Rustbelt Abolition Radio #12: Settler Colonialism and the Struggle for Abolition

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This episode grapples with the relation between incarceration and settler colonialism. Kelly Lytle Hernández, abolitionist writer and professor of History and African American studies at the University of California-Los Angeles, discusses her latest book, City of Inmates: Conquest, Rebellion, and the Rise of Human Caging in Los Angeles.

Hernández reveals the underlying logic of elimination and conquest that is foundational to our settler colonial society by interrogating the construction of the settler-carceral state over two centuries. In this historical analysis, Hernández draws from what she calls “The Rebel Archive,” a constellation of historical materials that emerged from struggles against conquest and elimination.

As resistance against conquest continues, how can abolitionists take seriously the reality of envisioning another world on occupied land?

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Rustbelt Abolition Radio is an abolitionist media and movement-building project based in Detroit, MI. Each episode amplifies the voices of those impacted by mass incarceration and explores ongoing work in the movement to abolish the carceral state (that is, prisons, police, courts as well as racial domination and capitalist exploitation).

The show seeks to strengthen community collaboration and undermine the common sense that putting people in cages and shackling them with electronic devices solves the problems produced by racial capitalism. As such, we aim to expand our ability to struggle against the ways in which the carceral state impacts our daily lives and to create a space where we can both imagine and remake our world anew.