Justin C. Mueller

Tag: Racism

  • Categorical and Dialectical Abolitionism

    We need to have a difficult conversation about prison abolitionist responses to police violence. Many abolitionists have responded to the Chauvin conviction by opposing any calls to imprison or punish him. This response is something I find politically and ethically unconvincing.

    Yes, prisons are a nightmare and the bane of a just society. Yes, they eviscerate social relations and exacerbate structural violence, foreclose futures, and denigrate human dignity, and in the U.S do so in service of a larger system of white supremacy. Yes, retribution is a shallow conception of justice that fails to mend wrongs. And yet, what is to be done — right now — with your Derek Chauvins, your Darren Wilsons, your Daniel Pantaleos?

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  • The Violence of Demanding “Peaceful” Protest

    In the wake of the murder of George Floyd, a Black man, by the Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, dozens of U.S. cities have be rocked with unrest, ranging from small protests to open rebellion and riots. In watching coverage of the protests over the last week, several predictable issues and themes have emerged in how these protests are being framed by city and state leaders, police, and mainstream media outlets. I think that those of us who are committed to anti-racist politics need to directly grapple with some of these frames if we are going to shift how our collective efforts to challenge racism and injustice are understood going forward, for the wider public and for ourselves:

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