#InOurNamesNetwork founding member Andrea Ritchie spoke w/ @mspackyetti about the abolitionist vision & struggle ••• #Regram @themeteor What IS abolition? Andrea Ritchie breaks it down—and it's simple. @mspackyetti first met the attorney and organizer on President Obama’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing nearly a decade ago. Ritchie’s perspective “fundamentally transformed” the way she thought of policing, and now the pair are sitting down on this week’s #UNDISTRACTED to talk about abolition in 2022. They discuss Biden’s plan to funnel $13 billion in federal funds to train 100,000 new police officers, what it means to actually “combat crime,” and the (well-populated) intersection between gender violence and policing. “We frame cops as responses to violence, when in fact they are perpetrators and enablers and facilitators of violence, even in the context of responses to violence,” says Ritchie. “In Breonna Taylor's case, the cop who killed her had allegations that he had engaged in sexual violence by people that he ostensibly was supposed to be helping.” Also in the episode: @wesleylowery helps make sense of the conflicting headlines about crime—and the holes in how the media covers it. We’re grateful to y’all for remaining #UNDISTRACTED in this work. Listen to today’s episode through apple.co/undistracted, or find us on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Audacy, Pandora, Pocket Casts and Stitcher. And take care of yourselves.