Keeping It 100 2024 Abolition is Collective Care, Mutual Aid and Liberatory Harm Reduction

Abolition is a Collective Vision
(WEEK ONE 2024: 2/1-2/4)

1) Just dip your toe in and watch this video that answers the questions, “What is abolition?”

2) Go a little deeper and read this interview with Mariame Kaba about the collective vision of abolition.

3) Want to go even deeper?

NOTE: This section of the curriculum is modified from “Study and Struggle, Session 4: Abolition is Care.”

With your team talk through these questions:

  • What does community mean?

  • How can we imagine communities as central to the continuum of care?

  • How do we build care webs for ourselves and our communities?

  • If you had the chance to develop your own care web and care programs what would it look like? What would you provide that isn’t currently available through our local/state/federal governments?

4) Want to make some art?

Abolition & Collective Care
(WEEK TWO 2024: 2/5-2/11)

1) Just dip your toe in…

2) Go a little deeper…

  • Read Aloud (together) as a Team: Growing Together: A Guide to Collective Care…and why self-care isn’t enough PDF | WEBSITE

CREDIT:  Writer - Minxi Chua / Artist - Namsai Khaobor / Editors - Charis Loke, Jacob Goldberg  / Date: 18 October 2021 (https://newnaratif.com/collective-care-guide/ )

3) Want to go even deeper?

  • READ: Racial Capitalism and Abolition PDF

  • READ: What’s love got to do with it? Read “Love as the Practice of Freedom” by bell hooks PDF

CREDIT:  Borrowed from resources provided at Growing Together: A Guide to Collective Care…and why self-care isn’t enough (https://newnaratif.com/collective-care-guide/)

With your team talk through these questions:

  • Why is collective care essential to our abolitionist movements?

  • In what ways does racial capitalism harm our communities?

  • How can practices of collective care help us dismantle racial capitalism and move towards economic systems of care?

  • What are examples from the video, How collective care can change society, that stick with you and why?

4) Want to practice using a tool for collective care with your friends and family? 

Here is a tool/exercise for making a wellness plan in community for an event or gathering.

  • PRACTICE: Exercise from Growing Together a Guide to Collective Care - “Breaking Isolation: Self Care and Community Care Tools for Our People” PDF | LINK

CREDIT:  Borrowed from resources provided at Growing Together: A Guide to Collective Care…and why self-care isn’t enough (https://newnaratif.com/collective-care-guide/)

Abolition & Mutual Aid 2/13-2/18 (red, green and yellow)

Abolition & Mutual Aid
(WEEK THREE 2024: 2/12-2/18)

The Big Door Brigade’s definition of mutual aid — “political participation in which people take responsibility for caring for one another and changing political conditions.”

Just dip your toe in and watch this video that answers the questions, “What is mutual aid?”

Go a little deeper..

READ Aloud (together) and WATCH as a Team: 

Link to PDF | (LINK: https://www.thedigitalabolitionist.com/blog/mariame-kaba-and-mutual-aid-hub)

Want to go even deeper?

  • READ: Mutual Aid Strengthens ATL’s Abolitionist Organizing Work: How care work and solidarity economies sustain the #StopCopCity movement and prepare us for a new world. 

Link to PDF | (LINK: https://scalawagmagazine.org/2023/09/mutual-aid-organizing/)

Abolition & Liberatory Harm Reduction
(WEEK FOUR 2024: 2/19-2/25)

Just dip your toe in.. 

WATCH: 

Go a little deeper…

READ Aloud (together) as a Team: 

Want to go even deeper?

READ:

With your team talk through these questions:

  1. What is harm reduction?

  2. What is the difference between liberatory harm reduction and governmentally led versions of harm reduction?

  3. How is liberatory harm reduction and abolitionist strategy for safer, healthier communities?

Want to learn more about Black-led movements for collective care and healing?

“Keepin It 100” is Creative Justice’s annual Black History Month community education and fundraising campaign. Together we learn and skill build for a future beyond prisons and police, a future grounded in collective care, wellness and healing; and all while raising at least $50k to further sustain our community-based and BIPOC youth-centered restorative and transformative justice work at Creative Justice.

Last year 30 teams came together to learn about Black-led abolitionist movements and raised $38,000 to sustain the work of Creative Justice!

This year our goal is to organize at least 50 teams to learn together while raising $1,000 each with a collective goal of $50,000.

Follow us on instagram @CreativeJusticeNW for updates on "Keepin It 100."

What is a team?

A team is whomever you want to learn alongside. Your team might be you and a friend or group of friends, your book group, your basketball team or artist collective, or even your business! Your goal is to connect one-time weekly to talk through the "Keepin It 100" facts and curriculum and to plan/track your fundraising goal of $1,000.

On Saturday, March 4th, 2023 all of our teams and the greater community will come together to celebrate through art, a community wellness fair, delicious food, and fun.

Together we can envision and build a world full of wellness, collective care, and healing!

Take a look at our 2023 Abolition through Black Health & Wellness Curriculum

Black Panther: Health Clinics and Advocacy for Black Communities
(WEEK ONE: 2/1-2/5)

Big Idea: Healthy communities are safer communities.

Abolition isn’t just about ending our reliance on prisons and police. It is also about strengthening our community care networks and social safety net. When people are physically, mentally and emotionally healthy our communities are safer. In this way abolition is also about holistic health and wellness.

WATCH: 

  • The History You Didn’t Learn: The Black Panther Party Health Clinics (LINK)

READ: 

  • BLACK PANTHER PARTY’S FREE MEDICAL CLINICS (1969-1975) (Black Past) (LINK)

  • Health for the Revolution: the Black Panther’s Impact on Modern Health & Wellness (medium by Shelagh Brown, Creative Justice Community Partnership Director) (LINK)

  • Odessa Brown Clinic: A Glimpse Back May Offer A Path Forward (South Seattle Emerald) (LINK)

DISCUSS and/or WRITE:

    • What was the impetus for the Black Panther Party health clinics?

    • What were they advocating for and why?

    • What’s one powerful thing you learned about the Odessa Brown Clinic?

    • Why is centering Black health and wellness important to an abolitionist framework?

ART ACTIVITY:

    1. Draw a stick figure on a piece of paper. 

    2. Write your name below it. Get creative with it. 

    3. Maybe give your stick figure a cool outfit, glasses or a hat. Something that uniquely reflects you.

      1. Around your stick figure list your identities. (Think about your race, class, gender, employment, age, country of origin, language(s) you speak, religion, ability/disability, etc.)

      2. Now write on the outside of your stickfigure and on the outside of your identities things you need to be healthy.

      3. Go to each item you need to be healthy and on a scale of 1-10 label how accessible that is for you. 1 being very hard to access and 10 being very easy to access.

      4. With your study group or team, share your stick figure. Share your identities, share the things you need to be healthy and how hard or easy it is for you to access those things.

      5. Discussion:

        1. What do you notice about your stick figures and sharing in relationship to others in your group?

        2. Why do you think these similarities or differences exist?

Do you want to dig deeper?

  • With Free Medical Clinics and Patient Advocacy, the Black Panthers Created a Legacy in Community Health That Still Exists Amid COVID-19 (Time Magazine) (LINK)

Disability Justice: Cripping Abolition
(WEEK TWO: 2/6-2/12)

Big Idea: “Abolition is not limited to ending spaces and practices of incarceration and policing. Fundamentally, abolition is also about reimagining new ways of life such that a world which prisons, policing and other carceral systems as solutions to social problems becomes unthinkable. Abolition is also not just about creating new responses to crises, but creating a new world in which we thrive such that less crises happen in the first place.”

Disability justice is key to abolition.

Disability Justice is required for holistic community wellness.

Disability Justice is essential for growing communities where EVERYONE can thrive.

WATCH: 

  • Disability Justice and Transformative Justice (YouTube LINK)

READ: 

  • Cripping Abolition–Opening (website LINK)(article LINK)

  • 10 Principles of Disability Justice by Sins Invalid (website LINK)(pdf LINK)

  • Talia Lewis, Incarceration and Ableism Go Hand in Hand (website LINK)(listen to article LINK)(pdf LINK)

  • Alternatives to Policing based on Disability Justice (pdf LINK)(website where PDF was sourced LINK)

DISCUSS and/or WRITE:

    • What is Disability Justice? Why is disability justice essential for abolition?

    • After reading the 10 Principles of Disability Justice, what sticks out to you, what resonates with you and where do you need to learn more?

    • What is ableism and what is the relationship between ableism and incarceration?

    • Go to the section “We Must Say ‘No’ To” in Alternatives to Policing Based on Disability Justice. In the large print versions it is page 16.

      • Why must we say “no” to these reforms?

      • Why are these reforms harmful?

      • What should we do instead? (See page 6 “Guiding Abolitionist Principles based on Disability Justice.”)

ART ACTIVITY:

    • Print and color ABC of the Sins Invalid Disability Justice coloring book. (LINK to pages)

      • If you enjoyed ABCs of the coloring book, you can purchase and download the rest HERE!

Do you want to dig deeper?

  • Want additional resources? Visit ADJC resources HERE!

  • Roundtable Discussion: Abolition and Disability Justice (YouTube LINK)

  • Disability Justice Self-Study Guide (website LINK)

Queer/Trans Analysis and Action
(WEEK THREE: 2/13-2/18)

Big Idea: “But struggles against abuse, assault, poverty, racism, and social control require clearer connections between the violence of gender/sexual oppression and the violence of the prison system. Indeed, many of us who are involved in antiviolence work through rape crisis centers, homeless shelters, and queer/trans safe spaces are also committed to struggles against imprisonment. For some, our anti-prison politics grew out of that antiviolence work. After years of repeatedly responding to the same forms of violence, and after dealing with the ongoing failures and injustices of the criminal system, it has become clear that prisons not only fail to protect our communities from violence, but actually enable, perpetuate, and foster more violence.” From Transforming Carceral Logics: 10 Reasons to Dismantle the Prison Industrial Complex Through Queer/Trans Analysis and Action by S. Lamble 

WATCH: 

  • Intersectionality in Health Disparities: Focus on Black Transgender Women (LINK)

READ: 

  • Why Black Trans People Can’t Trust Doctors to Save Our Lives by Devin-Norelle (published in THEM, 2/27/2018) (PDF) (online HERE)

  • Injustice at Every Turn: A look at Black respondents in the National Transgender Discrimination Survey (PDF) (online PDF)

  • Transforming Carceral Logics: 10 Reasons to Dismantle the Prison Industrial Complex Through Queer/Trans Analysis and Action by S. Lamble(PDF)

DISCUSS and/or WRITE:

    • Define (Google if you need to. Take your time. This is important.)

      1. Transgender

      2. Cis-gender

      3. Non-binary

      4. A-gender

      5. Misogynoir

      6. Transmisogynoir

    • Name one or two statistics or facts that shocked you or will stick with you and why?

    • Name a new concept you learned this week. Why is this new concept important for your growth and understanding?

    • What are some of the greatest barriers to healthcare for trans community members; especially Black trans community members?

    • Based on the readings and videos:

      1. Why is intersectionality important in health equity and abolition?

      2. Why is it important to center Black trans women in our analysis of health equity and abolition?

      3. Why must we use a queer/trans analysis to understand and dismantle carceral logics?

ART ACTIVITY:

    • Trans Affirmation Coloring Book (PDF) (online LINK)

Do you want to dig deeper?

  • Back to Basics: Partnering with Survivors and Communities to Promote Health Equity at the Intersections of Sexual and Intimate Partner Violence (PDF) (online HERE)

  • Black Trans* Lives Matter, D-L Stewart, TEDxCSU (LINK)

We Deserve Healing
(WEEK Four: 2/20-2/25)

Big Idea:  “The healing centered approach comes from the idea that people are not harmed in a vacuum, and well-being comes from participating in transforming the root causes of the harm within institutions.” The Future of Healing: Shifting from Trauma Informed Care to Healing Centered Engagement, by Shawn Ginwright Ph.D.

WATCH: 

  • Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome? How is it different from PTSD? (LINK)

  • Soul Fire Farm: Uprooting racism in the US food system with agriculture (LINK)

READ: 

  • World Health Organization Social Determinants of Health (LINK)(PDF)

  • The Myth of Health Inequities: Changing the Narrative around Racism in Health by Bridget Balch (AAMC.org) (LINK) (PDF)

  • Bad Medicine: The Harm that comes from Racism by Austin Frakt (New York Times) (LINK)(PDF)

  • Disrupting Systemic Whiteness in the Mindfulness Movement by Mindful Staff (Mindful) (LINK)(PDF)

  • The Future of Healing: Shifting From Trauma Informed Care to Healing Centered Engagementby Shawn Ginwright PH.D. (Medium) (LINK)(PDF)

  • SPOTLIGHT: Fannie Lou Hamer - Black History Month focus by Washington University School of Medicine St. Louis (LINK)(PDF)

DISCUSS AND/OR WRITE:

    • Define Medical Racism

    • What are Social Determinants of Health (SDH)?

    • What is healing centered engagement? How is this different from trauma informed care?

    • What determines one's access to wellness?

    • Who profits in the wellness industries? Is true wellness profitable?

    • What are the connections between the agricultural, food, medical and criminal justice systems and how do these systems work together to sustain anti-Black oppression, disease and illness in Black communities? 

    • What is the difference between self care and community care? 

    • There is no such thing as lifestyle related disease, only diseases of colonization. Discuss some of the common diseases labeled as “lifestyle related,” in the US and how they are connected to anti-Black racism and oppression.

ART ACTIVITY:

    • Fannie Lou Hamer coloring page (PDF)

Do you want to dig deeper?

  • Dope is Death (Youtube) - The story of a radical movement that sought to end heroin addiction in communities of color with acupuncture, led by Dr. Mutulu Shakur, the stepfather of Tupac. (LINK)

  • Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present by Harriet A. Washington (book) (LINK)

  • Dr. Joy Degruy’s Online Courses - African-American Multigenerational Trauma & Implementing Models of Change (LINK)

  • Therapy for Black Girls blog (LINK)