Brilliant, Walidah Imarisha... thank you! What does holding people accountable look like for crimes that this system does not consider crimes—like gentrification, economic displacement, the violence of poverty? These are not considered crimes by the system: They’re actually just the system functioning as usual. We actually don’t even have a language to describe these real crimes that are happening every single day in our communities. And instead, we focus where the media has worked very hard to get us to focus, which is on interpersonal violence, which is often a result of institutional oppression. One of the things that Octavia Butler’s work does very well, and one of the principles of visionary fiction, is that it centers those who have been marginalized, those folks who are sitting at the intersections of identities of oppression. When we’re centering folks who have been marginalized, when we’re seeing black youth centered, when we’re seeing young black women centered in these struggles, we see an entirely different way of engaging. We see the system from an entirely different perspective. Hansen: What are the implications of seeking to understand the system from marginalized perspectives? Imarisha: We’re often told that we just need a little bit of reform, but when we see these systems from the lives of folks like young, queer and trans people of color, then we see that actually these intersecting oppressions are so rooted in the system that reform can’t be the answer. That what is going to be needed is an incredible, deep, and complete systemic change. And I think that those folks who have been marginalized, who have been in many ways living outside the bounds of the acceptable system, are not victims. They’re the leaders who can show us how to build a different world. Because in many ways they have been building those communities out of necessity and survival. And we have incredible lessons to learn from their guidance and leadership. Hansen: What are some lessons we can learn from their leadership? Imarisha: We see an emphasis on the wholeness of community, and that the individual is inextricably linked to the community. Every single individual in our community is our community. And recognizing that when those individuals are murdered, when they are stolen and taken to prisons, it actually destabilizes our entire community. And that the repercussions of that are often carried by black women who are left behind, in many cases. Even though black women are the fastest-growing population in prisons. We’re also being stolen.
Posted on: Mon, 08 Dec 2014 09:09:48 +0000
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