How not to think like a cop, with Naomi Murakawa

Hello from Jay’s backyard Easter egg hunt!

It’s just Andy and Tammy this week, with special guest Naomi Murakawa, a professor of African American Studies at Princeton and the author of The First Civil Right: How Liberals Built Prison America.

Naomi talks with us about her J-A roots in Oakland, how her dad’s career in the criminal-legal system got her thinking about carceral politics, why police reform has long been a trap, and the history of hate crimes legislation in the US. She shares her observations on Black Lives Matter, the emergence of abolitionist thinking, and the discourse around “anti-Asian violence.”

What can crime statistics tell us about the world? How do we stop ourselves from thinking like cops? Which groups are pushing Asian America in a more punitive direction? And how should “Asian American history 101” inform our analyses of recent violence?

“The we-ness is something we make through struggle.”

Naomi shouts out:

– Mariame Kaba’s new book, We Do This ’Til We Free Us (foreword by Naomi; and check out the rest of the abolitionist series Naomi curates for Haymarket)

– Victoria Law’s new book, “Prisons Make Us Safer” and 20 Other Myths about Mass Incarceration

– Christina B. Hanhardt’s Safe Space: Gay Neighborhood History and the Politics of Violence

– Chandan Reddy’s Freedom With Violence: Race, Sexuality, and the US State

– Stuart Hall’s Policing the Crisis: Mugging, the State, and Law and Order

– The work of Dylan Rodriguez and Ruth Wilson Gilmore

– The abolitionist organizing of Incite!, AAAJ-Atlanta, and Red Canary Song and allies

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