If They Come For Me In The

I Believe Profoundly In The Possibilities Of Democracy, But Democracy Needs To Be Emancipated From Capitalism. As Long As We Inhabit A Capitalist Democracy, A Future Of Racial Equality, Gender Equality, Economic Equality Will Elude Us.

I'm Suggesting That We Abolish The Social Function Of Prisons.

We Cannot Assume That People By Virtue Of The Fact That They Are Black Are Going To Associate Themselves With Progressive Political Struggles. We Need To Divest Ourselves The Kinds Of Strategies That Assume That Black Unity Black Political Unity Is Possible.

We Have Inherited A Fear Of Memories Of Slavery. It Is As If To Remember And Acknowledge Slavery Would Amount To Our Being Consumed By It. As A Matter Of Fact, In The Popular Black Imagination, It Is Easier For Us To Construct Ourselves As Children Of Africa, As The Sons And Daughters Of Kings And Queens, And Thereby Ignore The Middle Passage And Centuries Of Enforced Servitude In The Americas. Although Some Of Us Might Indeed Be The Descendants Of African Royalty, Most Of Us Are Probably Descendants Of Their Subjects, The Daughters And Sons Of African Peasants Or Workers.

Because It Would Be Too Agonizing To Cope With The Possibility That Anyone, Including Our­ Selves, Could Become A Prisoner, We Tend To Think Of The Prison As Disconnected From Our Own Lives. This Is Even True For Some Of Us, Women As Well As Men, Who Have Already Experienced Imprisonment.