Inay Gupta Wk 8 Response

In We Do This Til We Free Us by Mariame Kaba their is a collection of essays, books, and interviews regarding the prison system. Kaba’s main argument is that abolition is not just about fixing prisons and policing but fixing society as well. One thing in particular that is emphasized is collective action and community-based solutions. Instead of the traditional system of punishment and then incarceration, Kaba suggests alternatives such as holding people accountable as a community and other methods. In the documentary At the Ready by Maisie Crow, Hillary Pierce, and Abbie Perrault follows a group of high school students who are in a club that is designed to help them prepare for a career in border security or policing. We get to look inside the personal lives of many of these students as they go through this experience. Both We Do This ‘Til We Free Us by Mariame Kaba and the documentary At the Ready look at policing, justice, and power but they look at these from different perspectives. Kaba argues that policing and prisons are very oppressive and must be destroyed as they are not able to be reformed. At the ready argues that policing is a very promising career path particularly for LatinX students who are living near borders. Both We Do This ‘Til We Free Us by Mariame Kaba and the documentary At the Ready made me consider aspects of policing and influence which I hadn’t thought of before. Kaba made me think about how we often ignore how ineffective policing is and how it doesn’t deal with the root cause. At the ready made this very personal by showing students who see a future lifestyle with policing often making more then their parents in year 1-2. It was very interesting to see their reactions and thoughts about situations like the border, immigration, and racial profiling. Particuarly the fact that the majority of the class when talking about the border would have shut it down despite the fact that most of them were latino. This was very surprising as they have often experienced being treated differently and they are still not defending their same race.