Alex Mell-Taylor, coeditor and founder of After the Storm Magazine, a futurist publication that tries to tell post-capitalist stories that imagine a better future, conducts an interview about justice and community accountability post the police.
They interview Sela Lewis (she/her), a co-chair for the Metro DC chapters Defund working group/campaign, who joined the DSA in 2020 and has been directly involved with defund work ever since. Imara Crooms (he/they), is an organizer an activist, and a hopeful or aspiring abolitionist. Defund pulled them into DSA, and they are a current steering member of the Metro DC chapter of DSA. Queen Adesuyi (she/they) is a steering committee lead for the Decrim Poverty campaign, formerly a senior manager for national policy at the Drug Policy Alliance, and currently at Color of Change. They are also a local advocate and policy strategist.
The conversation was edited lightly for syntax and readability.
Alex
Thank you all. So we're going to start with sort of our first broad question. Before we imagine the future, what do you think are some of the problems with modern-day policing?
Sela
One of the things I think is a problem with policing is just over-policing, like the concept that we need to have police and grocery stores. The concept that we need to have police in our public schools. The concept that we need to have police on our public transit. The idea that every aspect of our lives and somebody with a badge and a gun or some ability to assault us and calling it safety. We have grossly normalized this....the idea that if you only have a hammer, everything is a nail. We apply policing to every aspect of our lives and that make no sense. I just came from the airport, I see the police. I was just updating my smart trip card on my phone, and it said I could call the police. I'm like, why would I need the police at this point? So we have this big problem.
And then another big problem is that because we pay for them with our taxes, we see them as a social good. So, we see them as a site of safety. It's something we all pool our money into through our taxes. And to extract that and say, well, what if we didn't have that? As a society, we're not having a societal-level conversation about what we share with our resources. To many, police represent safety. And so it's undoing all those myths in people's minds.
Those are the two things that really stick out to me, and I want to leave it to Queen and Imara to jump in here.
Queen
…One of the major problems with modern policing is the fact that it's an extension of a racist, oppressive system that was never meant to support or embrace the livelihood of all people, namely people of African descent. The system was not designed to provide safety or justice, despite how its been socialized. The reality is that the policing system has been operationalized to support and defend property, profit, capitalism, and the ruling class – all on the backs of the most marginalized people.
Our culture has been socialized to normalize punishment and policing – conflating it with justice – to the point where people are no longer able to see the systemic neglect that is at the root of so many social and economic issues that folks rely on the police to address. Namely, I would say policing has completely co-opted responsibility from other systems that are needed to improve our collective conditions. So, I think immediately about how policing is at the forefront of people's minds when it comes to addressing drug use and sale, when it comes to informal economies like sex work, when it comes to disappearing (not helping) unhoused folks, etc. It's really a tool for people with economic power and other social powers to be able to basically disappear people and issues without actually really getting to the root of [them]. So I see the biggest problem with policing being its inherent harm to people, to marginalized people, but also one of the biggest harms I see is the hole that it's covering, the hole in our society that it's covering related to the social, health and economic disparities that we are plaguing our communities.
Imara
I think that these are two people that I agree with pretty heavily, so I don't have a ton to add, but I really loved how that was said. Like, at its core, the problem with cops is that their purpose is problematic and bad. Cops don't exist to help people. They exist to keep us in order. And they end up serving as an integral part of a larger system to disenfranchise, harm and control the underclass. The nature of policing in the States sort of suggests that Americans are uniquely dangerous and violent people. If one were to look at where we spend our money and compare it to anywhere else in the world, it's just insane how much of our wealth goes to keeping our people in line and doing harm to them.
Beyond that, I think cops are also envisioned by Americans as the frontline of justice in America, and I wish I could emphasize my air quotes there. The justice we know through policing: if cops are the vision of justice, then justice is fundamentally unequal in America. We have two parallel justice systems, beginning with the cops. And yeah, I think that's sort of the underpinning of what is core to cops being awful.
Sela
These are all just incredible thoughts. But there's a thought that I want to leave here as well, that I also realize that we don't talk about austerity a whole lot when we're talking about policing. But when I started to actually look at our city budget, and I started to understand what austerity measures and austerity politics do to so many great American cities is that we sort of drop all of the programs that people actually need and rely on, like public libraries and other mental health services and even public transit. And then when people start to suffer under those conditions and have to resort to acts that we've decided as a society are criminal—whether or not they actually are causing harm, we decide they are criminal—then we throw police at that problem. So, austerity ultimately leads to over-policing. It's not like the money is coming from nowhere. Like the money is there, it's just we put all of it into police, and then we don't fund all the other things that people know and have repeatedly articulated what actually keeps them safe.
Alex
We sort of started defining the problem. And it's a big problem, as all of you said. I want to take the rest of the interview to imagine what it looks like to have a US society that attempts to tackle this problem. So imagine a society which is not this one, [but instead one] that is taking this problem seriously. It is taking the issues of restorative justice and community accountability seriously. What would you think that world would look like?
Imara
Wow, it’s hard to envision that, in part because of how different it is from the world we currently live in. I think probably the first thing I would have to imagine is that people have their basic needs met. Much of what we imagine as criminality is a reaction to or a response to desperation. And so a world sans policing, sans over-policing, would be fundamentally a world in which people have their basic needs met. A world where childcare is provided for people, a world where, you know, folks aren't reliant on their employer for health care. I think that's my starting point. Above all else, we would have our basics just covered so that we wouldn't be put in these positions of desperation that bring us into conflict.
Queen
And if I can add to that, in addition to having basic needs met, we'd have more tools in our toolbox when it comes to addressing conflict and also addressing and mediating trauma. Unfortunately, we live in a society that's extremely traumatizing on the individual and systemic level. We continue as a society, as a people, to ignore and suppress, which is terrible for you on an individual level, but on a societal level as well. If we don't have systems of care to address individual harm and systemic harms when it comes to conflict, when it comes to trauma, we're going to continue to see the world that we currently live in. And it will be harder to continue to dream up the world that we all collectively want.
So, in addition to having basic needs, to me, this world would also have a way to actually address harm when it happens - that is the work. People who are fundamentally opposed to the idea of abolition live in this idea that people dreaming up a world without police live in a fantasy land that does not account for conflict. A world without police absolutely includes robust mechanisms of accountability, restorative justice, compassion, and love. We can do that. We need way more tools in our accountability and justice toolbox; for generations, we collectively have been socialized to understand our main tools to be police and cages.
Sela
That is exactly my point as well, Queen. We keep being forced into an intellectual legislative conversation, but this is a moral one, and it's a deeply moral one about how we treat someone who has harmed us. Do we show grace and compassion, or do we become punitive? And I'm afraid, too often, we lean heavily into the idea of zero tolerance. We lean heavily into the ideas of tough love and we don't actually know what it means to govern with grace and compassion. It's very easy to pin some feckless liberal into being called soft on crime. Instead of saying, “Hey, what about compassion? We can't jail our way out of this problem.” And having that willingness to stand up for true love and govern on that, that is where I think we need to go. It is making it okay to say, “It is immoral to jail over a million people. It is immoral to lock up a teenager in solitary confinement for 23 hours.“...What does it take for a society to… manage and govern when there's conflict? Because that's still part of our human nature? How do we then lead with a less…punitive approach?
Queen
And I don't say that lightly. Agreeing with Sela. I'm a survivor of child sexual violence and I dream of this world consistently with other survivors of violent crimes. I believe it's often an easier conversation when we talk about crimes of poverty, especially offenses that are considered “non-violent.” But for those of us who are survivors of different kinds of violence, there's so many of us who are deeply understand that our current system is far from just – even for victims. This is work actively happening within organizations like Mirror Memoirs. We are trying to build up this world that we want to live in, that includes us, and the things that we have survived and the people who have perpetrated that violence - who often times have experienced violence themselves. It is difficult work. And it still does not include our horrifyingly, inhumane carceral system.
Sela
I share that sentiment as well. I mean, I, too, have dealt with a simple assault where someone threw coffee at me. And meeting the cops at that moment, and still coming out to the side of it asking, "well, where was the restoration?” Like, I didn't want that guy thrown in jail forever. Very often, having a victim-oriented kind of justice is a very new concept. But best believe there are a number of people who are organizing around this, who they themselves have experienced some pretty heinous crimes, but still come to the other side and say, but there has to be a better way of going about this.
Alex
I want to zoom in on the community of care, Queen, that you were talking about. First of all, thank you so much for sharing that. So what does that community of care look like in this sort of future that we're building? Obviously, it's a hypothetical situation that doesn't necessarily exist, but how would you imagine it would look like without this barrier of policing?
Sela
I’m going to use my example because I do believe, as a democratic socialist and a Midwesterner born and raised in Milwaukee, that the state plays a role in our lives. That there are things that we simply cannot do on our own and that we have to rely on when we're talking about hundreds of millions of people. We're talking about large municipalities.
We need state interventions. And my most recent example is with my mother, who is aging. And she fell alone in her home. And she is now in what is essentially a nursing home. She expressed that she had been assaulted, sexually assaulted by a staff member there, someone who's supposed to be a medical professional. And she called the police. The police did not write down anything. They did not follow up even with an investigation. They didn't give her a case number. They didn't do anything. They're not seemingly not doing anything about this at all. So they're not helping.
But in the wake of that, if she's harmed, there's no accountability because we have privatized elder care. We have privatized medicine. We have privatized care for our seniors. So there's little recourse that we have as a sort of transparent way through any public sphere to find out what happened to her. I need a professional nurse to care for my mother. I am not a social worker. I study graphic design. I cannot care for her. I cannot pick her up if she falls. We need people like this in society. And so we need to have that in some sort of state apparatus.
And what really angers me about the police is that they delegitimize the state because they become the fist of the state. So when people actually have to rely on the state, they are doubtful of needing help from it or even of asking for help, even when we literally need that to care for one another. So, there are communities of care in which we can develop trust and understanding among one another. We can have mediation. But when we're thinking of the scale of a society, we need the state to play a role in our lives and not put so much into policing that it delegitimizes it.
Queen
It’s so hard to dream sometimes because if we're coming from the status quo, there's just so much wrong and so much change that needs to happen. But just to add to what Sela mentioned, I would say sitting in a space of abundance and recognizing that we have what we need to take care of ourselves as a society. We need to actually prioritize individuals over systems of profit. We need to prioritize quality services that people need across the board, from childhood to folks who are aging.
Just speaking about folks who deem themselves as pro-life and do not understand that life does not just start when folks are born, it really is throughout a person's human life. And if we really care about life, we should be investing in services that help mitigate harms and improve people's quality of life. We often are operating from a place of survival where we aren't even able to really maximize what it means to improve the quality of our lives. People are often forced to live in subpar conditions just because it benefits a minority of people.
If it's a fresh start, ideally, people would have what they need from the get-go, and we'd have systems in place to address issues related to conflict, issues related to accountability, and issues related to repair. So we can just operate as a society in ways that we have for eons prior to the way colonization has really disrupted the world.
If, again, if this world we’re dreaming up is post this current world, it's not a real world, but post this world, it would be things like child care. It would be things like mental health care. It would be things like having access to doulas and birthing rights. It would be a world where queer and trans beings did not have to fear for their lives, but could just be free. It would be a world where people have housing, nutritious food, access to education, health care, and all other basic or essential needs met. It would be a world with a safe drug supply and proper drug education that prioritizes health and safety over stigma and misinformation.. It would be a world where people who may need help can readily access that help, and there is a system to follow through on that help. If we are dreaming, we wouldn't be building systems of care to help us survive capitalism. We would just be surviving in a more socialized world that inherently cares about our lives, which would have to understand and recognize how this working culture that we have does not work for everyone.
Imara
I was just going to say, and I want to preface this by stating, that I am personally an institutionalist. I believe in the state and the state's two-way responsibility to its people. That being said, I love this subject because I actually don't see it as purely a vision of imagination. Spaces like this do exist currently and have existed in the past. I see reflections of this in mutual aid, reflections of this in communities of care and cooperatives and peer support driven by us rather than outsiders, you know, and reflections of this in communities where the public makes choices.
There are so many examples, even in DC, that when questions are put to the public, the right choices get made. Like, look at Initiative 82, that would not have happened if we depended on our elected officials to make that choice. When you put that question up before the public, the public chooses each other, and that is so contrary to what people envision, like people who feel like we need to be governed or we need to be watched over by cops to force us to do right. I think it's a really great example that in our hearts, people want to help each other and that sometimes, our institutions get in the way of that.
Alex
I want to ask a clarifying question because it sounds like usually when people talk about institutions in a capitalist context, they're talking about very stuffy, extractive institutions that are ultimately harming communities. But Imara, if I hear you correctly, it sounds like the institutions that you're looking to build are ones that involve the public more directly and maybe are a little bit more democratic.
Imara
Absolutely. I mean, I think there's a whole lot to unpack there. I don't want to go on super long about it, but I don't think the state has to exist just to do harm. And I think that sometimes envisioning it in that way sort of limits our ability to use the state, which ultimately is meant to serve us to do good. There are all these sorts of trite statements about democracy being not ideal but the best we've got. But, you know, democracy is pretty good when people have the space to choose and are separated from the traditional desperation that comes with capitalism. People choose to help each other. And I think that's really important. I think that's what's important to sort of highlight and to note. And because it's a really stark contrast with the vision Americans are usually presented.
Sela
I want to reinforce what Imara is saying when it comes to residents and what we do here in DC. So I attended a public budget forum back in February. They gave us one of those survey apps that ask for one of their favorite things that they love about DC, one of their favorite government services that they love, and what it represented to everyone. Nearly every ward was represented in this room, and people said they loved the parks and recreation. They loved the public library. They even loved the idea of a free public bus, which was on the table at the time.
And then it got to the question of what they’d like less of. And it was shocking, less cops, less cops, less cops. I was blown away because it wasn't like a bunch of people with “defund the police” on their shirts. It blew my mind how many people didn't want cops in that room. When people actually sat down and then started going through the budget exercise, so many people stood up and said they wanted affordable housing, access to healthy human services, mental health care, public libraries, public schools, and then invariably public safety and justice was third or fourth on the list. It wasn't generally where people were going oftentimes.
So, to that point, if we are building this better future, we have to trust our other neighbors and community members to meet us where we are, too, because we do see the things in our society that are benefiting us. And we do have a cross-cultural, cross-racial, multiracial, multi-generational experience with the police that isn't great, and that is a world that we can then continue to build on. Even if we are in survival mode, we can find ways to care for one and say, “but hey, we are getting good stuff out of that, right? Yeah, let's just keep building that.”
Alex
So I know all of you touched on this briefly, but it sounds like this is not just policies. It's a moral difference in how you see people and human nature where building a community of care relies on trusting other people. If I'm hearing all of you correctly, that is radically different from the present.
Queen
I did want to add that, you know, this future that we're speaking about has to have a radical transformation. I pull from all that I have learned from Deborah Peterson-Small when I say that our current society over invests in punishment equating to safety and justice. And again, punishment may feel good to a certain extent, depending on the circumstance, but punishment doesn't actually provide any material safety.
It's literally about vengeance. And again, there are so many examples where vengeance feels good, but it's not actually helpful for us as a society. That does not necessarily equate to justice. I think part of this is also cultural. Having a cultural redefining of what accountability actually looks like in this world that we're building, where it does not just rely on punishment without actually acknowledging the sacred nature of every human being despite the worst things that they've done. So. It's a mix of what we're prioritizing as a society on the policy level, on the budget level, but also culturally how we interact with each other even when we're not on the same terms, or even if we're in a dynamic that includes harm.
Alex
Thank you, Queen. I want to transition a little bit. We've talked about the harm of policing. We've talked about how this world would be radically different in a post-police world. Over the next five years, what would you say to our readers if they wanted to get involved, if they wanted to engage in this issue and work towards this world, what should they do? And anyone is free to jump in.
Imara
I think one of the most valuable lessons I had from organizing with folks past and present is that you've got to be ready to tackle this challenge on all on all levels. The mission of defunding the cops. The mission of investing in our community is one that will take success electorally, but it will also take direct action on the ground. It's one that will take working with our communities to help them recognize the value of each other. So many different types of people are necessary in these spaces. And I think that that's sort of a first step in figuring out what's next, identifying the people who are your comrades on this subject and working together to identify all the different ways that you can sort of collaborate to continue to put pressure on this issue.
Sela
One thing I hear a lot of is “we may not see this in our lifetime, but" and I really question that. I'm now in my fourth decade of life, and I've seen a lot. I have to always remind our comrades that we're running from language like, “defund the police.” But I remember when activists, from ACT UP would take to the streets saying “Silence Is Death.” We have PREP now to take because of that level of militancy that was done in the late ‘80s and ‘90s. You may see this in your lifetime. Are you ready for the blessing? Are you ready?
I would challenge them not to take any of the gains for granted and to keep fighting because freedom is a constant struggle, but you also have to take joy in what you gain because of how hard it was. Revel in it and rejoice in it because you may see it in your lifetime. We have gained a lot of ground on this front. The defund movement isn't really dead, it's just been keeping the fire stoked. When we go to community meetings, there's more support for Narcan than there is for the cops. So there is momentum here. We just have to recognize that we could see this in our lifetimes and just rejoice in it. But know that the fight is always there because you're in a constant struggle with people who have power, but just know that it's worth it to enjoy it.
Imara
For fear of talking too much on this, that speaks directly to my heart. Just last night, I was out talking with some of my comrades about this, and one of the things that's really wild for me, a 40-something-year-old socialist is that I remember the days when marriage equality back then was completely infeasible. I remember the days when I used to laugh at my friends who would talk about how one day weed would be legalized. And now, those things just happened, right? I'm not saying that I don't have any unrealistic, beliefs that this is all going to change tomorrow, but who knows? And I think that one of the things that is really valuable is to keep in mind that there is the possibility, so long as we keep it, we keep that fight going.
Alex
What would you say are things that people should watch out for when sort of jumping into this fight? Sela, you talked a little bit about, I don't want to call it pessimism, but being dismissive about gains that can happen and about preparing yourself for jumping in when the moment strikes. What other things should people watch out for?
Imara
I love this question. This is one of the things that really stood out to me, and when I was recently at DSA's National convention, I had a lot of great chats about this subject. One of the things that can be really hard about defund organizing is the constant conflict with like neoliberal individualism and identitarianism.
This idea that like, “All we need are our Black faces in the right places.” Eric Adams is not going to save us on this subject. Muriel Bowser is not going to save us on this subject. I think that it's super important to be hyper-aware of the relevance of race, of class, of gender in this fight. And yet, at the same time, you find allies where you find them, and you bring them in. I remember seeing race and gender and class weaponized by those who are anti defund constantly. I remember in the early days of the 2020 protests when they were at their most fiery, seeing folks on the news claim,” oh, all these white protesters.” As if that was somehow discrediting something that we've known for decades has been a disaster, cops murdering Black people. Like somehow, they manage time and time again to weaponize this against the entirety of not only this movement but all forward-leaning movements.
Queen
This will differ from community to community, but I believe that we have to lead with the heart of what our movements are asking for and not get caught up in the right’s attempt to villainize one aspect of our social movement. Between social media, virality, and clever ways that opposition continue to mischaracterize social movements like defund, it is easy to get lost in jargon and slogans. Whether you call it defunding or reinvesting or simply focusing on the things that we do need funding for, I think it's important to really sharpen our ability to bring persuadable people in our communities to the table as we reimagine public safety and justice together.
But I think oftentimes, even though defunding the police is really the floor (shout out to Mariame Kaba), folks get hung up and stuck on identifying the movement or our efforts as “defund the police”, which oftentimes loses people who are there with you on the fact that the police are useless and if anything, more harmful, and we should be using our money differently. We have to get into deeper layers of conversation within the community that align us on the heart of our collective goals, and work through not getting caught up on singular catch phrases just for the sake of it.
Sela
I echo that sentiment. Maybe it's because I was a salesperson, so I'm used to being rejected by things. So I'm okay if I know it'll bring people in, as you said. Let's do it. But I'm also noticing that there's this attempt sometimes, this neoliberal retreat of reframing the same old reforms as abolitionist. So we want to be really careful and to realize when we’re being captured. When people are framing the end of solitary confinement for 21 hours as somehow abolitionist. Defunding is a very serious demand and it caught fire for that reason. It spoke to something in me, too. It helped me understand the scale of the problem.
And I think when we are confronted with that language, because neoliberal project is very malleable that way, it understands how to not get captured. And how to claim it. I have yelled at like old white people from New Hampshire about defunding the police. Not just for the sake of everyone on this call, because I know, we've been organizing, but for some of our white male comrades who have also been abused by the cops.
So recognizing when it is powerful to adopt that language so you don't get captured by neoliberal influences, and holding on to it and organizing it around it with people in your community to win things for each other is going to be very crucial. And not getting so uptight about having to have brave conversations with people. We are talking about our society. Societal conversations are always going to be difficult, just like Imara was alluding to when it comes to same-sex marriage. These were not easy conversations twenty years ago. It wasn't even easy to talk about increasing the minimum wage to $15 an hour 10 years ago. None of this is easy. So it takes moral courage and a lot of political education. So pieces like this will help, but getting these people into our reading circles, reading Mariame Kaba, so that they're rooted in something real and not just like abstract theory will really help them a lot for the long haul if they want to get in this fight. So that's what I encourage for them.
Imara
I just wanted to add, like, that last bit was so spot on for me. One of the things that never ceases to amaze me is when I'm talking to DSA members, like active organizing socialists, and they'll come at me with, like, concerns about the language of Defund and it's just so laughable on some level. It's like ultimately those who are against abolition, they've always had the best messaging on earth. These are the folks who are represented in media every day.
I'm sure that that all of you have heard this, but when folks tell me that issue with defund is language, the issue with defund is marketing, no these people are intimidated by the idea of defunding the police because they are constantly being bombarded every day by media, telling them how great cops are and how it's okay that yet another black person was murdered. The idea that the revolution will be or must be message tested is obscene. I'll leave it right there.
Alex
That is great. It reminds me of if, anyone remember pre Gamergate, when people were saying we shouldn't be using the language of feminism because it was too alienating. It's like the same, the same thing that keeps happening over and over again. I love this conversation.
Alex
I want to transition, sadly, to our last question, which is sort of two questions. What is a piece of media for readers that would help them get engaged in this subject? And also what is a piece of futurist media that you really like? If it's Star Trek, please give us your favorite trek. It could be an album, a video game, anything.
Sela
One piece of media that I wanted to share with is the Defend/Defund Archive…just to help people understand sort of the long history of this struggle and one worth fighting for.
But when I do think of a better future, I like the last act of the movie Wall-E. It makes me cry every single time. It's somewhat related to policing and control and whatnot. The level of immediate resolution that the people on the ship have to then care for one another and care for their babies and go back to earth and care for the Earth. And treat these robots like they have human qualities and treat them with dignity. And that they're building this world hundreds of years in the future, yet they held on to the idea of the real, saying, “we should not be in space this whole time.” We need to go back, and we need to take care of our Earth. And there's something just so beautiful about that. It just overwhelms me every time. And I just I'm just like a pool of tears every time I watch that last act. It's subversive. It's not even intended to be a political message. It's a children's story, but it is so beautiful. It is so hopeful. So, I just want to share that.
Imara
These questions are so hard for me because they make me feel so, like, not well-read. I'm a huge lover of old Star Trek, but that's probably because I'm an old man. Deep Space 9 is brilliant. And, you know, it's great. It's this great example of what diplomacy, what statehood can be within a less capitalist-driven society. I think that, especially old Star Trek, is worth checking out. But there's some good new stuff, too. Maybe I'll leave it there for now and dodge some of that question.
Queen
I would say tapping into efforts around storytelling, around different issues. So, I've been getting into reading and watching abortion storytelling. I would offer anyone who would want to get more involved to tap into the stories being told by people who are directly impacted by an issue if you yourself are not directly impacted by it. Just to really sit in people's stories. Look out for work being done by Mirror Memoirs and DecrimPovertyDC.
Alex
And lastly, if any of y'all have any plugs, websites, socials, orgs....
Queen
I’d love to plug Decrim poverty. It's the local effort that's trying to decriminalize drugs and invest in a harm reduction infrastructure that actually would care for people who use drugs in the district. So I would ask for folks to tap into decrimpovertydc.org and also follow us on Instagram and Twitter @DecrimPovertyDC. There are several ways to support the effort on a volunteer basis, whether it's organizing and base building and tabling and working with our organizers who are directly impacted by the war on drugs or supporting our policy advocacy effort. We need as much help as we can get.
Sela
I’ll go ahead and plug some of this stuff we have going on. So the Defund MPD website is still up and running. So if you go to defundmpd.org. Within Metro DC DSA's Washington Socialist, we've published a few pieces locally around tracking some of the efforts that we're doing to get at the DC Council's pieces of legislation. I wrote one entry there around an event we hold called Defund and Refunk The District, where we do participatory budgeting in public spaces. We do this exercise where we break down the actual city budget and then we have people imagine what they would do if they could cut the police budget in half and where would they want to put resources? Then they do drawings and sculptures tothey tell us what they like to do with the money. We do breaklight clinics, where we change out drivers’ breaklights for free so they don’t get stopped by the cops. Join DSA and join our Slack so they can get more plugged into the things we have going because we're very active. So that's my plug.
Imara
I guess to your question, I think DC has an amazing art scene. There's a lot of really cool Afrofuturism stuff, like my father's an artist. Check out Joel Crooms. My pop is actually in several galleries around the city, so you can see some of his amazing stuff out there. So go out, get involved in your community, go see some art, go see some plays.
Alex
Love it. You can find us at afterthestormmagazine.com, or after the Storm mag on Twitter, Instagram, all the typical socials. We also recently published a anthology book of writers and activists in the DC area imagining Post-capitalist futures. So check it out. It's called Storms of the Revolution and it can be found on our website. Thank you y'all. This has been fantastic interview.
