Dear Abolition

For Uncle Ralph

Authors

  • Danielle Purifoy Department of Geography, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Keywords:

abolition, incarceration, imagination, speculative fiction, art

Abstract

In the wake of her uncle’s 2021 death from COVID-19 in a Michigan prison, Danielle Purifoy reflects on what his life and art taught her about abolition, and what kind of place could have given him a different life…and death.



References

brown, adrienne maree, and Walidah Imarisha. 2015. Octavia's Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements. Chico: AK Press.

Hartman, Saidiya. 2019. Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Riotous Black girls, troublesome women, and queer radicals. New York: WW Norton & Company.

A collage of photos and materials provided by issue authors. These include: a photo of a landscape with stars shining above a curved snowy road disappearing into a wooded horizon along the coast of Gichigami/Lake Superior; a cutout of cursive text written by Caitilin McMillan’s mother that reads “to the world's best heart”; a photo of Neelofer Qadir’s hand holding colorful postcards in front of the blue water of Gris Gris, Mauritius; a handwritten letter in Spanish dated August 1983 from Alana de Hinojosa’s grandmother to her mother, Evelina “Bebe”, asking for her to come back home to Calexico, California; a black-and-white troll block print and a Valentine's Day card with porcupine quills piercing a red-and-black heart and the handwritten message “Happy Valentines Day! Contains two genuine porcupine quills, picked clean by ravens. Love, Elspeth”; a black-and-white photograph of Dr. Donald Deskins Jr. in a three-point stance wearing a football uniform; a colourful poster with doves and peace flowers and text that reads “Viva! Viva! Palestina!”; an orange envelope reading “don't you dare write back!” with a hand-drawn scowling figure; a screenshot of a Zoom grid of smiling attendees at the American Association of Geographers 2021 Desirable Futures sessions; and background text and images from valentines written by Elspeth Iralu.

Downloads

Published

2024-04-15

How to Cite

Purifoy, D. (2024). Dear Abolition : For Uncle Ralph . ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies, 23(2), 166–168. Retrieved from https://acme-journal.org/index.php/acme/article/view/2423

Issue

Vol. 23 No. 2 (2024): Desirable Futures

Section

Special Issue: Desirable Futures

License

Copyright (c) 2024 Danielle Purifoy

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