Former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick calls for abolishing policing and prisons, which he deems “unjust systems,” in a new series of essays to be published over the next four weeks.
The series, “Abolition for the People: The Movement for a Future Without Policing & Prisons,” is a 30 part collaboration between Kaepernick Publishing and LEVEL, a higher learning Medium publication geared towards minority men, Kaepernick wrote. Kaepernick wrote the first essay, “The Demand for Abolition,” which was published on Sept. 6.
The series will include stories from political prisoners, movement leaders, grassroots organizers, and “those affected by anti-Black state violence and terrorism,” Kaepernick wrote. “Each week will bring a collection centered around a different theme: police and policing, prisons and carcerality, fuck reform, and abolition now.”
Kaepernick started protesting during “The Star-Spangled Banner” four years ago, because “something was not right,” he wrote.
“I saw little to no accountability for police officers who had murdered them. It is not a matter of bad apples spoiling the bunch but interlocking systems that are rotten to their core,” Kaepernick wrote. “And systemic problems demand systemic solutions.”
Kaepernick wrote that “reactionary justice” such as advocating for reform is merely an “acceptable” way of “enacting death and violence on oppressed peoples,” and that they are mainstream responses often “couched in campaigns.” These conventional demands leave people “disheartened, disjointed, and disillusioned,” Kaepernick wrote.
“Despite the steady cascade of anti-Black violence across this country, I am hopeful we can build a future that imagines justice differently. A future without the terror of policing and prisons,” Kaepernick wrote. “A future that prioritizes harm reduction, redemption, and public well-being in order to create a more just and humane world.”
Kaepernick wrote that he hopes readers learn about the “white supremacist” foundations of policing and prisons, that police reform legitimized policing, and that abolition will lead to societal investments in the individual.
He wrote that readers will “be forced to make a moral choice” at the conclusion of the series by answering, “will you continue to be actively complicit in the perpetuation of these systems, or will you take action to dismantle them for the benefit of a just future?”
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