawistamâsowin: We Will Stand Up directed by Tasha Hubbard
Prison by Any Other Name: The Harmful Consequences of Popular Reforms by Maya Schenwar and Victoria Law
Qeer (In)justice: The Criminalization of LGBT People in the United States, eds. Joey L. Mogul, Andrea J. Ritchie, Kay Whitlock
Stolen City: Racial Capitalism and the Making of Winnipeg by Owen Toews
The Black Prairie Archives: An Anthology by Karina Vernon
Undocumented: The Architecture of Migrant Detention by Tings Chak
Whereas by Layli Long Soldier
Resources to Donate to
1492 Land Back Lane – Legal Fund
American bail funds, freedom funds + mutual aid networks (Compiled by Arts.Black)
In memory of D’Andre A. Campbell
Paul Mpagi Sepuya Offers Photographs to Advocacy Organization Donors
Prisoner Emergency Support Fund
Support for family of Chantel Moore
Local Organizations to Check Out
Aboriginal Youth Opportunities (AYO)
Prairie Province Prisoner Support Fund
The Prisoner Correspondence Project
Acknowledgments
We are on Treaty 1 Territory. Plug In ICA is located on the territories of the Anishinaabeg, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota, and Dene peoples, and the homeland of the Métis Nation.
Plug In ICA extends our heartfelt gratitude to our generous donors, valued members, and dedicated volunteers. We acknowledge the sustaining support of our Director’s Circle. You all make a difference.
We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Canada Council, the Manitoba Arts Council and Winnipeg Arts Council. We could not operate without their continued financial investment and lobbying efforts.
Plug In ICA relies on community support to remain free and accessible to all, and enable us to continue to present excellent programs. Please consider becoming a member of Plug In ICA and a donor at plugin.org/support or by contacting Erin Josephson-Laidlaw at erin@plugin.org.
For more information on public programming and exhibitions contact Nasrin Himada at nasrin@plugin.org.
For general information, please contact: info@plugin.org or call 1.204.942.1043.