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A review by supernumeraryemily
Carceral Capitalism by Jackie Wang
5.0
I read this book after years of hearing my friend reference it. In this moment of ongoing collective uprising against the racist system of policing, I dove back into it. In Carceral Capitalism, Wang both reveals the mechanisms of the carceral state--the racist debt economy, municipial financing through feeds and fines, predictive policing algorithms, militarized police forces--and describes the impact they have on the American ways of thinking--from the "superpredatorization" of Black children, to the worship of science and fact and "objective" and "neutral" policing, to the ways innocence and safety are constructed even in the lives of activists working against the violence of the carceral state.
Wang's incorporation of personal stories and poetic/artistic work throughout brings a visceral aspect to understanding prisons that one who is not incarcerated may not typically understand--the ways prisons stop time for people inside while loved ones outside must deal with it marching onward while tied to a person frozen in amber, the ways the spirit is able to soar and imagine while the body is physically restricted to 5 sq meters.
I appreciated Wang the academic's tying of our carceral system to theory, weaving ways of understanding into a conceptual framework, though at times I could not follow her theoretical references. I learned from Wang the artist that one must humbly open space for collective creativity that can go beyond any one scholar's detailing.
There are pieces in here especially within "Beyond Innocence" that I am eager to share and discuss with friends--in what ways are we upholding the carceral state by rallying around "perfect victims?" What are the possibilities for feminism beyond centering whiteness and innocence? How is my innocent suburbia bubble hometown implicated as a parasitic actor in a racist system?
Wang's incorporation of personal stories and poetic/artistic work throughout brings a visceral aspect to understanding prisons that one who is not incarcerated may not typically understand--the ways prisons stop time for people inside while loved ones outside must deal with it marching onward while tied to a person frozen in amber, the ways the spirit is able to soar and imagine while the body is physically restricted to 5 sq meters.
I appreciated Wang the academic's tying of our carceral system to theory, weaving ways of understanding into a conceptual framework, though at times I could not follow her theoretical references. I learned from Wang the artist that one must humbly open space for collective creativity that can go beyond any one scholar's detailing.
There are pieces in here especially within "Beyond Innocence" that I am eager to share and discuss with friends--in what ways are we upholding the carceral state by rallying around "perfect victims?" What are the possibilities for feminism beyond centering whiteness and innocence? How is my innocent suburbia bubble hometown implicated as a parasitic actor in a racist system?