Our team at the National Initiative on Mixed-Income Communities recently gathered for a three-day retreat as a culminating event in our 10 th anniversary year of reflection, recommitment and reimagining. As we contemplated the emerging fruits of the past year, one important new commitment is a fuller embrace of an abolitionist mindset, alongside the reformist mindset that dominated our approach in our first decade.
My own understanding and embrace of an abolitionist mindset is still emerging, but I was truly energized by the opportunity to reach a new threshold confidence in my commitment to center abolition as part of the change continuum.
So, why “abolitionism”?
First and foremost, I personally, my African American community, and our nation as a whole, owe a debt to those brave abolitionists who named slavery as an evil that should be eradicated from human existence. Given the weight of ending legalized human bondage in America, we must take care with any modern-day usage of the term while being inspired to our own courageous acts to address existing social realities that must also be eradicated. I personally feel called and ready to step into that courage, now more than ever.
Second, if we define abolitionism as confronting social injustices that should have no place in human existence, then I realized that, in some, often small, ways, I have been a budding abolitionist all along. For two decades, my colleagues and I have been on a mission to eradicate mixed-income redevelopment efforts that fail to center legacy residents of public housing as the priority beneficiaries of multimillion-dollar investments. Sadly, as a field, we still have a long way to go in this quest.
And third, while I may have been practicing some degree of abolition without naming and claiming it, there is a far more consequential level of abolitionism that lays ahead in my antiracism journey. Beyond naming the social realities we strive to make better – ‘towards urban equity and inclusion’ has been our NIMC mantra – what can we name much more clearly that we seek to eradicate? What mindsets, actions, practices, policies, and institutional structures have no place in a world where every child, regardless of social identity and location, has a full shot at living their fullest lives? What if we were far more vocal on an everyday basis, about the social realities that must be ended – not just the things we hope to improve?
Specificity and care in naming what we are aiming to abolish is key. I now understand more clearly how calls to “abolish the police” would have been so much more effective and lasting if framed as calls to abolish police brutality, abolish police corruption, and abolish racism in police departments. Abolish the practice of police being tasked with meeting the care needs of a community, like mental health crises, for which they are ill-equipped. Abolish underinvestment in alternative, community-driven, restorative means of maintaining public safety. Abolish ignorance that the roots of our modern day police forces are the slave patrols of the 1700s. Calls to abolish the police were provocative and cathartic, and some activists meant it very literally, but these calls quickly lost their validity in the face of very real safety concerns and fear of crime felt by those of all races and ethnicities.
And so I am committing, as a newly avowed abolitionist, to not just work for reform of those practices and policies which could feasibly be made more just in the short term, but also to name and work to eliminate injustices that must be completely abolished, at some point in our history, if we are to achieve a sustainable future for humanity.
Mark
P.S. We are living through tumultuous times and we have the privilege that our impact research center has an exclusive focus on bridging, healing and community building across lines of race, class and other social divides. Our years of research, experience and time-tested approaches at the National Initiative on Mixed-Income Communities are needed now more than ever.
We recently celebrated our 11th anniversary, culminating a full year of reflection, recommitment and reimagining activities for the transition from our first decade to our second. We have resolved to sharpen our focus on "transformative interdependence" as a pathway to racial healing and collective liberation. We believe we all ultimately rise or fall as a society together. And our center has the expertise and tools to foster interdependence in partnerships from the neighborhood level to boardrooms to policy tables. In our second decade, we will be broadening our reach well beyond the housing and community development sector into realms such as arts and culture, youth development, education, health, and environmental justice, wherever we can find transformative leaders laser-focused on bridging social divides.
To celebrate our first decade and launch our second, we have a special fundraising campaign underway to raise $100,000. We have already raised $46,000 towards this goal. As you make end-of-year personal and organizational contributions to advance causes important to you, we would be grateful for your consideration of a donation to jumpstart our second decade of impact. And we would appreciate it if you shared our information with friends and colleagues who would be interested in learning about the work and products of our center.
Please see reflections on our first decade achievements and second decade aspirations.
With deep gratitude for your support.