Sociologist Brittany Freidman Challenged Mass incarceration in “Carceral Apartheid”

Award-winning sociologist and author Brittany Friedman joined Levan Institute for Humanities on Sept. 29 to discuss her latest work Carceral Apartheid: How Lies and White Supremacists Run Our Prison.

In a conversation moderated by USC Associate Professor of Sociology Hajar Yazdiha, Friedman and scholars explored the development of her recent work and how it challenges the prison-industrial complex in the current political climate. 

“My book traces how governments strategically use labels for authoritarian ends.  I show how labeling people as dangerous enemies to seize and contain them is a strategy as old as human civilization,” said Friedman. “It’s institutionalization within society through human means.”

Executive Director of Abolitionist Law Center and guest speaker Robert Saleem Holbrook described being incarcerated for 27 years, starting at age sixteen. Saleem said he spent nearly ten years in solitary confinement for working with other incarcerated people to challenge prison systems by speaking out and suing them. While incarcerated, he was told the prison system is designed to physically control incarcerated people –not support them in learning agency and self-determination. 

“Most of my time spent in solitary confinement was not for reckless, wild stuff…The most repression I faced was actually when I started critiquing the system, when I started writing about it, when we started organizing against it, when we started learning the law to sue the prison,” said Holbrook. “They’re like, ‘The prison system is built to deal with you guys killing each other. Having to dare define yourselves or to pursue your self-determination or say ‘I don’t accept your unjust treatment’ to [the prison system] is intolerable.”

Holbrook further described how the larger society is experiencing the dismantling of capitalism and the end of neoliberalism. He believes society can view this as a frightening or exciting time. 

“I think that we have reached the end stage of what I believe is now an era where the world that capitalism, imperialism, and then its final stage neoliberalism ravaged is now coming apart,” said Holbrook. “And there’s two ways we could look at it. One way is it’s frightening…or we can approach it as an exciting moment [where] we can dare to be impossible now. We can dare to create the world we want.”

Friedman said many people did not understand how she managed challenging conversations about the prison system with individuals who have harmed her racial group. Freidman described interviewing an incarcerated individual named Andrew whose hand was covered in swastikas. When approaching the interview, Friedman didn’t focus on Andrew’s beliefs and actions, but cultivating a safe space to understand Andrew and how he developed his viewpoints. 

“I’m being my full transparent self and I give them the same space without inserting myself. He realized that I wasn’t there to be like ‘you’re horrible.’ Instead, I just showed up as myself… I wanted to understand, “ said Friedman. 

During the Q&A, Friedman was asked how she maintains empathy and shows others the lack of humanity within our system. Friedman was candid as she described that while it is difficult, she believes dialogue is important in reaching those with opposing views. 

“We exist in these spaces where even if ideologically aligned we still talk past each other,” said Freidman. “But the book wouldn’t be honest if everybody wasn’t honest in terms of their best ability.”