Brianna Mims on Prison Abolition
words by Rianne Akindele
*interview conducted in early August, 2020*
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Putting a pause on our world, COVID-19 has initiated a monumental re-examination of our global social climate and political systems. From the Black Lives Matter movement, to redundancies in the millions, to addressing famine and genocides throughout the world, to the demand for justice for sexual assault victims — the world and those who care have been moving for change, non-stop and in higher numbers, than ever before.
I was able to have a chat with 23-year-old Brianna Mims (she/her), about her upbringings in Duval County, Florida, her time at the University of Southern California, and her previous and ongoing work in the world of prison abolition. To be clear on Brianna's definition of abolition, it refers to the complete upheaval and eradication of the current prison industrial complex or PIC for short.
From a young age, Brianna existed in a community that strived to truly care for their neighbors. It was a place where everyone not only knew each other's names, but would spend time together over meals, and help one another out in times of need. Assuming that caring mindset, Mims began working with her local Salvation Army as a mentor, tutor, and dance instructor.
After leaving her hometown to head to Los Angeles, California for university, Briana was able to see how the largest prison system in the world based there was affecting the community on many levels. The Los Angeles Prison System has a daily jail population of 17,000 inmates with over 70 percent suffering from substance abuse, 25 percent being chronically homeless, and its operations costing Los Angeles residents $1 billion a year (Source: Reform LA Jails). Not only are those numbers shocking, but the population of those incarcerated in LA jails is disproportionately African American and Latino. (Source: JusticeLA).
Around the time of Brianna's transition into her senior year, a push for policy change by an organization under the name of Reform LA Jails was brought to her attention. The change centered around gaining enough signatures on “Measure R” for it to be placed on the ballots this past March 2020. Measure R seeks to end mass incarceration by providing alternatives to jailing. It demands the government create a plan to minimize the amount of people in jail, plus increase the amount of expenditure to be funneled towards mental health counseling, drug rehabilitation services, and public housing. Brianna sought involvement in this campaign through joining Reform LA Jails and JusticeLA to make change in her community and for her people as an African American woman.
Alongside her wish for world change, Brianna has also practiced as a dancer for almost her entire life. Broadening her creative world, Mims has also walked at New York, Paris and London Fashion Weeks, and was chosen as a designer for Converse's Sustainability Campaign. Wanting to take her passion for revolution and combine it with her love of art and dance, Brianna created an extension of JusticeLA's demonstrative jail bed drop series. Mims and her team created a performance art ceremony addressing mass incarceration, confronting accountability, vulnerability, free agency, and the impact it has on the families and children.
“To dance, to connect to myself is both cultural and spiritual. Exuding joy in a black body is inherently political, so for me those moments are healing.”
How have you been lately?
You know it's been interesting. I've been trying to figure out how to be fulfilled in new ways. A large part of how I usually stay grounded and move through the world is very communal. Especially being a dancer I love the act of dancing in a community, so now I'm just trying to figure out how to maintain it without some of those things. I've been dancing and moving my body on my own, but that part of doing so in a community is something I can't have right now and it's a bit hard. I've been taking lots of walks and dreaming about ideas for the future. Some are ideas that I don't have the capacity or resources to implement right now, but I appreciate having the space to dream, plan, and build. It's also been crazy actually having time to cook meals that aren't rushed. I don't even really like cooking, but these days we don't have too much of a choice.
From your Instagram profile you appear to be really creative, particularly through fashion, dance, and art. How do you use each of these to express yourself/ideas?
Sometimes I use them as an expression and other times as an exploration of one part of self and sometimes an amalgamation. Some of the work I do can be emotionally mentally draining, so [it’s] nice to be on set or in the studio and just have fun. It's very important to just experience joy. To dance, to connect to myself is both cultural and spiritual. Exuding joy in a black body is inherently political, so for me those moments are healing.
Earlier this year, you worked with Converse on a design project? Can you tell me a bit about that and the play of re-imagining clothing?
So yeah, Converse had this sustainability project that they pushed along with a new shoe collection. As the creators, we took our old pieces of clothing and recreated them into something new to pair with the converse. This experience was beautiful for me for many reasons. To tell the full story I have to go back to the end of my senior year when we had this huge event for donors of my college. Wait, let me go back even more.
So, I went shopping with some friends at this vintage shop and while there I saw this green suit that I really liked, but I didn't end up getting it. I went home and kept thinking about the green suit. Like I had a dream about it. The next morning I called up the vintage shop to see if they still had the suit, so I went to go get it! Then, we have this donor event and I decided to wear the suit, but backwards to kind of explore its symbolism, how it related to capitalism, and just kind of going against what you're “supposed” to do.
Then, I got this opportunity with Converse and I thought it was the perfect moment for a suit. I wanted to keep the idea of the top being backwards, but I decided to cut one leg of the pants into shorts. As part of the design we used a burning method to print the word “Duval,” which is the city I am from, all over suit. It still needs a little work.
Why did you choose to print Duval on the suit?
It's important to me for people to see Duval. For Duval to see themselves in different ways and doing different things in the world.
“With my work, I want to challenge the ideologies that are deeply rooted in our culture and shift policy so that we can imagine a different world.”
So I saw that you recently graduated from USC. What did you study while there and how did you decide what to pursue?
I studied Dance and NGO's and Social Change, but I ultimately graduated with a degree in Dance. I've been dancing my whole life. Back home I attended a school for the arts, so making that transition to going to USC and being around normal people or you know people outside of the arts was different. In art school my focus, my life, was just dance.
In the realm of social change, I come from people who have worked in that world and that specific way of being in the world [the world of pursuing social change] is very communal, so community has always been prioritized in my family. In high school, I started an organization that partnered with the Salvation Army and I was trying to figure out how to combine both dance and my passion for change. As part of the program, I held dance classes every Saturday and held tutoring/mentoring sessions.
How do you want to use what you studied at university to help shape the world?
It's amazing because both worlds have merged in a natural way — separately and together. These worlds have come together in my work with projects like Jail Bed Drop dealing with the topics of mass incarceration and the entire notion of the prison industrial complex (PIC) through art and demonstrations.
As another way to combine both aspects of my life, I teach movement classes in jails, homeless shelters, and schools. I also work with an organization called CURVE and we work on trying to change budgets in regard to spending and reallocating funds. With my work, I want to challenge the ideologies that are deeply rooted in our culture and shift policy so that we can imagine a different world.
Can you talk to me a bit about how Jail Bed Drop came about?
Back at the end of 2017, a coalition called JusticeLA (Los Angeles) was founded to address the issue of families being separated by the largest jail system in the world. I joined their creative action team as they were looking for ways to bring awareness to the issue. That's when Jail Bed Drop was birthed. We took 100 prison beds and set them up in front of the Board of Supervisors office in downtown LA as a demonstration and it went on from there.
Since then we've given jail beds to artists for them to conceptualize their own pieces around the idea. There have been other Jail Bed Drops too. Some at Cal State, town hall, and other places. These were all building blocks, though not intentionally. I then teamed up with a friend for our performance art piece. I decided I wanted to use my dance and art to share and be vulnerable through the exploration of self and the world, meditation, prayer, and healing.
To me, the installation seems to be focused on how jail limits or completely takes away human necessities. Can you expand a bit on what you wanted to portray with the performance?
So there are two parts. One is a room we constructed that is the same size of a jail cell. We juxtaposed what a bedroom space usually symbolizing for most people safety, dreams, and comfort verses that shift when it becomes a cell. Your place of rest becomes the opposite of what it used to be.
As my partner, Bindhu, recites her spoken word, she is also putting actual personal items like toothbrushes, stuffed animals, and books throughout the room as a sort of ceremony to honor the lives of those currently or formerly incarcerated. Next to the room, is a dome that is similar to a playground jungle gym as a way to bring children back into the conversation. The headpiece that is attached to my head as I chant, “This is a spatial violation” brings about two things — the idea of being incarcerated and that label that follows after becoming free.
There is a culture of shame that makes getting a job or housing difficult. You're [those formerly incarcerated] always attached to this system that is supposed to rehabilitate, but does not do a good job of doing so. I wonder, “Why are we holding this against them forever?”. How the PIC is a violation. How we are all connected to it. Specifically black bodies.
Both Binhu and I are unpacking and contextualizing our own experiences with vulnerability, human touch, and free agency. All of these things that we have identified as rehab or being essential to human life. Other things to explore is the PIC ideology of being militant in relation to accountability and playing with this idea of militancy. This march. The actual movement is a combination of meditation and prayer that are important to healing processes..
Then after the performance is over, people can explore and interact with the piece. This allows entrance into the conversation in different ways. They can pick up the personal items and feel that personalization. The dome also has facts and questions tied to it. Those who wish to enter the dome and have conversations centered around human touch, dignity, community, and safety can do so. Through this process they are beginning to challenge these notions of the PIC, crime and punishment, while centering incarcerated folks their experiences and stories.
“I always say abolition starts at home with ourselves, our relationships and the principles and ideologies that we have rooted in our society. It's deep, complex and interconnected.”
Why was it important for you to be a part of that push?
For many reasons. I understand this issue from a personal standpoint in regards to myself and my family being black. I've seen firsthand how it has impacted the black community and how it's woven in all of our systems. I navigated many spaces while at USC from aiding with homelessness, the foster care system, and prison in some way. Once we start dissecting each of these happenings, we can see they all have a root and are all in some way intertwined from a cultural, political and personal level.
I always say abolition starts at home with ourselves, our relationships and the principles and ideologies that we have rooted in our society. It's deep, complex and interconnected. It is impacting my people. The more I understand and learn beyond this country and of how the PIC involved in so many places is so crazy.
Why do you think that abolition is something that needs to happen?
Well, what we're doing currently is ineffective. It's perpetuating harm. People need care and a lot of what imprisonment does is punishment based care versus accountability based care. It is almost human nature to want to see revenge on someone who has harmed us, but it doesn't make sense for our system to be rooted in revenge.
That is not how we should practice accountability. Not an eye for an eye. But, our system does not do this for so many reasons including money from prison labor. How we think about crime and how we respond to harm needs to be addressed at the root. What the current system is doing is applying a topical level solution to hide problems deep down. Locking people away and perpetuating harm while making money off of black people and destroying black communities is not how it should be.
I think for many, the thought of abolition is scary as they envision a lawless world. What kind of society do you imagine if abolition were to occur?
A world without prisons would look like people having the resources they need especially in areas of mental health, education, and food safety. People having access to those things. When harm [violence] does happen then people's healing should be prioritized. We would also have people who can actually address the root of these issues during crises.
If you think about it, people are put in violent conditions. The systems are violent. It is inflicting harm to navigate everyday life simply trying to survive and I don't think people understand that everyday is a violent experience for some people. It's not always someone who kills someone. There are food deserts. There are kids going to school without having the resources they need. People living in poverty. These are some forms of violence and it's everyday for some people. To abolish, we want to completely dismantle and re-imagine public safety and it's definitely not an overnight idea.
There seems to have been a huge increase in the awareness of this movement due to social media and infographics. How do you feel about this increased awareness? I feel as though when there’s more awareness that brings support and opposition. Have you noticed that?
Yes, it's so wild! It's almost like “Woah!”. I mean, a year ago, to say that you're an abolitionist had such a negative connotation surrounding it. Now, it has become a mainstream conversation and it is surreal to some extent. So I'm really grateful the conversations are being had. I would never even expect for it to get to this point, thinking back to where it started. People might not even ever be on that page, but to see mass numbers of people in support of abolition is amazing. People are willing to learn.
You seem like someone who is quite free in their expression of self and not only accepting of others, also but celebratory. How did this come about?
It has been a practice of learning and unlearning and it is ever evolving. The more I know, the better I can be in the world. I also have decided to live more intentionally. I think about what is the best way of being for myself and those around me. I think of what is most effective and what people need.
In this life today, I think there is so much despair and hope for change, but also many happy moments. How do you balance all of these ups and downs and stay encouraged every day?
I try to stay balanced by understanding exactly what I need. I make sure I feed all parts of myself. I know that I need to feel the sun's heat everyday and that I need to move my body and sweat everyday. I've also been regulating how much time I spend on social media because I found myself getting overwhelmed and sometimes not being able to get going with the rest of my day if I consumed too much negativity on there. But yea, just really listening to my body and fulfilling those known needs.
