Folks really overestimate how conservative and reactionary "regular," Black folks are. No, I don't think I could walk into the deacon board meeting at Mt. Abyssinia Baptist church in Whocaresville, Georgia and find adherents of prison abolition. But, give me 30 minutes...

...30 minutes and a powerpoint presentation to be exact. No I don't think I could persuade the deacon board in 30 minutes, but in 30 minutes, I could give them a decent sense of what they're disagreeing with. Then, we can find points of basic agreement and move from there...

...Most political pessimism comes from lazy people who don't want to do the work of politics. If you expect people to cosign your conclusions immediately with no effort to persuade them, frankly, I don't know why you bother discussing politics at all...

...I remember a while back there was a video of James Clyburn talking to a reparations advocate. Clyburn was willing to continue the discussion, if only his fellow discussant would put his camera down. The discussant refused...

...The discussant refused, because he wasn't doing politics, he was doing social media. I don't think he'd have persuaded Clyburn, but the most high-ranking Black man in congress would've come away having had at least one reasonable discussion with a reparations advocate...

...And what is perhaps more important, the advocate would've come away with a better sense of the political brick wall he was trying to erode. Learning what people who disagree with you politically are thinking is an underrated tool for crafting rhetorical artillery...

...Whites are a brick wall that I'm convinced is not worth trying to scale or erode except insofar as it can create space for autonomy and separation. But our own people must be understood as needing persuading and, above all, being persuadable.