what is our abolitionist bookclub? we are new and are trying to build a community of people that come together to share, celebrate and learn through reading abolitionist texts. we will be reading one book per month with biweekly meetings. we hope to create a space that allows for joy within the bleak reality that we reside, in deconstructing the creation of modernity. by reading, we can find understanding of the world, but to keep that understanding alive we have to share it with eachother. we want to use learning as a form of organizing while also sharing our individual organizing efforts to create a stronger community network. we believe in a free palestine, an end to all prisons and police and liberation for all oppressed people.
abolitionism defined: systems that produce racial inequality operate using prisons and police, and those systems exist to allow capitalism to persist.
Historically,the needs of those who benefit from the current economic system, have shaped and developed punishment in society
current reading
One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad
past reading
- Joyful Militancy
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(anna's archive)
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a philosophical and emotional overview of weeds and brambles that can pop up in movement spaces. It is filled with advice and ideas about how to clear those out and grow true connection and strength in the heart of those spaces. It puts forward the idea of "rigid radicalism" as the desire to control or not be affected by what's around us, which exists as a tendency that, unfortunately, (repeatedly) appears in movement spaces, spaces which are supposed to be built around changing the world.
- Detroit: I Do Mind Dying by Dan Georgakas and Marvin Surkin at haymarket books website
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this is a study of the conditions under which Black auto workers in Detroit, 1960s, lived, struggled, and succeeded to build an anti-capitalist, interracial movement of workers under repression from both segregationist Manufacturng corporations and the pro-white UAW. This work by Dan Georgakas is both highly regarded and concise. It's published by haymarket press.
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"in defense of looting" by vicky osterweil
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"are prisons obsolete" by angela davis
information
supporting texts for "joyful militancy"
supporting texts for "in defense of looting"
gentrification, police, and crime: comparative reading
possible future readings
- the millenial marxist
- wages for housework
- tip of the spear
- Abolish Rent - Tracy Rosenthal and Leonardo Vilchis
- The Politics of Resentment - Katherine Cramer
- Pedagogy of The Oppressed - Paulo Freire
- TBD - Angela Davis
- TBD - Octavia Butler
- Caste: The Origins of our Discontents - Isabel Wilkerson
- The Solutions are Already Here: Strategies for Eco. Revolution - Peter Gelderoos
sources for books
- A Room Of One's Own Bookstore - generously hosts and offers a 10 percent discount on all selected readings!
- the library
- the anarchist library (online)
- libby, hoopla
schedule
- January 11th 1PM-3PM - One Day Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad FIRST DISCUSSION
- January 25th 1PM-3PM - One Day Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad SECOND DISCUSSION
February - Work Won't Love You Back by Sarah Jaffe
March - Family Abolition by M. E. O'Brien
location
A Room Of One's Own Bookstore
contact
email link
reading group poll 9/8/25
reading group poll october
