Brittany Friedman — Carceral Apartheid - with DeRay Mckesson

It is impossible to deny the impact of lies and white supremacy on the institutional conditions in US prisons. There is a particular power dynamic of racist intent in the prison system that culminates in what Brittany Friedman terms "carceral apartheid." Prisons are a microcosm of how carceral apartheid operates as a larger governing strategy to decimate political targets and foster deceit, disinformation, and division in society. Among many shocking discoveries, Friedman shows that beginning in the 1950s, California prison officials declared war on imprisoned Black people and sought to identify Black militants as a key problem, creating a strategy for the management, segregation, and elimination of these individuals from the prison population that continues into the present day. Carceral Apartheid delves into how the California Department of Corrections deployed various official, clandestine, and at times extralegal control techniques, including officer alliances with imprisoned white supremacists, to suppress Black political movements, revealing the broader themes of deception, empire, corruption, and white supremacy in American mass incarceration. Drawing from original interviews with founders of Black political movements such as the Black Guerilla Family, white supremacists, and a swath of little-known archival data, Friedman uncovers how the US domestic war against imprisoned Black people models and perpetuates genocide, imprisonment, and torture abroad.PURCHASE BOOK HERE: https://politics-prose.com/book/9781469683409?ic_referral=lnITWR70V93OOgz1B_kcpwSkw5-63v5eHsCOXJ0J9OgwM5OhNR5H5zl64ysB8cQ9Qq-0J3hhDtPalyoi61WLWV5cU6KtiBPglviqbJjBxYLYD21DEEMA7PtM5oNZY86JAC1XjgBrittany Friedman is assistant professor of sociology at the University of Southern California.Friedman is in conversation with DeRay Mckesson, the Executive Director of Campaign Zero, a social justice organization leading nationwide structural change to create equity and justice in our criminal legal system. Born and raised in Baltimore, MD, he is a key leader in the Ferguson Uprising in 2014 and a leading voice in the Black Lives Matter Movement and frequently appears on national and cable programs and a range of publications to advocate for commonsense policies and tools that ensure and scale equity. *recorded 2/2/2025