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Brittany Michelle Friedman, "Carceral Apartheid: How Lies and White Supremacists Run Our Prisons" (UNC Press, 2025)
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- [00:00]
Marshall Po
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- [01:07]
Mikel Carter
Welcome back to the New Books Network. I am your host, Mikel Carter, and today I am joined by Dr. Brittany Friedman, who is an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Southern California. Today we will discuss her book, Carceral How White Supremacists Run Our Prisons, published this year in 2025 with the University of North Carolina Press. Thank you so much, Dr. Freeman. Really been looking forward to diving into your book.
- [01:38]
Dr. Brittany Friedman
Thank you. I am excited to be here.
- [01:42]
Mikel Carter
So let's start with the title of your book, Carceral Apartheid. And so specifically, how do you define carceral apartheid and why did you choose to examine it through the lens of prisons?
- [01:55]
Dr. Brittany Friedman
So I landed on the concept of carceral apartheid because, especially in. I mean, especially in sociology, which is my home to discipline, I would say that we are definitely trained to study carceral violence and racial division and governing through racial division and deception pretty much in. In kind of separate silos. And I, as I was, you know, in the field, and then afterward, and really reflecting and trying to intuit everything I learned after all those years research, I was like, no, this is a case of, yes, it is. It's apartheid. This is apartheid in the United States. But it would not be possible without the carceral or what we would understand to be institutions of social control that are either formal or informal. And formal is the most in the one that's commonly studied, right, in terms of prisons, policing, a surveillance, but also informal, which, you know, in our. In our social groups, even peer pressure is a type of control. And so I was like, it's not apartheid. It is a. It is a term that is very much commonly used. But I really wanted to emphasize that it is a carceral project and that carceral apartheid, it is a governing strategy that occurs through mobilizing first official controls against populations that are deemed undesirable. And official controls really tend to fall within those formal institutions that I mentioned. But then also there's informal controls, controls that are extralegal, typically meaning not defined by law. There's a lot of blurred lines, right, even going into the realms of things that we know now, like secret courts for political prisoners. And then I also wanted to emphasize the clandestine nature and that it is deliberate, that there is a deliberate withholding of information and disappearance of people and facts. And that is how I came up with that term and really felt inspired, at least in the US Context, by the work of Ida B. Wells and thinking about her bravery and just like, I don't know if I can curse, but like, she was a bad ass in terms of, you know what I mean? Like, like she. It had to take that when you really think about what she was doing and writing. And so that's why I was like, you know, this. This is the. 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.
- [04:54]
Mikel Carter
No, for sure, no. Thank you so much for that. And I really appreciate that, you know, the ways that your book, it really allows for us to look at carceral apartheid just as a framework that is in different lenses, though. So beyond prisons, but maybe even surveillance, for instance. So, yes, I'm just really looking forward to the type of works that emerge from this text. Also, I was really struck as well by your book's prologue. And so you can really tell that there is, like, a deep, deeply rooted personal connection and investment in your work. So I would love for you to talk a little bit about, like, what initially inspired you to write this book and then also what also kept you motivated to just continue to do this type of work and tell these stories, given just the heavy nature of the context itself.
- [05:49]
Dr. Brittany Friedman
You know, I. I wrote that prologue really rather, rather quickly, but the reason is because it was a release it had been sitting on my heart and I had to get it out. And so it just kind of all came out at once. It was one of the quickest things I wrote in the whole book. And I think because of how personal it is. Right. It's a. And my grandmother, I feel like my maternal grandmother, if she has been with. She's always with me. But she was really there throughout this process of this book because there was many times where, you know, I would feel very overwhelmed myself or in the field feeling triggered because. Because as an African American person, of course we're going to be triggered when we're hearing certain things about people's survival behind bars, when they are being targeted. And the reason that they're there is because they're black. So it's that. But then also my own family's experiences with the carceral state. So my grandma was there as a steadiness and then also because she too, you know, at her time, the time that she lived required her to be brave, as often we are required to be. And so I felt inspired by the fact that she was a part of this huge protest. And in 1939, with other evicted sharecroppers in Missouri, which is where I'm from, and in the Little Boot Hill of Missouri, which is where my parents also grew up, and I grew up a little bit northern in Jeff City, but still it's like the Boot Hill has a lot of roots, especially for people, black people that are from Missouri, even like Cedric the Entertainer. I'm going on a tangent, but things like that are funny to me when you go to the Boot Hill because it's so small and rural, but like there's actually a lot of people that we know in society that are from there and, and people. Everyone knows everyone's family. So it's like, it's. It's also when I was writing that about my grandma and her protest and how my parents were raised and, and their experiences, just to. To give a sense of like, this is what it means when you are practicing truth telling. It is also reckoning with your own past and your own ancestors and how all of their actions and everything they thrived in spite of is getting you to that moment or getting you to this point. And I also firmly believe, you know, we. We do practice and we try to practice right. Objectivity in our work. But I mean, I think that. That feminist scholars in particular have been very pointed in point in showing that the idea of ruling out your subjective experience and how you interpret what you see when you're studying is a lie that only serves like CIS hetero white men who pretend to be objective but are not, or like, probably just are not. And so that's why I also wanted to lead with that prologue of like, this is me, Brittany, as the scholar and author, but also as a person. And so this is how I also very much just was myself in the field when I was meeting people and, and learning about their lives from their childhood all the way up to becoming an elder in their communities. You know, that I was Britney first and foremost. And, and that's also what I teach my students too. I'm like, you know, you have to be comfortable with yourself because if you are uncomfortable and you're doing research with surveilled and hidden populations, persecuted populations, you won't get very far because people are going to be hyper vigilant for good reason. And they can tell instantly if there's any sort of fakeness about you, if you're, if you're scared or if you're uncomfortable where you are. And I just was like, I'm just gonna be me. It's, it's the, both the easiest and the hardest thing to do, I think, in our lives. And so that's what I decided I was gonna try my best. And that prologue is what really speaks to my commitment to being authentic even when it's hard.
- [10:23]
Mikel Carter
No, I think that's really powerful and I think it takes us to just another question, like when you, in your appendix, you talk about truth telling as method. Could you speak a little bit about that?
- [10:35]
Dr. Brittany Friedman
Yes, I wanted to pay homage to the fact that 1. On a personal level, I learned truth telling through my own ancestors, through my family, in particular, black women in my family. And then I also wanted to show that my scholarship is rooted in the history of black feminist truth telling and that that's also how I was fortunate enough to be trained as a scholar. Being at Northwestern has a very strong African American studies program and a very strong sociology program where many faculty are joint. So that's how I was trained and encouraged and nurtured in my approach to research in terms of epistemology, in terms of my methods and just how I see what, what actually constitutes data or what does it take to find certain data? That's something that I really did actually learn in grad school that I, I think was. So it was. It's very much rooted in this notion that oftentimes what we're presented in our research isn't actually the truth. Yes, it is. Someone's truth. But there are layers of social control in our society that do work to lim to a variety of perspectives which would better constitute a truth that is well rounded. And because of that, what we consider data is heavily curated. And if you again are doing research on hard to reach populations that have suffered under various regimes, then you have to make a commitment that I actually also have to have an investigative hat.
- [12:27]
Mikel Carter
Right?
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Dr. Brittany Friedman
Like I'm, I'm a scholar, but I'm also an investigator. And again, going back to Ida B. Wells, I feel like she embodied that to a T. What does it mean to be a scholar who is practicing investigative social science? And I think also I think Du Bois too as well. And that's another tradition. Like one of my, my main advisors was Alden Morris and his, his work on Du Boisian sociology was very like, right when he was coming out with that book. I was in grad school and I remember being so inspired because of how he just like, you know, he had to go through so much, which he's spoken about publicly to write that book. And I was like, you know what? Like, this is a, it's an honor to be able to witness your advisors stand in that way. And, and then you think about, you know, the costs of doing that. But I always believe, and I like to think that I hope, knock on wood, Ida B. Wells would agree with me because I know she can hear me too, because I do believe that the veils are always thin. But. She, it was the type of person where she felt a duty to show what she had found no matter what. And so that's why I call that appendix Truth telling as method. In terms of, for me, this is how I thought of it in my work. This is what I, this is what this means to me in terms of how do you stand behind and how do you demonstrate something that there could be real risks in doing it and have been for people in the past. So I am really, I'm hopeful that more people will explicitly talk about truth telling in that way because I want to know what does truth telling as method mean for them and their particular case? Because I, I think it is, it can. In some ways it's generalizable. In other ways, it's case specific too.
- [14:42]
Mikel Carter
Well, for sure. Thank you. Something else I wanted to, I guess we can talk about like, so the book itself, you take us to the South a little bit and then you take us to Missouri a little bit and then you take us to California. And so could you talk a little bit? Just why California? Why Is this, why is California central to just our understanding of cars for a part time?
- [15:06]
Dr. Brittany Friedman
I mean, California, you know, California really is interesting because when I first came to this project, my first approach was I want to understand why is California the home of the Black Guerrilla Family, the Aryan Brotherhood, Nuestra Familia and the Mexican Mafia. Like, there's no way that that's a coincidence. How can it be home to all of those organizations that many people know just in popular culture? Like, you know, before I became an academic, I knew of organizations, but I, so I was like, I gotta, that, that was the initial puzzle. And so then when I, as I started investigating, I started to find like, oh, there's a real discrepancy in the, in the record, like in the historical record. And the discrepancy are very, the discrepancies are very clear along racist lines and very clear along political lines, which are hiding behind the racist lines. And so as I was looking up sources, I was like, okay, so I can find the same incident and I can find a bunch of different versions of what happened. And the different versions of what happened are seeming to fall on race lines and also on whether or not someone is law enforcement or whether or not someone is incarcerated. And that's when my just, you know, intuition and also sense of like, okay, so someone's lying. Like, someone's lying. And, and I, I, you know, that's where I went, Gwent, because I, I from finding that enough, you see that, okay, this is intentional. Like, this is not what we would consider to be accidental mism. Misremembering. It's, it's intentional. And so then that took me in so many different directions of really not, not trying to focus on one perspective, but like doing my best in the field to meet people and connect and also connect with archives that are coming from all the different perspectives that I have mapped out. So that's what I did first was map out the perspectives that I was seeing. And like, where would I find that person or where would I find that type of voice in a particular archive or collection? And that was the start of what we would eventually call later in the analysis stage of triangulation, triangulating different points, facts, people, social facts, truths across a variety of perspectives and types. So that, I think really led me to this revelation when I was interviewing different people that like many people who are African American who eventually co found or form the Black Gorilla family and or are members of aligned organizations, they actually grew up in the South. And then so each, each thing started Kind of leading me down different paths. So when I had that revelation from going through the interviews and meeting people, I was like, okay, that makes sense. Because the great migration, like that makes a lot of sense. I mean, even in my own, I thought I was like, oh yeah, even in my own family. I have so much family in California. Even though we consider ourselves Southern people, but I have lots of relatives in California, you know, so that came during the same time that came during, most often for my family, World War II. But that was also what I was seeing in my interview data, that people were coming as small children with their families and, and describing their experiences in the Jim Crow south and describing, for example, seeing the Klan, seeing the violence of the Ku Klux Klan, coming to California, becoming incarcerated at a young age, sometimes as young as 17 in my book, and then being sent to the adult, adult prisons versus the youth Authority and encountering correctional officers working with self identified Nazis at the time because they hadn't yet formed the Aryan Brotherhood in collusion. And I, I just, that was the theme that just kept coming up where people said, yeah, like I saw it and I thought, oh, I know this. I, yeah, the police and the Klan, they've always been one in the same. And, and that really, that finding throughout the book of that collusion, like that was a truly. All of them are. But when I say this, I'm like, that was something I just like discovered in the field. I had a hunch, but I didn't have what we would consider, right, like the proof of like I have it here in the interviews and I can back it up. For any skeptics I can say, well, I was also in archives and in the archive. How come this incident report has like multiple different perspectives and officers that are accused of misconduct are like, we didn't see it.
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Mikel Carter
You know, we didn't see it.
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Dr. Brittany Friedman
So you know it. That's why I felt it was important to show all of these different perspectives, show people migrating from a variety of places, right? Migrating from the south in one case, right. Migrating from Nicaragua with Hugo Pinel and. But all ending up in California, where California is a state that in its history has consistently, even going back to the Gold rush, has consistently reacted extremely violently to the influx of African Americans in particular in the state. And that's what I wanted to show. It's like we, we know about the south, but California, right, with its liberal politics has historically formed its own coalition of clan like entities outside of prisons and within prisons. And that's why I, you know, I think it and this is what helps us understand why California is home to all of these organizations that are heavily defined by race and politics.
- [21:42]
Mikel Carter
No, the research and the amount of research that you've done that you did for this book is super impressive. And like you mentioned, you found like there were several like perspectives that you were able to like uncover. And so I'm very interested in why did you choose to center the experiences of Hugo Pinel in your, the book's introduction? Could you talk a little bit about who he is and then also, you know, how does his story ultimately speak to just the very essence of the book?
- [22:14]
Dr. Brittany Friedman
Yes, I love this question, Mikhail. I, you know, Hugo just, he stood out from the beginning, you know, he really did. He, he stood out for a number of reasons. One, because of all of the ways he came up in so many other interviews, interviews I did with people, they would always mention Hugo or Yogi, which was his nickname to people who he was close with. And then also as I started doing this research in 2013, right. He ends up getting murdered by the Aryan Brotherhood in 2015. And I remember it very clearly. I was in, let's see, like going in in my third year, I was in my third year of grad school and I was just like in the middle of the pro of the project and I, and I remember telling my advisors like this happened, I, I, it was just, that's a whole other thing. I think that's a whole episode of, of that. But you know, Hugo was incredibly important because he was a co founder of the Black Gorilla family. He was extremely well respected. He self identified as Afro, Latino or for him also Moreno. He used these interchangeably. And he also used black as well. And I always have to clarify that because some people will say, well, are you superimposing his identity? And I'm like, no, there's millions of.
- [23:45]
Mikel Carter
People in Latin America that would identify.
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Dr. Brittany Friedman
As that call themselves black. So that's a whole other episode too.
- [23:52]
Mikel Carter
But.
- [23:55]
Dr. Brittany Friedman
So you know, he was extremely important also because you know, Hugo was, he was also feared because of some of his abilities. And what I mean by that is not feared by the right people like the people who would, who were doing the attacking and instigating that I described. And it's because of like his strength, size and really, right. Because of the social movement nature of the Ori of the organization. Everyone had different talents and gifts and right. We, we all know that George Jackson, the most famous co founder, right. He was known as a like an incredible military strategist, also a fighter A scholar. Right. Brilliant writer. So everyone has their. Their different gifts. And so Hugo is well respected for his own. He's important because he also is implicated in many of the same instances where we find George Jackson. And it puts him. I mean, it's. Once George Jackson is murdered, it puts Hugo in a very dangerous position. Right. And fearing for his life. And because of that association, he spends roughly the next 40 years in solitary, in isolation, which is also, you know, he was, at the time, like, like many other people that I could name, you know, one of the longest held political prisoners in isolation. And I was really honored that while writing this book, I was able to commune with members of his family and really get a sense of, like, his mental and emotional state leading up to the time that he is eventually murdered. And also the fact that, you know, his murder was. Was incredibly suspicious. And I detail that in the book and how there's, like, a lot of allegations about his murder. And they are. The suspicion comes from the fact that the allegations match other types of setups that have happened against people that are organizing for black freedom behind bars. And, you know, he is also important because at the time of his murder, you know, there was the very famous agreement to end hostilities.
- [26:45]
Mikel Carter
That.
- [26:47]
Dr. Brittany Friedman
Was this pretty much amazing coalition of leaders of the various organizations that I mentioned came together. And I encourage people to look up that agreement and read their words for themselves. But they list all of the ways that the California Department of Corrections had worked to keep them racially divided for several decades and fighting each other. And so that also adds another layer of context to where there was suspicion about his death occurring in that broader time arc. And so that's why I felt like, you know, the way that he ends up incarcerated and then the way that he's taken out and murdered is. Is emblematic of carceral apartheid. Like, he. He unfortunately embodied that in such a way that I felt compelled as soon as I, you know, wrapped up that meeting with his loved ones, I was like, I have to open the book with Hugo so that people can see, especially people can see, someone that the media and the Department of Corrections has explicitly called a monster. Like, use that word about him. I have to start with him, and I have to write this with integrity and use a humanizing voice for someone that has been explicitly, you know, degraded in the way that they're talked about and still are in some circles.
- [28:28]
Mikel Carter
Can you talk about the Black Guerrilla family and how this collective reshapes our understanding of prison resistance and the Black freedom movement?
- [28:37]
Dr. Brittany Friedman
Yes. I mean, you Know, so the Black Guerrilla Family was really, you know, was co founded by approximately nine to 10 men. I say nine to 10 because there is a little discrepancy. So I wanted to show that. Which is fine. Who were political prisoners. Meaning, Meaning one, either incarcerated as a result of their political beliefs or two, self identified as becoming politicized as a result of their incarceration or both.
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Mikel Carter
Right.
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Dr. Brittany Friedman
And as I, as I walk through in the book, right, I walk through each person's stories and show how at the time, coming into prison, either in the late 50s, early 60s, coming in to an environment where it really was a, a racial war zone and those, those were the exact words, right? And coming into an environment where setups were so common, setups where the, where corrupted correctional officers would align themselves with self identified Nazis who both felt that there was a grievance about the civil rights movement on the outside and its implications for prison life. And also we're just very angry, right. To think of thinking about Carol Anderson's term white rage. We're exhibiting a particular manifestation of white rage. One that's, that wasn't, you know, it wasn't always covert. It was quite overt in the prison environment and with the civil rights movement and really taking offense in the sense of needing to show dominance and punishment against the entire black population as a result. And then so you have that one dynamic, but then you also have the dynamic of people explicitly being pro civil rights movement and explicit meaning outwardly talking about updates in the movement, right from the news, teaching each other, reading books that the, the prison administration deemed political literature and having reading groups, having political education groups. And so this is the context and foundation of what eventually became the Black guerrilla family and the need for the, an organized force that was truly merging different cliques. And what I mean by clicks is, you know, different cliques of, of people that self identified as either being black militants, meaning that they were pro black consciousness. Really, you know, in what would we, what we like to think of, you know, coming from Steve Biko in like in South African apartheid as that context, but really being pro black consciousness and needing to know your history and needing to stand up for yourself. So standing up for, standing up against these setups, standing up against the humiliation that they faced. I outlined right, how, how many of the co founders were, were often in private and publicly humiliated by officers and their, their, I'll call them their lackeys that were the Nazis and so needing to have a force to fight back. And, and this was already in the works and thought of. But then truly cr when you have that infamous murder that takes place in Soledad where three black men are shot down by a corrupt correctional officer who had a history of racial violence and he is acquitted. And that's kind of like the most famous part of the story. And especially when we think about the history of George Jackson in particular as a co founder. And so the Black Guerrilla Family is official founded. That was the consensus I got in my research after that moment after those murders as like we have to really do this. And so I think that that reshapes our understanding of the prison movement or rather I would say that it adds to it because there's so much amazing scholarship, especially in American studies and African American studies on the prison movement. But I think adding to that that the Black Guerrilla Family and the account that I provide in my book, it is also showing really how the, the personal and people's personal life histories are intersecting with these larger forces of domination and social control. And that's why that's what I really wanted to do is so that when you're reading it, for example, Anthony, who's one of the co founders and arguably the co founder that I was the closest to and, and he was a leader in his time with the organization, you know, really, really wanting you to feel like you know him by the end of the book, like you understand him. And the same on the other side with Andrew, who I talk about in chapter three in the white above all chapter and how he ends up, you know, self identifying as an Aryan and his journey to that. I wanted you to also feel like you knew him, like you saw him in his trajectory. And so that these bigger terms like even like carceral apartheid, they don't feel abstract when you are in, when you're reading the book. And I think that's really the contribution of the book. But then also I think it shows you the Black Guerrilla Family's larger contribution to the prison movement in terms of the ability to unite people from various backgrounds. And that's arguably, I think that's a consistent consensus even in scholarship on the BGF in different ways that their ability to unite people of different racial and ethnic backgrounds around the notion that they were fighting as a prisoner class, even doing that in the present with the agreement to end hostilities. It was the Black Guerrilla Family and leaders who were really behind that as leadership. That's what made them a threat. And we know historically, right, that's what makes people a threat. 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, they have the charisma, the knowledge, the tools to organize people and to inspire people across boundaries and to reach across. And the BGF did that consistently in their history. And that's also something I really wanted to show, is that they were able to do that consistently. And it was one of their core missions. First and foremost, we are going to stand up for the survival of black people here in California, in prisons, on the outside, in the US and then also globally, because they saw themselves as being a part of a global movement, which, again, was my choice to use the word apartheid, because that's how they saw themselves explicitly. But then also their second mission was. And we know that to do that, we can't just unite all black people. We have to unite all oppressed people and show them how they're oppressed in different ways, even if they feel like they're not. Even if they feel like they're benefiting from the system. Yes, you are, but in these other ways. You're still asleep.
- [36:32]
Mikel Carter
Well, for sure. And so several things that really stuck out to me in your text are resistance, black militancy, notions of white solidarity, and also governance. And so could you give maybe one or two examples of just how these themes kind of play out in your text?
- [36:50]
Dr. Brittany Friedman
Yes, absolutely. I mean, you know, speaking of. I mean, with resistance, I could give so many, as you said.
- [36:57]
Mikel Carter
Right.
- [36:58]
Dr. Brittany Friedman
Examples with resistance. I mean, I'm just. I'm sorry, I'm just thinking, because I'm like, there's, like, there's so many in each chapter. But I guess I will point to one that really stood out for me. One is, I have that line. It's from Anthony, and all of these are pseudonyms. But when Anthony says that line about it being incumbent upon us to organize ourselves against attacks and setups by the administration, I'll never forget that I even got chills saying it just now, because I remember when he said that to me with such passion and force. It was like I felt it like. Like in. Like when he said it, I was, like, taken aback. And when he said that, like, he was. He was saying, like, you know, this, whether people see it or not, is life and death. And it was life and death for us every single day. And it still is forever for people on the inside. It is life and death when we're talking about a system that is designed to destroy people, not just physically and mentally, but as I show spiritually and psychically. And so then when thinking about the counter to that of resistance.
- [38:17]
Mikel Carter
Right.
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Dr. Brittany Friedman
I can. Another example is I purposefully quoted a very lengthy letter by Hugo Pinel that he wrote where he's describing his reaction to the murders at Soledad and in particular the murder of W.L. nolan, who's well known to be. He was a very well respected teacher and philosopher and writer and strategist and known to be a close friend of George Jackson, but he was also a close friend of Hugo Pinel. And I included that letter to show how Hugo's describing. Just what it feels like to lose a best friend in the struggle. And I think that's a part of resistance too. Of like, what does it feel like when someone loses a comrade and they. And, and you have to live with. Right. The descriptions and image of them falling like that and. And then also the very real reality that those who perpetrated that violence got away with it. And I think that's also a story that says oldest time. And it's within those moments, like I, I wanted. The letter is long and I thought about, well, am I quoting it too long? Like it's, it's taking up a lot of room and you know, like from an editorial standpoint, like in publishing, it's like, oh, that's a lot.
- [39:53]
Mikel Carter
It's really long.
- [39:54]
Dr. Brittany Friedman
Or even with interview quotes. But I'm like, no, you don't. You wouldn't understand the full depth if I just kind of like quoted a little bit of his letter because it's a raw letter that he wrote in the aftermath of this, his friend's murder. And it's it. And he's saying in his own words why he's galvanized and to eventually co. Found the black gorilla family and why it is. It's not just an organization, it's a lifeline for him and others and the meaning behind it. And I feel like the same thing with the. I think it's toward the end of the book the very long quote from Andrew when he talks about surviving the gladiator setup. I use that whole quote too because I was like, you wouldn't understand how Andrew's transformation as a white supremacist with all these like, swastika tattoos. Right. He wouldn't understand his transformation on the outside if you didn't understand what he went through in these different moments. He has. Where he realizes that he's actually a cog in the machine that like, he thinks that he has seniority and he has this intermediary place, but actually he's, he's disposable. He can be set up too, in a fight. And something that's not in the book, that sometimes I. It's not a regret. But I'm like, well, I guess I could always write about it later, but I do have a lot of the work I did with lifers. It was interesting because many were former members of various organizations while they were in prison, and they were all volunteering and working together on the outside to help help lifers on the inside. And I was like. And they were able to get out because of changes in legislation, like in the late 2010s in California. And so they were trying to help people who were going to be able to get out too, get set up. And I remember asking, I said, how. I asked all of them, how are you able to be here in this organization when you. You've been resisting against the oppression of this particular person, right? And. And resisting this larger structures where everyone has their place. But now you're here and you're all sitting here and you're helping people, even helping people behind bars that look nothing like you and working with people that when you were incarcerated, you could have been killed for being seen with them. And something that just like really was so clear is hearing explicitly, we don't need it. I remember the first time someone said, we don't need it anymore. And I was like, you don't need what? They're like, we don't need that, like, badge, or we don't need. We don't need that label out here and out here. Like, that's my brother. And so things like that. And even Andrew speaking like that, like, given what I describe in the book, right, like, that's why I included his four. Those just the full depth of people's stories in their own words, because then you can see how significant it is to have a transformation like that when you get out.
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Dr. Brittany Friedman
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- [44:13]
Mikel Carter
That's really powerful and it really just speaks to like the intentionality behind the work that you're doing in the book itself. So that's. Yeah, I think that was an amazing, amazing choices to include like the entire quotes from those individuals. For sure. You also, in the book you talk about or you mentioned like death work. And so I wanted to know if you could talk a little bit more like, explain what this is and then how it, what is its role in carceral apartheid or like how you also situate it within the book.
- [44:47]
Dr. Brittany Friedman
So the way that I think about Death Work and death work used to be in the title. Like it was in the title when it was a dissertation. It was like in the early title of the book. But then I took it out. But it was. Because that's what I saw this as like just, I, I gotta hold onto my. One of my. I have a crystal on my desk. I need to hold it when I say this. But because being in the field, I realized just how like how evil a system like this is. Like, I already knew it was evil, but it's like when you're out, when you're working in it and you're unearthing it in such an intentional way, it's like intentionally going into a crypt. That's how I felt all the time. Like I was intentionally peering under something that would. Otherwise people would hope that it was just the door was closed, but I was just like opening the door like you see in a scary movie. And that's how it felt. And so I remember like writing in my notes and being like this feels like death work. Like that's what they're doing. They're. They're in, they're working systematically to inflict all of these types of deaths upon people. Whether it's physical death, people are dying psychically, especially in isolation. And people are dying spiritually in the way that they're even describing it. Like their soul is just evaporating and dispensing off into an ether that they can no longer grasp. And I don't even think death work does justice to that. But it's the word that came to mind. And because it, it speaks to again the intentionality of it, that it is work. It also speaks to the fact that it takes energy and it takes like money is energy. Right? So it even Takes money. Like it's expensive. I said this recently to a friend in another venue. I said, it's expensive to be evil usually. And it's. Usually take a lot of work. And so that's why I used that word. I could have called it evil work, but I decided to call it death work because I'm like, that's the goal. The goal is, is different types of deaths. But it's not enough to just kill, kill someone, even just using the word. Just like it's not enough to kill someone physically. I think what I show is that carceral apartheid, it's a, it's truly about the, the community building joy and solidarity that comes from ceremonial ceremoniously degrading a person and a population of people and stripping people down. And then that's the point where they are able to be physically killed. Once they are completely, there's not much left. And I think that that again speaks to why I was like, this is, that's what apartheid is. It's not just about killing people. It's that you have to make it a spectacle and kill them in all these other ways. And then you have to scientifically justify it, which I show in the book they do. You have to come up with all of these classifications and methods of death. And so that is work. And then it, and then it also. I didn't write this. It didn't make it into the book. But I was always speculating on, like, what does it, what does it feel like to be a death worker? Like, to, to, to do that. But that's again, why, like I said at the very beginning, like, I know that my grandma was with me and like my own protection, like, I would, I, I, that's something I had to learn too in the field of like, truth telling as method requires. Yes, obviously physical protection is important, but it requires a type of energetic protection that I very consciously began to practice because before I did that I would feel extremely drained, tired, anxious, and just did not feel well. And I knew it's because I was taking, I was like taking on what I was studying. And I, and I don't do that anymore. And even the way I teach my students, I have a lot of students that I'm training in investigative methods. I teach them that your job is to observe, not absorb. And if you feel like you're absorbing, then you need to hit pause and we gotta reassess what are your practices? And like, what, what boundaries can we set? Because it doesn't mean you're not going to have instances. But how can we lessen the number of times where you are feeling a type of way that like, it's clear the work is impacting you very negatively.
- [49:33]
Mikel Carter
Thank you. So earlier we kind of mentioned just intentionality. And so since I doctor Ran, I really love you with your Rossni and Iran style. It feels very intentional as well. And one thing I noticed was just you also included like two chronologies that were conlines within the book itself. One that was us centered while the other was like one that was global. Could you talk about, I guess, the decision to do that? What guided you to do that?
- [50:04]
Dr. Brittany Friedman
Yeah, I do appreciate what you said too about intentionality. Thank you for calling that out in that way. Because everything was intentional. Everything. Even down to the quotes of different pieces of, you know, sources. I was like, those need to be in another font. That's what I told my publisher. I was like, it needs to be another font. Because at first it wasn't. It was just like indented, like the norm. And I said no, because if it's in another font, then you feel like the source is taking you into something and then you come back out, but otherwise in. And you want like, you want that feeling. So then you feel close to what you just learned versus having the level of distance that we are. We're trained to have that distance when you're reading. But I didn't want people to feel distant from the material. So that was intentional. And in terms of. Because you remind me the one little point. I'm sorry, I had a little. I went on a tangent. I went on like a poetic tangent.
- [51:09]
Mikel Carter
No, wonderful tangent, of course. But yeah, thinking about the timeline. So the chronic technologies, one us centered and the other is global.
- [51:18]
Dr. Brittany Friedman
Yes, I. So I did that because I wanted. It was a reminder because I, I know that everyone knows that all these things are happening at the same time. But then I'm like, but do they know the extent of what was happening at the same time? Like they know some things are. But even for me, I know this. But then when I wanted the timeline, I just, I put it together at the end. So the book was complete. I put together the timeline and I did that because I also visually wanted to see it. I wanted to see it. And then I'm like, yeah, there's going to be some things done here. I think even the most well read person will be surprised that like, oh, that was happening in the US and that was also happening in, you know, international, internationally. And so that it was a reminder before you even get into the book that everyone that you are going to meet, incarceral, apartheid, this is the timeline that they were living, right? They're living a multidimensional timeline. So at the same time, when they're fighting Nazi aligned and then eventually Aryan Brotherhood aligned correctional officers, the content of Africa, various countries are fighting for liberation from colonization, right. Or are fighting or are, are trying to liberate similarly situated black political prisoners, for example. Or like I wanted people to, to see, right, that at the same time we have the so called like scramble for Africa, right? We also have what's happening in the US with the continued ramping up of various forms of colonization, like massive increases in boarding schools. Because then you can see that like this is not carceral. Apartheid is not a, it's not a book just about the U.S. it's a book about a larger world project where the US is one site, it's one colony, but it's not the only one. And it was also a tool of maybe inspiring people to. When you're thinking about what to study, if you don't know, then go look at one.
- [53:32]
Mikel Carter
Go look at the timeline.
- [53:33]
Dr. Brittany Friedman
Because there's a lot of things on the timeline that are still, I would consider and use the like forbidden word of understudied.
- [53:42]
Mikel Carter
No, for sure. And I think that really, that really came through just thinking about, I guess it allowed the reader to definitely think about like, okay, this is not just a us like issue or situation. This is something that is global. And so it puts your mindset into that framework like as soon as you begin the book. And so I wanted to also talk about just a rebel archive. Could you talk about that?
- [54:10]
Dr. Brittany Friedman
Yeah. And then right before I will just clarify, the reason I say alleged scramble of Africa is because anytime I feel like something is a euphemism for something actually that is truly heinous, I will say like allegedly similar to like the, the word administrative segregation is a correctional euphemism for solitary confinement. And I'm like, oh, you're allegedly segregating me administratively, but you're actually putting me into a psychological torture hole. And so that's what I think too. Just, that's just to clarify. So people know why I said that because it's more of a sarcastic rhetorical device. But in, in terms of rebel archive, you know, so I really love what Kelly Lytle Hernandez talks about as a rebel archive and I love how she gives us that term to understand the necessity of documenting, not just from the official, often tainted record that's coming from the state, but from the sources and artifacts that are produced and kept by oppressed peoples. People actually living through this. And so as I was in the field and doing my work, I'm like, this is a rebel archive. That's it. So, like, this is what it. This is what this means in practice. And I. And that's what I'm doing. And you know, honestly, one of the best archives that I visited during my time, it was. It's an archive. It's not, it's not open to the public, and for good reason. It's a private archive and it's held by a man that is a member of the original Black Panther Party. And it's all of his documents, all of his documents and everything that he kept from that era in his house. And it just fills his house, right? Fills the basement. Osiatic. And in order to eat, it's invite only. So you have to get invited. And the way I got invited was because he was, you know, very close with someone I interviewed. And they're like, you should, you know, you should talk to him. But also you gotta get him to let you see the archive, because you could talk to him, but you gotta see the archive, though. And I was like, how's it, how's he gonna. He doesn't know me. Like, he's not gonna let me go into his house and go around and. But he did. He did. And that was. I really think that was the best. It was the best archive because. And it was, it was shocking. And seeing everything that he kept with such care too, like, that is why I'm like, how can we preserve these spaces? Because I said to him, I said, well, what's going to happen? Like, who's going to care for this, right? Who's going to keep caring for this? What about. All of this is physical? Like, what about these boxes? Like, who's, you know, we know that documents can they wear over time, right? They, they're subject to the elements and, and. But then at the same time, there's a really good counter argument, right? And he schooled me. He said, yeah, but this is, this is intentional because I don't, I never wanted the wrong person to ever get their hands on any of this. And that's why I invite people to come and, you know, and it's. And you, you only get invited if somebody else that I know, I trust with my life that like, that verified that you could come and that you are who you said you are. And I'm like, I 100% respect that. Too, because what if all of this, what's digitized, then even behind the most secure password, it's still accessible. So, you know, I. I think that. That there's. That aspect of. Of building a rebel archive, too, is like, how do you protect your sources? Or how do you. How do you deal with the dilemma of not wanting your archives to be exposed because he himself had his own rebel archive as well.
- [58:22]
Mikel Carter
Dr. Freeman, this has been an amazing interview. I want to say thank you so much for writing this powerful and insightful text and for this wonderful interview, but I want to ask two final questions. So first, what do you want readers to leave with after reading this book? And lastly, what are you working on next?
- [58:42]
Dr. Brittany Friedman
Well, so I. I really want people to read Carceral Apartheid and feel like you met someone that changed your life in the book. I don't know who that person in the book would be for you, but that's something that I. I mean, I can say for me that there are people in my book that changed me from meeting them and from having the honor to interact with them and their family. And I. That's what I want. Because I do believe that when people are transformed by any type of art, whether it's literary or music, I think that's how the world changes, because people have to be transformed first. So that's what I really want. And you know, something I can quickly say along those lines, I. I just learned last week that my book is now available as an audiobook. I'm super. I'm so happy about this. Yes, it is something that I really wanted. Never thought in my wildest dreams that it would be available in the same year that it came out, but I am so happy about that. But I also just want to highlight, like, the narrator. So the narrator I was. I had the ability to have a say. And her name is Janae Giddens, and she's an African American singer and voice actor. And the care to which she. She brings the poetics of my book alive. Like, she just. She just completely. Someone emailed me yesterday, no joke, emailed me yesterday and said the way that she narrated your book, she did it in such a way where it's like, oh, like, Brittany must be a poet. And I'm like, I am a poet. But I'm just glad that I was like, yes, today, because I'm glad that the way that she did it, you can actually hear that the prose is written in that way. And I did write it that way because I am a poet as well, but I was like I know I'm an academic too but, and this is an academic book but I am a poet and I did write it like that. And that's, she really brought that out in her narration and that's something that I'm just so happy to be able to say exists in the world is the, is the audio version and it's done with such respect. And what I'm working on next. So I have been working since like 2018 in the background slowly on my, my next book which is all about interpersonal cover ups and situating them within larger structures of power. And I'm really happy that that is pretty far along and so it won't be too long before you see what's next for me. Like and I'm, I'm happy about that. But yeah, that's what I've been working on. So again also practicing lots of self care because I feel like I just keep choosing to study and become immersed in subjects that require it.
- [61:57]
Mikel Carter
Well, thank you so much Dr. Friedman and I'm looking forward to your upcoming work in the future. Thank you so much for this amazing interview.
- [62:06]
Dr. Brittany Friedman
Thank you for having me. I have really enjoyed talking to you and if people like the book, please let me know. You can find it anywhere you get your books. But definitely if you can support independent booksellers, we have some amazing ones here in Southern California that I could definitely let people know. Like Reparations Club.
- [62:29]
Mikel Carter
Perfect. Thank you so much.
- [62:46]
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Dr. Brittany Friedman
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Mikel Carter
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