Saving Our Own Lives: A Liberatory Practice of Harm Reduction
Liberatory Harm Reduction is one of the most important interventions of the 20th century, and yet a compilation of its critical stories and voices was, until now, seemingly nowhere to be found. Saving Our Own Lives, an anthology of essays from long-time organizer Shira Hassan, fills this gap by telling the stories of how sex workers, Black, Indigenous, and people of color, queer folks, trans, gender non-conforming, and two-spirit people are – and have been - building systems of change and support outside the societal frameworks of oppression and exploitation. This is a collective story of trans women of color, who were sex workers and radical political organizers, who created shared housing to ensure that young people had safe places to sleep. It is the story of clean syringes, "liberated" from empathetic doctors’ offices by activists who were punk women of color who distributed them among injection drug users in squats in the East Village, and the early AIDS activists who made sure that everyone knew how to use them. It is the story of Black Panthers and the Young Lords taking over Lincoln Park Hospital in the Bronx to demand and ultimately create community-accessible drug treatment programs; and of bad date sheets passed between sex workers in Portland, who created a data collection tool that changed how prison abolitionists track systemic violence.

At a political moment when Liberatory Harm Reduction and mutual aid are more important than ever, this book serves as an inspiration and a catalyst for radical transformation of our world.
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Saving Our Own Lives: A Liberatory Practice of Harm Reduction
Liberatory Harm Reduction is one of the most important interventions of the 20th century, and yet a compilation of its critical stories and voices was, until now, seemingly nowhere to be found. Saving Our Own Lives, an anthology of essays from long-time organizer Shira Hassan, fills this gap by telling the stories of how sex workers, Black, Indigenous, and people of color, queer folks, trans, gender non-conforming, and two-spirit people are – and have been - building systems of change and support outside the societal frameworks of oppression and exploitation. This is a collective story of trans women of color, who were sex workers and radical political organizers, who created shared housing to ensure that young people had safe places to sleep. It is the story of clean syringes, "liberated" from empathetic doctors’ offices by activists who were punk women of color who distributed them among injection drug users in squats in the East Village, and the early AIDS activists who made sure that everyone knew how to use them. It is the story of Black Panthers and the Young Lords taking over Lincoln Park Hospital in the Bronx to demand and ultimately create community-accessible drug treatment programs; and of bad date sheets passed between sex workers in Portland, who created a data collection tool that changed how prison abolitionists track systemic violence.

At a political moment when Liberatory Harm Reduction and mutual aid are more important than ever, this book serves as an inspiration and a catalyst for radical transformation of our world.
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Saving Our Own Lives: A Liberatory Practice of Harm Reduction

Saving Our Own Lives: A Liberatory Practice of Harm Reduction

Saving Our Own Lives: A Liberatory Practice of Harm Reduction

Saving Our Own Lives: A Liberatory Practice of Harm Reduction

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Overview

Liberatory Harm Reduction is one of the most important interventions of the 20th century, and yet a compilation of its critical stories and voices was, until now, seemingly nowhere to be found. Saving Our Own Lives, an anthology of essays from long-time organizer Shira Hassan, fills this gap by telling the stories of how sex workers, Black, Indigenous, and people of color, queer folks, trans, gender non-conforming, and two-spirit people are – and have been - building systems of change and support outside the societal frameworks of oppression and exploitation. This is a collective story of trans women of color, who were sex workers and radical political organizers, who created shared housing to ensure that young people had safe places to sleep. It is the story of clean syringes, "liberated" from empathetic doctors’ offices by activists who were punk women of color who distributed them among injection drug users in squats in the East Village, and the early AIDS activists who made sure that everyone knew how to use them. It is the story of Black Panthers and the Young Lords taking over Lincoln Park Hospital in the Bronx to demand and ultimately create community-accessible drug treatment programs; and of bad date sheets passed between sex workers in Portland, who created a data collection tool that changed how prison abolitionists track systemic violence.

At a political moment when Liberatory Harm Reduction and mutual aid are more important than ever, this book serves as an inspiration and a catalyst for radical transformation of our world.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781642598414
Publisher: Haymarket Books
Publication date: 10/25/2022
Pages: 408
Sales rank: 337,094
Product dimensions: 5.40(w) x 8.50(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Shira Hassan is the founder of Just Practice, a capacity building project for organizations and community members, activists and leaders working at the intersection of transformative justice, harm reduction and collective liberation. She is the former executive director of the Young Women’s Empowerment Project, an organizing and grassroots movement building project led by and for young people of color that have current or former experience in the sex trade and street economies. A lifelong harm reductionist and prison abolitionist, Shira is the author of Saving Our Own Lives: A Liberatory Practice of Harm Reduction; and along with Mariame Kaba is the co-author of Fumbling Towards Repair: A Workbook for Community Accountability Facilitators. Shira's work has been discussed on National Public Radio, The New York Times, The Nation, In These Times, Bill Moyers, Everyday Feminism, Bitch Media, TruthOut and Colorlines.

Table of Contents

Foreword Adrienne maree brown xiii

Introduction xvii

Tourmaline

Welcome 1

Liberatory Harm Reduction Saved My Life 10

Revolutionary Love Notes

People Power and the Original Harm Reductionists: The History of a Movement Monique Tula 42

A Conversation with P. Catlin Fullwood 50

Imani Woods, Fred Johnson, and Liberatory Harm Reduction Kelli Dorsey 60

Liberatory Spaces of Glamorous, Queer Punk Rage Kelly McGowan aka Patti O'Poser 67

The System Is Not Broken, but It Will Break Us if We Do Not Work Together to Dismantle It 77

Conversation Kiara St. James

Lincoln Detox Center: The People's Drug Program 83

Interview Vicente "Panama" Alba

We Go Where Our People Are 94

Interview with Native Youth Sexual Health Network

Indigenizing Harm Reduction 106

Native Youth Sexual Health Network

Understanding Harm Reduction 114

Moving Away from Public Health Harm Reduction 158

Revolutionary Love Notes

Harm Reduction Is Disability Justice: It's Not Out There, It's in Here Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha 180

Conversation with La Tony Alvarado-Rivera and Bonsai Bermudez 187

The Beautiful Mess: Justice in Our Healing 193

Revolutionary Love Notes

The Intersection of Healing Justice and Harm Reduction in Liberatory Practice 220

Conversation Cara Page Erica Woodland

We Are Not the Problem-We Are the Solution 233

Conversation Dominique McKinney, Founder and Director of Street Youth Rise UP!

Applying Liberatory Harm Reduction to Mental Health and Psychiatric Medication 241

The Icarus Project and Freedom Center

Eating Disorders and Liberatory Harm Reduction 248

Nalgona Positivity Pride 253

Conversation Gloria Lucas

Transformative Justice and Liberatory Harm Reduction 261

Revolutionary Love Notes

But I Cannot Be Silenced 288

Conversation Monica Jones

Erasure Is Real 293

Conversation with Deon Haywood of Women with a Vision

I Believe(d?) in Violence 299

Revolutionary Love Notes

Harm Reduction Is Our Shared Root 306

Interview Mariame Kaba

Harm Reduction Is Grace in Action 322

Interview with Dominique Morgan, Executive Director of the Okra Project

Closing 329

Afterword Rosario Dawson 331

Gratitude 335

Index 337

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