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Abstract One still unresolved aspect of North American colonization arises out of the mass expropriation of Indigenous peoples’ cultural expressions to European-settler institutions and their publics. Researchers, artists, entrepreneurs, missionaries, and many others worked in partnership with major universities, museums, corporations, foundations, and other Institutions to capture and exploit...

Abstract U.S. law allocates power to conduct foreign relations primarily to the federal government, but it is well known that states routinely maintain foreign relations of their own. Much of this activity appears to result in legal and political commitments, whether in the form of “sister state” agreements or binding pledges to cooperate on discrete issues such as investment, environmental...

Abstract When abolitionists discuss remedies for past and present injustices, they are frequently met with apparently pragmatic objections to the viability of such bold remedies in U.S. legislatures and courts held captive by reactionary forces. Previous movements have seen their lesser reforms dashed by the white supremacist capitalist order that retains its grip on power in America. While such...

Abstract Policing “disability in public” refers to the ways in which coerced compliance with norms for appearing, walking, talking, thinking, or otherwise existing, render disabled people more vulnerable to citation, arrests, or imprisonment even where such conduct is linked to, or caused by, disabilities. Disabled people have been suspected of criminal activity, arrested, jailed, and even killed...

Abstract Vice policing targets the consumption and commercialization of certain pleasures that have been criminalized in the United States—such as the purchase of narcotics and sexual services. One might assume that vice policing is concerned with eliminating these vices. However, in reality, this form of policing has not been centered on protecting and preserving the moral integrity of the...

About the Author Sandy Hudson is a recent graduate from UCLA Law where she specialized in Critical Race Theory. Sandy founded Black Lives Matter - Canada, and also co-founded the Black Legal Action Centre, a specialty legal aid clinic in Ontario, Canada. A multidisciplinary creative, Sandy also co-founded the Wildseed Centre for Art & Activism, co-hosts the Sandy & Nora Talk Politics...

Abstract During the coronavirus pandemic, movements for penal abolition and racial justice achieved dramatic growth and increased visibility. While much public discussion of abolition has centered on the call to divest from criminal law enforcement, contemporary abolitionists also understand public safety in terms of building new life-sustaining institutions and collective structures that improve...

Abstract Nashville, Tennessee was once heralded as a desegregation success story. Three decades after the United States Supreme Court’s seminal decision in Brown v. Board of Education, schools in Nashville were, in a statistical sense, desegregated. Since then, Nashville schools have returned to a far more segregated state, mirroring many cities across the United States where desegregation...

Abstract The COVID-19 death toll is staggering and has impacted the funeral industry more than any other event in recent memory. Funeral service providers have been on the frontlines of this pandemic doing the work of the dead—transporting, storing, and disposing our dead. They have performed a critical service during uncertain times. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, the funeral industry was...

Abstract From Uber to Home Depot to Starbucks, companies are increasingly asking customers to rate workers. Gathering data from these ratings, many firms utilize algorithms to make employment decisions. The proliferation of customer ratings raises the possibility that some customers may review workers negatively for racist, sexist, or other illegal reasons. Absent a legal framework to address...

Abstract The proliferation and use of technology by law enforcement is rooted in the hope that technological tools can improve policing. Improvement, however, is relative. Quantitative data and qualitative experience have proven the criminal legal system a site of racial injustice and rank brutality. Police are one of the principal instruments of those harms. For the communities who bear the...

Abstract The police killing of George Floyd added fuel to the simmering flames of racial injustice in America following a string of similarly violent executions during a global pandemic that disproportionately ravaged the health and economic security of Black families and communities. The confluence of these painful realities exposed deep vulnerabilities and renewed a reckoning with the long...

A Mother's Crown I wear my heart on my sleeve Being tugged by little hands So my heart may fall And be caught by the tiniest fingers I wear my crown proudly ButI never forget to adjust theirs Which sits upon their curly, soft hair Upholding their sovereign royalty When the days are darkest And the tears are falling freely Their voice brings me smiles and relief They don’t know they keep me strong...

Freedom Song Freedom is worth fighting for Dignity is worth dying for Hope is worth hunting for Your Soul is worth sacrificing for What’s right is worth rising up for Lighting up the night sky is the Moon’s favorite chore After half the world’s ignored her for too long She can’t wait to throw open the Sky’s door Poke her face out over the ocean Searching for someone to adore One Sun’s rise away...