Movement lawyer and political commentator, or “professional loudmouth”, Olayemi Olurin sheds light on what she knows about the American criminal “justice" system - which is a ton. Having come from The Bahamas as a young woman, she had seen plenty of poor Black folks. But she says America has a very different way of treating Black and brown people, which is that there is a focus on breaking down, criminalization and imprisonment, and just maybe there’s a lucrative payoff for it. A report by the ACLU shows that prisoners generate over $11 BILLION of goods and services and are rarely paid anything. She and Laverne talk about bail reform, the shady habit of over-policing and underfunding poor communities, and the way the prison pipeline perpetuates itself. “Our environments are who we become.”

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Mentioned in this Episode:

Mass Incarceration Is Slavery (Olurin, The Appeal)

Tyre Nichols Was Killed by Black Police Officers Because the Whole System Is Racist (Olurin, Teen Vogue)

Bayard Rustin (PBS Newshour, YouTube)

Podcast: American Police (Throughline, 2020)

Kalief Browder, 1993-2015 (2015, The New Yorker)

Justice Not Fear

How do I know if a source is credible?

Media Bias Chart

Links of Interest:

What is bail reform? (ACLU)