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Captives combines a thrilling narrative account of Rikers Island's descent into infamy with a dramatic retelling of the last seventy years of New York and American politics from the vantage point of its jails. It is a story of a crowded field of contending powers-city bureaucrats and unions, black power activists and correction offices, crooked cops and elected leaders- struggle for the right to run our cities, a story that culminates in the triumph of of the twin figures we today call neoliberalism and mass incarceration. It is the history of how the Rikers Island of today-and the social order it represents-came to be. With a sweeping vision and an often cinematic touch, Captives records how the tempo of history was set by the metronome of bloody and bruising clashes between corrections officers and prisoners, and between police officers and virtually everyone else. Written by a one-time inmate, Captives draws on extensive archival research, decades of journalism, interviews, prisoner testimonials, and firsthand experience to deliver an urgent intervention into our nationwide conversation about the future of mass incarceration.
The definitive history of America’s most notorious jail and the violent rise of New York City’s law-and-order movement Captives combines a thrilling account of Rikers Island’s descent into infamy with a dramatic retelling of the last seventy years of New York politics from the vantage point of the city’s jails. It is the story of a crowded field of contending powers—city bureaucrats and unions, black power activists and guards, crooked cops and elected leaders—struggling for power and influence, a tale culminating in mass incarceration and the triumph of neoliberalism. It is a riveting chronicle of how the Rikers Island of today—and the social order it represents—came to be. ...
This Special Summer 2007 (vol. V) Issue of Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge includes the proceedings of the fourth annual Social Theory Forum (STF), held on March 27-28, 2007, at UMass Boston. The theme of the conference was “The Violences of Colonialism and Racism, Inner and Global: Conversations with Frantz Fanon on the Meaning of Human Emancipation.” The Social Theory Forum sought to revisit Fanon’s insightful joining of the micro and the macro—the everyday life and the increasingly global and world-historical—insights into critical social psychological and imaginative social analysis and theorizing in favor of innovative discourses on the meaning o...
A new collection of essays from the bomb-throwing intellectual who described the historical origins and evolution of whiteness and white supremacy, and taught us how we might destroy it. For sixty years, Noel Ignatiev provided an unflinching account of “whiteness”—a social fiction and an unmitigated disaster for all working-class people. This new essay collection from the late firebrand covers the breadth of his life and insights as an autodidact steel worker, a groundbreaking theoretician, and a bitter enemy of racists everywhere. In these essays, Ignatiev confronts the Weather Underground and recounts which strategies proved most effective to winning white workers in Gary, Indiana, t...
What’s the relationship between combating the far right and working for systemic change? What does it mean when fascists intensify racial oppression and patriarchy but also call for the downfall of economic elites or even take up arms against the state? Three way fight politics confront these urgent questions squarely, arguing that the far right grows out of an oppressive capitalist order but is also in conflict with it in real ways, and that radicals need to combat both. The three way fight approach says we need sharper analysis of far-right movements so we can fight them more effectively, and we also need to track ongoing developments within the ruling class, including liberal or centris...
A unique insider perspective of daily life in New York City’s most notorious house of correction While most people behind bars at Rikers Island are detainees awaiting the settlement of their cases, a smaller population have already been convicted and are serving sentences deemed too short for the state prison system. These stints are called “city time.” The sentences range from a few days to a year, and are generally served within large, open dormitories lacking in privacy and sanitation. Within these spaces, incarcerated people reproduce an elaborate set of rules, rituals, and relationships, as a means both of survival and of giving meaning to the time taken from them. Written by Davi...
Public History for a Post-Truth Era explores how to combat historical denial when faith in facts is at an all-time low. Moving beyond memorial museums or documentaries, the book shares on-the-ground stories of participatory public memory movements that brought people together to grapple with the deep roots and current truths of human rights abuses. It gives an inside look at "Sites of Conscience" around the world, and the memory activists unearthing their hidden histories, from the Soviet Gulag to the slave trade in Senegal. It then follows hundreds of people joining forces across dozens of US cities to fight denial of Guantánamo, mass incarceration, and climate change. As reparations proposals proliferate in the US, the book is a resource for anyone seeking to confront historical injustices and redress their harms. Written in accessible, non-academic language, it will appeal to students, educators, or supportive citizens interested in public history, museums, or movement organizing.
A crucial book for our current moment, uncovering the history of mass incarceration in the United States and engaging with the major challenges of contemporary prison and police abolition activism. Inspired by the George Floyd Rebellion, States of Incarceration examines the ongoing reconfiguration of mass incarceration as crucial for understanding how race, class, and punishment shape America today. The rise of mass incarceration has coincided with massive disinvestment in working-class communities, particularly communities of color, and a commitment to criminalize poverty, addiction, and interpersonal violence. As Jarrod Shanahan and Zhandarka Kurti argue, the present is a moment of transition and potential reform of incarceration and, by extension, the American justice system. States of Incarceration provides insights into the rise of mass incarceration and its recent history while focusing on the needs of campaigners struggling with the issues of police and prison abolition, as well as the challenges that lie ahead. It is essential reading for anyone concerned with these questions.
As poor and working people organized themselves on the job, in the streets, and at the polls during the mid-twentieth century, they forced Republicans to reckon with new demands for political and social citizenship in big cities across the Northeast, Midwest, and Pacific Coast. While rightwing Republicans mobilized to crush those movements, Making Republicans Liberal explores how another wing of the party responded to intensifying mass movement pressure. Beginning in the 1930s, Republican governors such as Earl Warren of California, George Romney of Michigan, and Nelson Rockefeller of New York spent the next four decades articulating their own vision of liberalism. These Republican liberals ...
A prize-winning historian details his intellectual and political evolution Written by the author of the landmark book The Wages of Whiteness and one of the key figures in the critical study of race and racism in America, An Ordinary White is the life story of the historian and radical American writer, David Roediger. With wry wit and keen observation, Roediger chronicles his intellectual and political evolution from growing up in his southern Midwest sundown town to becoming a leading figure in working-class history and Whiteness studies. A latecomer to the New Left, a longtime figure in the Chicago Surrealist Group, and part of the collective reviving of the Charles Kerr Company—the world...