Read on Twitter
A good faith, detailed engagement: the Mathieson’s cite has traction from it’s inclusion in Wikipedia, which in turn directs to a print interview w/ Davis (so little read). Davis is discussing the international character of prison abolition as a movement, but does credit the work https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/1273741940614475777
Mathieson’s book, The Politics of Abolition, 1st appears in the US in 1974. It was of great interest to thinkers in America. However, Davis & Aptheker identified w/ formalizing a ‘free them all’ ideological project in 1971 w/ If They Come in the Morning, which predates Mathieson
ITitM tied together ideologically disparate but committed arguments which had reached the same conclusion, and re-emerged in the 60s. Those US arguments were spurred by discussions in the 50s, widespread and best represented by the article “Should Prisons be Abolished?" in 1955.
THOSE arguments were kept alive in official white spaces in the 20s and 30s by Wobblies sympathetic to the cause, fellow travelers like Nathaniel Hawthorne’s son & even Clarence Darrow + were stoked by the multiethnic/multi-racial American anarchist tradition from the 1880s-1910s
finally THOSE arguments have direct geneology to freed slaves & abolitionists, reacting to the compromises around the 13th Amendment and the failures of the initial vision of Reconstruction in the light of white supremacist guerillas and legislative counterrevolution.
The phrase and call for “the abolishment of prisons” as a public policy options appears in the minutes of the *Congress of the American Prison Association* from an Ohio Judge in 1870.
It was not a novel concept to the audience.
It was not a novel concept to the audience.
There are several typos in this thread but that is Twitter for you (I’m doing this from a 6% battery phone while waiting for something).
I agree the discourse suffers from taking place mostly on here, but an honest interlocutor has to admit that might be because
I agree the discourse suffers from taking place mostly on here, but an honest interlocutor has to admit that might be because
abolitionist thought doesn’t get space in prestigious outlets. People spend a lot of time swinging at strawmen, debating no one & brooking less critique.
Many, watching a grown man throw haymakers at a scarecrow, will conclude he looks ridiculous. A clumsy, unfair fight.
Many, watching a grown man throw haymakers at a scarecrow, will conclude he looks ridiculous. A clumsy, unfair fight.
