Abolition Democracy Today
from In the Belly of the Beast Hosted by American Culture & Difference
In 1935, W.E.B. Du Bois published his landmark book, Black Reconstruction: An Essay Toward a History of the Part Which Black Folk Played in the Attempt to Reconstruct Democracy in America, 1860–1880, in which he challenged the then-dominant white historiography of the post-Civil War period In the United States by re-framing abolition in terms of the democratic, anti-racist, and radical egalitarian aspirations and movements of black people to re-envision and re-make the social, political, and economic structures of the nation. Following Du Bois, Angela Y. Davis and Ruth Wilson Gilmore, among many others, have written about the urgent necessity of 'abolition democracy' as a framework and praxis through which to work for 'non-reformist reforms' on the way toward radically re-making the world. In the wake of the murder of George Floyd, people all over the globe have called for 'abolishing' and 'defunding' the police. Reflecting on the work of Du Bois, Davis, and Gilmore, and with our contemporary moment in view, we discuss the question: what does abolition democracy look like as a concrete praxis – not merely about the absence of carceral institutions but about the presence of an entirely new social order? Hosts: Ry Siggelkow, Amy Finnegan, Kanishka Chowdhury, and Todd Lawrence. Intro Music: Lord Jordan X.
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