Although our last direct action occurred at the end of January, my comrades’ and my Hawaiʻi Abolition Collective (read more about us in the first introduction I wrote here) are putting in lots of work behind the scenes to organize the most effectively and ethically we can. One of the greatest difficulties in starting an organization is developing the proper infrastructure to ensure that relationships are mutually safe and beneficial, issues will be handled with care, any harm that takes place will be handled correctly, and org members are working toward common goals. Because we founded our Hawaiʻi Abolition Collective swiftly after we finished the Study and Struggle curriculum back in December, we hopped in to planning direct actions, founded a thriving penpal program, and hosted pau hana zooms with interested org members. However, we discovered that we didn’t have the established procedures we needed to move forward, so we haven’t gathered with the community in recent months. Thankfully though, my brilliant sister Megan reached out to Leilani, Laurel, and me to write a story about HAC for her friend’s new Being Hawaiʻi Magazine! The article is entitled “For Our People Inside: A Look Inside the Newly Formed Hawaiʻi Abolition Collective,” which is an incredible feature that focuses on how the three of us HAC co-founders found each other and decided to create a strictly abolitionist organization here in Hawaiʻi. I was excited for Megan to write the piece because she pays such precise attention to detail and crafts beautiful narratives about her subjects. She highlighted each of our stories about how we found our way to prison industrial complex abolition, which ultimately led us to our own org. Throughout the piece Megan also explains what HAC is and what our goals are as we move forward. I think the piece perfectly introduces abolition to anyone reading it and hopefully answers some of the most common questions people have about our beliefs. Please check out Being Hawaiʻi and read Megan’s article to learn more about our Hawaiʻi Abolition Collective!
