I like to punish people - I like to shame people…who I deem as harmful. I admit it! And I more than like it, I delight in it.
(For those who aren’t familiar with abolition, it is the belief set that policing and prisons are fundamentally based on white supremacy - and therefore should be abolished. The haha part of what I just stated above is that abolition fundamentally is against punishment and shaming, because that’s not how transformation is cultivated.)
My internal police is deeply rooted. I’ve spent so much of my life policing myself in a cycle of monitoring and punishment if I don’t abide to some sort of unfair standard that’s mostly set by society. I’ve written alot of poems to my body for the way I’ve talked and treated her…and I still struggle with it.
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In my journey as an abolitionist, I imagine myself as a bird flying high up in the air and then diving down towards earth. From up high, I see systems of oppression and history. From down low, I see how the system tries to replicate itself within me to uphold its goal, which is to protect the caste system at any cost. From down low, I see how I want to police myself and other people from a place a superiority.
I was taught from our society that the way I can gain my worthiness is to see who I’m better than. White supremacy has taught me that the farther I am to myself (true self) the closer I will be to abundance and rewards from the system. And in a way it’s alittle true! There is and has been punishment to living into truth and my worthiness.
So when I put a leftist spin to all of this without the embodiment of abolition, punishing and shaming people who don’t have my analysis on the world is irresistible. Delicious. This is totally meta, but it’s hard to then not want to punish myself for not being a perfect abolitionist.
Talking about perfectionism, that’s another way that policing shows up.
I digress. I’m practicing self compassion to myself. OF COURSE wanting to police and shame people who are harmful (mostly white people and men) is natural. We are all taught to cope this way! But I’m healing and building my capacity to be committed to true change that stems from the world I’m building alongside of my community. It stems from true accountability and true care for the most marginalized.
For me, it is being in action towards systemic change AND internal personal change. It’s both.
I’ll leave you with this passage by Mariame Kaba from “We Do This ‘Til We Free Us:”
“Not only is it true that punishment doesn’t work, but also when you prioritize punishment it means that patriarchy remains firmly in place. And if I am at my core interested in dismantling systems of oppression, I have got to get rid of punishment. I have got to do it. But I want accountability. I want people to take responsibility. I want that internal resource that allows you to take responsibility for harms that you commit against yourself and other people. I want that to be a central part of how we interact with each ot
her. Because while I don’t believe in punishment, I believe in consequences for actions that are done to harm other people. I do. I think boundaries are important. I think all these things are really important. But with punishment at the centre of everything we haven’t been able to really address the other stuff that needs to happen. Because people f*****g need to – they need to take accountability when they harm people.”
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