"In March 11th, the World Health Organization announced that the CoronaVirus, COVID-19, is a global pandemic. With this news it is easy and also legitimate for us to feel stress, concern, and even fear. As Indigenous Peoples whose ancestors were intentionally exposed to viruses, this moment can also feel triggering and bring up ancestral trauma and even distrust and disbelief. What’s more, is that we live in a toxic individualistic society, a symptom of colonization and capitalism, wherein the status quo has lost its concern for the collective."
"As COVID-19 sweeps across the United States, Donald Trump has sought to convert his immigration policies into a public health response. “We need the Wall now more than ever!” the president wrote on Twitter last week in reply to a tweet from conservative activist Charlie Kirk that said “With China Virus spreading across the globe, the US stands a chance if we can [get] control of our borders.” Trump has repeatedly referred to the coronavirus as the “Chinese virus“ or “foreign virus,” at once fueling trade wars with China and seeking to deflect blame from his administration’s fumbled response to the deadly pandemic.
Trump’s call for a border wall flies in the face of advice from public health officials, who say that the virus is likely now beyond containment. In his pronouncements, he displays the illogic of health nativism—an attempt to keep out that which is already inside, put borders around a problem that is borderless, and shore up an illusion of safety by projecting the origin of the problem as always somewhere else." - HEALTH NATIVISM ON DISSENT MAGAZINE [CLICK]
How should abolitionists respond to the coronavirus pandemic?
How can we achieve urgently needed decarceration for the millions of people caged in jails, prisons, and immigration detention centers?
Abolitionism doesn’t just say no to police, prisons, border control, and the current punishment system. It requires persistent organizing for what we need, organizing that’s already present in the efforts people cobble together to achieve access to schools, health care and housing, art and meaningful work, and freedom from violence and want.