Defund: Conversations Toward Abolition

Join author Calvin John Smiley and special guests, Marc Lamont Hill, Zellie Imani, and Olayemi Olurin for a conversation and celebration of the book Defund: Conversations Toward Abolition.

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The 2020 uprisings against police violence launched a nation conversation about defunding the police and prisons, propelling the #defund movement into the spotlight. The backlash has been swift, beating back efforts to reallocate public funds away from police and other punitive carceral systems and into social welfare programs that provide care, stability, and community.

But as Calvin John Smiley reveals through pointed conversations with academics, activists, and system-impacted individuals, #defund was always more than a brief moment; it is part of an ongoing struggle against white supremacy, capitalism, police state-sanctioned violence, and mass incarceration.

Buy a copy of defund: conversations toward abolition here: https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/...

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Speakers:

Calvin John Smiley is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Hunter College-City University of New York (CUNY). Smiley is the author of Purgatory Citizenship, published by University of California Press. His writing has appeared in the Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment, The Prison Journal, and Punishment & Society, and his research has been featured in the Washington Post, the Guardian, Toronto Star, and Le Monde. Outside of writing, Smiley works with incarcerated youth and young men in New York City. He lives in Queens, New York.

Marc Lamont Hill is one of the leading intellectual voices in the country. He is currently the host of BET News. An award-winning journalist, Dr. Hill has received numerous prestigious awards from the National Association of Black Journalists, GLAAD, and the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences. Dr. Hill is the Steve Charles Professor of Media, Cities, and Solutions at Temple University. Prior to that, he held positions at Columbia University and Morehouse College. He is the author of Nobody: Casualties of America's War on the Vulnerable, from Ferguson to Flint and Beyond, and We Still Here: Pandemic, Policing, Protest, and Possibility, and with Mitchell Plitnick, Except Palestine: The Limits of Progressive Politics. He is the owner of Uncle Bobbie's Bookstore in Philadelphia, PA.

Zellie Imani is a teacher, journalist, community organiz- er, cofounder of Black Lives Matter–Paterson (New Jersey), and cofounder of the Black Liberation Collective.

Olayemi Olurin is a lawyer, political commentator, and social media influencer who reports on issues related to the criminal legal system, both in New York City and across the United States.

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This event is sponsored by Haymarket Books. While all of our events are freely available, we ask that those who are able make a solidarity donation in support of our important publishing and programming work.