Podcast Summary

Podcast: New Books Network
Host: Mikel Carter
Guest: Dr. Brittany Michelle Friedman (Assistant Professor of Sociology, University of Southern California)
Episode: Carceral Apartheid: How Lies and White Supremacists Run Our Prisons
Publication Date: December 24, 2025
Book: Carceral Apartheid (UNC Press, 2025)

Episode Overview

This episode features an in-depth interview with Dr. Brittany Michelle Friedman about her groundbreaking new book, Carceral Apartheid: How Lies and White Supremacists Run Our Prisons. Through both personal narrative and rigorous sociological analysis, Dr. Friedman explores the concept of “carceral apartheid”—a deliberate system of racialized social control in U.S. prisons, shaped by white supremacy, state deception, and layers of both formal and informal power. The conversation spans the origins and mechanisms of carceral apartheid, the role of truth-telling in research, key historical trajectories in California’s prison system, the significance of resistance movements like the Black Guerrilla Family, and the emotional and methodological challenges of investigating such violent and hidden regimes.

Defining Carceral Apartheid

[01:41–04:54]

• Dr. Friedman explains she coined the term “carceral apartheid” to name the reality of racialized violence and deception in American prisons.
• The concept stresses both formal controls (prisons, police, surveillance) and informal or extralegal social controls.
• She draws a direct line to the historical legacy of Black feminist truth-telling, especially the courage of Ida B. Wells.
• Quote:

  "This is the legacy of black feminist scholars and writers. And I need to speak on it as it is and call it how I see it and not sugarcoat anything."
  — Dr. Brittany Friedman [04:38]

Personal Motivation and the Power of Truth-Telling

[04:54–14:41]

• Dr. Friedman’s work is rooted in her own family’s experience with state violence—especially her grandmother’s participation in protest against sharecroppers’ eviction in Missouri.
• She emphasizes authenticity in the field, following Black feminist traditions that reject claims of pure “objectivity.”
• Quote:

  "I firmly believe...the idea of ruling out your subjective experience...is a lie that only serves CIS hetero white men who pretend to be objective but are not."
  — Dr. Brittany Friedman [08:51]

• Discusses “truth-telling as method”: a commitment to investigative scholarship deeply influenced by the likes of Ida B. Wells and W.E.B. Du Bois.
• Describes the necessity for researchers to actively seek out suppressed truths, especially in studying “hard to reach” and oppressed populations:
• Quote:

  "I'm a scholar, but I'm also an investigator."
  — Dr. Brittany Friedman [12:27]

California as Microcosm: Race, Migration, and Carceral Power

[14:41–21:42]

• Dr. Friedman details why California is central: it’s home to infamous prison gangs—Black Guerrilla Family, Aryan Brotherhood, Nuestra Familia, Mexican Mafia—and reveals patterns of collusion and cover-up between white supremacist prisoners and correctional officers.
• She traces how Black migrants from the South became targets of racial violence post-migration to California.
• Quote:

  "California...has consistently reacted extremely violently to the influx of African Americans...with its liberal politics has historically formed its own coalition of clan-like entities outside of prisons and within prisons."
  — Dr. Brittany Friedman [20:28]

Centering Hugo Pinel: The Human Cost of Carceral Apartheid

[21:42–28:27]

• Dr. Friedman opens her book with the story of Hugo Pinel—a Nicaraguan-born, Afro-Latino co-founder of the Black Guerrilla Family—whose 2015 murder by the Aryan Brotherhood was emblematic of the system’s brutality and deception.
• Pinel spent over 40 years in solitary confinement and was seen by the Department of Corrections as a “monster,” but is humanized through Dr. Friedman’s research and contact with his family.
• Quote:

  "...the way that he ends up incarcerated and then the way that he's taken out and murdered is emblematic of carceral apartheid. Like, he unfortunately embodied that in such a way that I felt compelled...I have to open the book with Hugo."
  — Dr. Brittany Friedman [27:19]

The Black Guerrilla Family: Resistance and Reimagining Solidarity

[28:27–36:32]

• Dr. Friedman explains the Black Guerrilla Family was founded by politicized prisoners who saw their struggle as both uniquely Black and globally aligned against apartheid and white supremacist violence.
• The organization united various “cliques” of pro-Black militants and saw itself as a vanguard for both Black survival and prisoner solidarity across racial lines.
• Quote:

  "It's not just that they can speak for their group or the group that they are representing. It's because they have the ability...to inspire people across boundaries and to reach across. And the BGF did that consistently in their history."
  — Dr. Brittany Friedman [35:40]

Themes of Resistance, White Solidarity, and Governance

[36:32–44:12]

• Examples of organized resistance—such as efforts to fight administrative “setups” intended to spark violence—and the toll (physical, psychic, and spiritual) this takes on those incarcerated.
• Touching moments described through lengthy quotes and letters, such as Hugo Pinel’s grief and resolve after the murder of his comrade W.L. Nolan.
• Dr. Friedman tracks the transformations of white supremacist prisoners encountering the system’s readiness to discard them, highlighting newfound solidarity and questioning of their own beliefs.
• Quote:

  "It was life and death for us every single day. And it still is for people on the inside. It is life and death when we're talking about a system designed to destroy people, not just physically and mentally, but spiritually and psychically."
  — Dr. Brittany Friedman [37:09]

“Death Work” and the Emotional Toll of Research

[44:12–49:33]

• Describes the system of “death work”—the systematic, ritualistic infliction of physical, psychic, and spiritual death, but also a set of dehumanizing practices and spectacles.
• Reflects on the emotional impact this had on her during research, prompting her to develop self-care and boundaries while teaching students to “observe, not absorb.”
• Quote:

  “It’s expensive to be evil usually. And it usually takes a lot of work. ... Carceral apartheid, it’s truly about the community building joy and solidarity that comes from ceremoniously degrading a person.”
  — Dr. Brittany Friedman [47:26]

Methodological Innovations: Chronologies, Rebel Archives, and Intention

[49:33–58:21]

• Dr. Friedman included two parallel chronologies in her book—one U.S.-centered, one global—to situate U.S. carceral politics within broader patterns of colonialism and resistance.
• She discusses the “rebel archive": unofficial, privately maintained archives—like that of a Black Panther’s personal collection—that protect the memory and dignity of oppressed communities.
• Quote:

  “I love how [Kelly Lytle Hernández] gives us that term [rebel archive] to understand the necessity of documenting not just from the official, often tainted record...but from the sources and artifacts produced and kept by oppressed peoples.”
  — Dr. Brittany Friedman [54:12]

Closing Reflections and What’s Next

[58:21–62:06]

• Dr. Friedman hopes readers are transformed by meeting someone in the book—just as she was by those she studied.
• Celebrates the release of the audiobook, narrated by Janae Giddens, which brings out the poetic and affective dimensions of her work.
• Next project: finishing a book on interpersonal cover-ups and their relationship to structures of power.
• Quote:

  “People have to be transformed first. So that’s what I really want.”
  — Dr. Brittany Friedman [59:08]

Memorable Quotes and Moments

• “This is apartheid in the United States. But it would not be possible without the carceral...”
  — Dr. Brittany Friedman [02:28]

• “Being authentic even when it’s hard.”
  — Dr. Brittany Friedman [10:14]

• “We are going to stand up for the survival of black people here...and then also globally, because they saw themselves as being a part of a global movement.”
  — Dr. Brittany Friedman [35:25]

• “Your job is to observe, not absorb.”
  — Dr. Brittany Friedman [48:39]

Key Timestamps

• Defining Carceral Apartheid: [01:41–04:54]
• Personal Narrative and Truth-Telling: [04:54–14:41]
• California’s Peculiar Violence: [14:41–21:42]
• Hugo Pinel’s Story: [21:42–28:27]
• Black Guerrilla Family & Prison Resistance: [28:27–36:32]
• Resistance, Solidarity, Governance: [36:32–44:12]
• Death Work: [44:12–49:33]
• Chronologies and Rebel Archives: [49:33–58:21]
• Closing and Next Steps: [58:21–62:06]

This powerful, wide-ranging conversation brings together deep scholarship, personal experience, historical context, and urgent calls for truth-telling in the face of racial and carceral violence. The episode and Dr. Friedman’s book offer both a devastating critique of present systems and a vision for academic and personal integrity in the struggle for justice.