
Today we welcome Mariame Kaba – activist and author of the book We Do This ‘Til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice, and her latest, No More Police: A Case for Abolition, which she cowrote with Andrea J. Ritchie. In discussing her lifelong devotion to anti-violence, we learn why Mariame doesn’t center herself in the work toward abolition, and why she does not consider herself a writer. She also explains the difference between punishment and consequences and shares some incredible book recommendations.
The Stacks Book Club selection for November is Prison By Any Other Name by Maya Schenwar and Victoria Law. We will discuss the book on November 30th with Mariame Kaba.
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Everything we talk about on today’s episode can be found below in the show notes and on Bookshop.org and Amazon.
- We Do This ‘Til We Free Us by Mariame Kaba
- No More Police by Mariame Kaba and Andrea J. Ritchie
- Project NIA
- The Stacks Pack
- Andrea J. Ritchie
- Interrupting Criminalization
- Kelly Hayes
- Countee Cullen Library (New York, NY)
- WordPress

- Prison Culture Blog
- Mariame’s Twitter
- Bayard Rustin
- Ella Baker
- Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement by Barbara Ransby
- The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist by Tucker Carrington and Radley Balko
- “Ep. 74 The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist by Radley Balko and Tucker Carrington– The Stacks Book Club (Allison Punch)” (The Stacks)
- “Ep. 179 Imagining Better with Derecka Purnell” (The Stacks)
- Blood in the Water by Heather Ann Thompson
- “Ep. 183 Blood in the Water by Heather Ann Thompson — The Stacks Book Club (Derecka Purnell)” (The Stacks)
- Until We Reckon by Danielle Sered
- Against Punishment (Mariame Kaba, Building Your Abolitionist Toolbox)
- ExxonMobil
- Rikers Island
- Marc Lamont Hill
- “Marc and Mariame Kaba discuss Mariame’s book; We Do This ‘Til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice” (Coffee and Books)
- Prison by Any Other Name by Maya Schenwar and Victoria Law
- Stafford Beer
- “Yes, We Mean Literally Abolish the Police” (Mariame Kaba, The New York Times)
- Kill Anything That Moves by Nick Turse
- His Name is George Floyd by Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa
- A Thousand Lives by Julia Scheeres
- Going Clear by Lawrence Wright
- At the Dark End of the Street by Danielle L. McGuire
- I’ve Got the Light of Freedom by Charles M. Payne
- Spectacle by Pamela Newkirk
- Assata by Assata Shakur
- Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde
- Capital by Karl Marx
- This Is My Jail by Melanie Newport
- Viral Justice by Ruha Benjamin
- The Most Absolute Abolition by Jesse Olsavsky
- New Books Network Podcast
- Women and Children First (Chicago, IL)
- Red Emma’s (Baltimore, MD)
- Bluestockings Cooperative (New York, NY)
- Poet, the Warrior, the Prophet by Rubem a. Alves
- Solitary by Albert Woodfox
- Soledad Brother by George Jackson
- The Autobiography of Malcolm X as told to Alex Haley by Malcolm X and Alex Haley
- Jane Austen
- Grey’s Anatomy (ABC)
- The Bachelor (ABC)
- The Collected Poems of June Jordan by June Jordan
- Reign of Terror by Spencer Ackerman
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