An Abolitionist Response to Project 2025

Oct 3, 2024

Project 2025, created by the extremist right-wing Heritage Foundation, fortifies the racist impact of policing by empowering the Department of Justice to focus on violent crime, despite the fact that violent crime has . Its authors denounce criminal-justice reform efforts and promote federal oversight of jurisdictions where police divestment efforts have had some success.聽

The 鈥渢ough on crime鈥� approach has champions both among and , in spite of the fact that in 2020, many elites claiming to support racial justice vowed changes to violent policing in the wake of George Floyd鈥檚 murder in Minneapolis.聽

What would a progressive vision of racial justice and policing look like? There has been for decades an active movement to divest from policing with an eye toward abolishing police and prisons altogether. , professor of law at the University of Washington has been active in that movement, working with various groups and campaigns in Seattle including , , and . She spoke with 大象传媒 Senior Editor Sonali Kolhatkar on 大象传媒 Presents: Rising Up With Sonali about what an abolitionist vision of racial justice looks like.

Sonali Kolhatkar joined 大象传媒 in summer 2021, building on a long and decorated career in broadcast and print journalism. She is an award-winning multimedia journalist, and host and creator of聽大象传媒 Presents: Rising Up with Sonali, a nationally syndicated television and radio program airing on Free Speech TV and dozens of independent and community radio stations. She is also Senior Correspondent with the Independent Media Institute鈥檚 Economy for All project where she writes a weekly column. She is the author of聽Rising Up: The Power of Narrative in Pursuing Racial Justice聽(2023) and聽Bleeding Afghanistan: Washington, Warlords, and the Propaganda of Silence聽(2005). Her forthcoming book is called聽Talking About Abolition聽(Seven Stories Press, 2025). Sonali is co-director of the nonprofit group, Afghan Women鈥檚 Mission which she helped to co-found in 2000. She has a Master鈥檚 in Astronomy from the University of Hawai鈥檌, and two undergraduate degrees in Physics and Astronomy from the University of Texas at Austin. Sonali reflects on 鈥淢y Journey From Astrophysicist to Radio Host鈥� in her 2014聽聽of the same name.