I believe in a world without prisons
without police
without borders
without detention centers
without ICE
I started believing in these things after I read Emergent Strategy by Adrienne Maree Brown. I specifically remember reading the line in the book where she said, I believe in a future without prisons.
And I remember thinking, wow that’s crazy. Sounds impossible.
But even in that very instant gears started to turn in my head. And what had just been impossible was now actually maybe possible merely because it had been spoken.
I stopped to consider, how come no one had ever had this idea before? No one in high school, no one at my liberal arts college, no author of any book I had read. But then, it comes as no surprise since those places were very white. For us white people police exist in a spectrum from nuisance to someone who will defend your world view with military grade equipment. We don’t know how to question it. I didn’t know how. I couldn’t even conceive of the possibility.
Adrienne Maree Brown is a biracial black feminist and she was the first person who told me: I believe in a future without prisons. It is black women and women of color who have dared to dream so big and showed us how to imagine a truly radical future.
The more I say it the more attainable it seems. I believe in a world without prisons.
AND?! Without borders. AND?! Without ICE. Does that mean we won’t have nation-states anymore? MAYBE NOT!!
Anne Foster 