Sublime

These youth are born into environments of state-sanctioned deprivation, or “organized abandonment,” as political geographer Ruth Wilson Gilmore calls it.

The goal is singular—to end the exploitation of the poor—but the means are many. We should empower American workers and expand housing access. We should also ensure fair access to capital. Banks should stop robbing the poor and near-poor of billions of dollars each year, immediately ending exorbitant overdraft fees.

Poverty is the loss of liberty. The American prison system has no equal in any other country or any other epoch. Almost 2 million people sit in our prisons and jails each day. Another 3.7 million are on probation or parole. Hidden behind the system’s vague abstractions—justice, law and order—is the fact that the overwhelming majority of America’s