abolition Archives

Social Justice Reads: Nonfiction November 2023, Week 1

October 30, 2023October 30, 2023Rebekah Kohlhepp

You know Nonfiction November is going to be packed when it gets started before November does! The other hosts and I have so much planned for you all that we just couldn’t wait. As I said last week, I truly do love this event. It’s hard to find folks in the book blogging community who want to talk nonfiction, but in November, that all changes. It’s nonfiction’s moment and she is ready for it.

Dreaming of a Free Future: A Review of Becoming Abolitionists

March 5, 2023March 7, 2023Rebekah Kohlhepp

Becoming Abolitionists: Police, Protests, and the Pursuit of Freedom by Derecka Purnell was my first step in my own journey toward abolitionism. I started reading it days after the footage of Tyre Nichols’ murder became public. I’ve known since 2020—embarrassingly late—that policing was a racist institution, and since then I’ve hovered around the “defund the police” area. I didn’t take a hard stance because I didn’t know enough about abolition. But Nichols’ murder, in which five Black cops with body cams used their hands to murder someone, pushed me over the edge. Reform and defunding don’t work. We need abolition.

Of Abortion and Abolition

February 12, 2023February 12, 2023Rebekah Kohlhepp

I discovered a bizarre fringe wing of anti-abortion Christian Nationalists this week. Abortion “abolitionists.”