A Comparative Analysis of Historic and Contemporary Writing to Understand Abolition in the Present Day

Undoubtedly 2020 has cemented itself as one of the most historic years of the 21st century. This year ushered in a global pandemic that damaged the lives of millions, gave rise to an economic crisis that left numerous people unemployed and vulnerable, and it also experienced a global reckoning with racial justice, with the popularity of the Black Lives Matter movement reaching unprecedented levels in the wake of the unjust murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and countless other Black individuals whose lives were lost due to police brutality and systemic racism.

In the wake of such events, popular discourse has centered around the idea of abolition, and what that can look like in contemporary society. In this context, abolition can be defined as the demolition of anti-Black racism and its institutions that continue to harm Black people today, including generational poverty, predatory housing practices, and the prison industrial complex. The onus has been placed on Black Americans and their allies to break free of these oppressive establishments and reimagine a better future for themselves and their descendants.

In light of synthesizing these solutions, the old adage “To the privileged, equality seems like oppression,” seems to ring true. There have been calls to defund the police, abolish the prison system, as well as peaceful protests that occasionally escalated to violent riots. Each of these responses has been incredibly controversial, with many Americans taking offense to the notion that “all cops are bad,” believing that if prisons were abolished, then actual criminals would not receive the punishments they deserve, and harshly judging protestors for inciting violence, with some going as far as to treat rioters like terrorists. Academics in the field have tried to provide a contextual history as to why such riots would happen, including professor of African American Studies at Princeton University Keeanga Yamahtta-Taylor in an op-ed for the New York Times, but the acts themselves are still widely viewed as incredibly polarizing.

This criticism of the movement arrives in almost direct contradiction to its prominence. Major names and corporations have addressed Black Lives Matter, and support of the movement became so ubiquitous, it was almost a trend. For the American public to claim support for Black issues while simultaneously judging how Black people are imagining their own abolition to address these issues, creates a tension. It raises the question of how abolition is supposed to be conceived in the present day.

Further, Douglass’s condemnation of churches’ complicity in the continuation of slavery shares a common sentiment with an op-ed published in Essence magazine by Mariame Kaba and Andrea R. Ritchie entitled “We Want More Justice For Breonna Taylor Than The System That Killed Her Can Deliver.” Douglass describes in explicit detail how American churches bore witness to the grief and suffering of slaves and took no action. He ultimately concludes that, “They are contented to talk of the souls, caring little about the bodies of men; and thereby show that they care nothing for either.” (Douglass 3) In this line, Douglass expresses that he has completely given up hope that the church cares about the welfare of slaves, despite them supposedly praising an equal and just God, so slaves and abolitionists should not rely on them either.

Both Douglass and Kaba and Ritchie’s imaginings are radical for their respective times. Douglass is opening calling into question the ethics of the church as a devout Christian, while Kaba and Ritchie argue that we should not seek to arrest and persecute the officers that have taken Black lives, in favor of a justice framework rooted in reparations. But both of their arguments have merit, specifically with their calls to action. Douglass encourages abolitionists to, “. . .renew our sacred covenant against oppression; let us make a league against tyranny, and rally for the immediate and unconditional emancipation of our abused and perishing fellow countrymen.” (Douglass 3) While Kaba and Ritchie posit that, “Under a reparations framework Breonna’s family — and all of us — are also entitled to more than an individualized response to what is a systemic problem. We are entitled to immediate cessation of the actions that caused her death. . .” These are not the words of people who are thinking irrationally, who are unfairly trying to tear apart longstanding social systems. Rather they are conceptualizing how they understand Black pain and death, what causes it, who and what perpetuates it, and how it can ultimately be abolished.

Both Douglass and Brown condemn the nomination of leaders for parties that preach of platforms of peace but contribute to anti-Black violence, with Douglass condemning the nomination of General Zachary Taylor following the events of the Mexican-American War and Joe Biden and his running mate Kamala Harris’s contributions to the prison industrial complex. Douglass proposes a perspective that even those who represent the peaceful party can produce “[profane] and [blasphemous]” actors, and Brown builds upon this by advocating for the abolishment of both parties, even if one seems to be working in the interests of Black Americans.

Frederick Douglass was a revolutionary figure who did not abstain from use graphic language to convey his points of view. His writings in his newspaper The North Star present some of his thoughts on abolition and can be compared to the works of abolitionist writers of today. Through Douglass, one can conclude that the radical proposals of contemporary abolitionists are not so outlandish after all, if he was already bringing similar ideologies and practices to the conversation in the 1800s. What Douglass ultimately provides is the importance of engaging with these issues and discussions with a diachronic approach. As Yamahtta-Taylor does in her op-ed, contextualizing the history of anti-Black violence and understanding that Black leaders have been thinking about these topics for centuries, can undermine the notion that contemporary abolitionists are irrational and disproportionate in their responses to state sanctioned violence, and their conceptualizations of freedom may very well lay the groundwork for a safer, more inclusive America.