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
Scholars Strike for Liberation
Criminalization and Punishment Education Project
Past
Community Based Organizations Call for Police Accountability and the Reallocation of Resources
Articles to Read / Interviews to Watch and Listen to
Tools for Radical Study: A Collection of Manuals KUNCI Study Forum and Collective
History of Prisoners Justice Day
Community Belonging: A Way to End Poverty in Canada Tamarak Institute
Realizing Transformational Change in the Winnipeg Police Service Elizabeth Comack and Amelia Curran
Safer Schools Without Policing Indigenous and Black Lives in Winnipeg Fadi Ennab
Racial Inequality in Canada’s Housing Market Veronique Sioufi
Bulletin on Domestic Militarism and Repression The Black Alliance for Peace
Police Scandals are Symptomatic of Much Larger Issues Tandeep Sidhu
Children, Undrip and the Right to Self-Government: Cook v. Manitoba Kate Gunn
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
Children’s Books
Dad, I Miss You by Nadia Sammurtok (recommended for ages 9-12)
Not My Girl by Christy Jordan-Fenton and Margaret Poklak-Fenton
Shi-Shi-Etko by Nicola I Campbell (recommended for grades 1-10)
Africville by Shauntay Grant (recommended ages 4-7)
I, Too, Am Here by Morgan Christie (recommended ages 3-7)
#BlackInSchool by Habiba Cooper Diallo
A Kid is A Kid is A Kid Sara O’Leary (recommended for ages 3-6)
Mehndi Boy by Zain Bandali (recommended for ages 6-11)
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 Nadja Pelky, Director/Curator at executivedirector@plugin.org.
For general information and more information on public programming and exhibitions please contact info@plugin.org or call 1.204.942.1043.