abolitionist

Mitchell Atencio 4-27-2023
A comic book illustration of a male superhero in purple tights, a purple cowl, and red gloves. He's holding a woman in his arms in a city park as a police helicopter circles a tower in the background, where an explosion occurs on an upper floor.

Illustration by Cat Sims

EVER SINCE I was little, my imagination has been shaped by superhero worlds, lore, and comic and animated adaptations. And while more “realistic” adaptations are the trend on the big screen, what enthralled me about characters such as Batman wasn’t that I thought he could be real; I was tuned instead to the ethos behind the caped crusader.

Superhero stories often seem limitless. At their best, they stretch the imagination to ask what type of world we want to exist and what it would take to get us there, while acknowledging hardships along the way.

Recently, I began a rewatch of the DC Animated Universe: TV shows, feature films, and shorts that aired mainly from 1992 to 2006. These shows were the first to capture my attention and shape my imagination. Batman: The Animated Series was my first love, with Kevin Conroy’s Batman and Mark Hamill’s Joker seared into my consciousness. As I watched, I made a particular note about the moral imagination of these shows: Superheroes in these shows don’t just refuse to kill — a theme recurring across superhero worlds — they refuse to even let anyone die.

Take Season 1, Episode 11 (S1 E11) of Superman: The Animated Series: Lex Luthor’s weapons factory is about to explode, with spilled molten metal splashing about. Lana Lang is hanging by a thread above certain death; so is Lex Luthor, who unintentionally caused this mess in his attempt to kill Superman. But then, at the last moment, Superman bursts forth from under the molten waves, crashing out of the top of the factory just before it explodes, with Lana in one arm and the villain in the other.

It’s a scene that strains credulity. There’s an improbability of timing, a lack of “logic” in doubling back for the person trying to kill you, and the storyteller’s refusal to explain how Superman managed to save the villain. But what’s key here is the insistence, and flaunting, that Superman would save the villain. It doesn’t need an explanation; it’s assumed.

For a while, I was paying attention to how the writers made this subtext believable. Superman saves some villains in hopes they can be rehabilitated, others because they are being used by larger, more villainous characters. Why? The simple answer is that these were shows for families and children. The same reason the comic book’s “League of Assassins” became the TV show’s “Society of Shadows” and villains set out to “destroy” rather than “kill” heroes.

But this death-resisting subtext becomes dialogue in S2 E9 of Superman: The Animated Series when some kids plead with Metallo, a villain disguised as a hero, to save Lois Lane from an exploding volcano. “Superman wouldn’t let anyone die, no matter how bad they were,” the kids protest. “I’m not Superman,” Metallo retorts.

Madison Muller 9-24-2021

Nikkita Oliver speaks on June 18, 2020 during a vigil on the third anniversary of the death of Charleena Lyles, who was shot and killed in 2017 at her apartment by Seattle Police. REUTERS/Lindsey Wasson

Nicole Thomas-Kennedy, who placed first in the primary race for Seattle city attorney, said that while voters have embraced more progressive ideas, she thinks moderate voters are still “freaked out” by the term abolition because of misconceptions about what it means. Her campaign was motivated in part by working as a Seattle public defender, where she saw the city “mostly prosecuting poverty and disability,” including, she said, a case where a person stole a block of cheese and a beer.

Dhanya Addanki 1-17-2017

Photo by JP Keenan / Sojourners

“We are standing with families who have had their loved ones murdered and families who have had their loved ones executed or put on death row,” said Shane Claiborne, co-director of the Red Letter Christians, who was arrested during the protest.

“Violence is a disease not the cure,” he continued, “as families themselves say, remember our loved ones but not with more killing. That’s our message today.”

Shane Claiborne 10-27-2011

On Nov. 5 folks all over the world will divest from Wall Street and its banks … in order to invest in a better world.

Ideologies alone are not enough. There came a point in the movement to abolish slavery where ideology required responsibility. As one abolitionist said, “The only way to be a good slave-owner is to refuse to be a slave-owner.” To truly be against slavery also meant that you didn’t drink sugar in your tea, because sugar was produced with slave labor.

So on November 5, my wife and I will be joining the “Move Your Money” celebration, moving our money from Bank of America to the non-profit credit union here in Philadelphia.

It is one small step away from the vicious cycle that continues to see money transfer from the increasingly poor to the increasingly rich.

It is trying to take to heart Jesus’ command to “Get the log out” of my own eye.

It is a move towards Gandhi’s call to “Be the change you want to see in the world.”

It’s one little step towards being less of a hypocrite tomorrow than I am today.

Jim Wallis 9-15-2011

Sojourners has always tried to understand and advocate for "biblical politics." But what does that mean now, especially as we approach another major election?

I was talking the other day to a Christian leader who has given his life to working with the poor. His approach is very grassroots -- he lives in a poor, virtually all-minority community and provides basic services for low-income people. He said, "If you work with and for the poor, you inevitably run into injustice." In other words, poverty isn't caused by accident. There are unjust systems and structures that create and perpetuate poverty and human suffering. And service alone is never enough; working to change both the attitudes and institutional arrangements that cause poverty is required.

Lisa Sharon Harper 8-11-2011

They say at some point in their lives great leaders experience a "dark night of the soul," or a period in life when your feet, knees, and face scrape and stick to the proverbial bottom." It is a time when even your soul feels forsaken. Ultimately, the dark night is not about the suffering that is inflicted from outside oneself, even though that could trigger it. It is about the existential suffering rooted from within. St. John of the Cross, the 16th century Carmelite priest, described it as a confrontation, or a healing and process of purification of what lies within on the journey toward union with God.

"Whenever you face trials of any kind," explained the apostle James, "consider it nothing but joy, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance; and let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking in nothing." (James 1:2-4)

Margaret Benefiel 5-06-2011
Julia Ward Howe, best known for writing "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" in 1862, began working to heal the wounds of the Civil War once the war had ended.

My grandfather taught me that "There is magic and meaning in every moment." These words were passed down to him from his grandfather, and from his grandfather's grandfather, and I witness the truth of those words with my eyes every day. I have come to realize that as Shakespeare wrote, they are "upon me proved." As an undocumented immigrant, I do not need to be accepted into your terrestrially timed nation-state to be the human I was created to be. My life trajectory has a destiny and fate that is not controlled by the powers of empire. As my grandfather taught me, I am sure that there is magic and meaning in my life. Love is what brought me into this world, and it is by compassion and grace that I was raised. I am done begging, sitting, waiting, and crying at your doorstep.

Jim Wallis 5-10-2010
Yesterday I heard one of the best Mother's Day sermons I can remember. It was by the pastor at our family's church, Rev. Jeff Haggray of First Baptist Church in Washington, D.C.

Ruth Hawley-Lowry 5-07-2010
Mother's Day is a challenge. While advertisements evoke misty eyed memories and quaint appreciation for mothers, the truth is that Mother's Day began as a call to action by Julia Ward Howe.
Justin Fung 9-25-2009
Two hundred years after slavery was declared illegal in Great Britain, and 150 years after the Emancipation Proclamation in the United States, an estimated 27 million people remain enslaved around
Mimi Haddad 9-02-2009
Have you ever pondered the dangers of reading the Bible?
Jim Wallis 7-06-2009
The page one story in Sunday's New York Times is one that I have been waiting for for a long time.
Eugene Cho 6-03-2009
Is it possible that we as Christians just aren't angry enough about injustices like human trafficking and slavery? Perhaps we've grown too desensitized, domesticated, and docile.
Mimi Haddad 5-29-2009
I heard a preacher once say, "Don't let facts blind you to the truth." What did he mean? Facts, misunderstood or taken out of context, can take us further away from, rather than closer to, truth.

Arise, all women who have hearts! Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!

Eugene Cho 4-03-2009

One of my heroes is Frederick Douglass. I have a list of folks whose stuff I regularly read on and read about, and Frederick Douglass is one of them. Words in today's world have grown to be an interesting sensation. I believe in the power of words via teaching, preaching, blogging, writing, etc.

Jeff Brazil 3-17-2009
It is said that everyone in the world is Irish today in honor of Saint Patrick.
Kierra Jackson 11-18-2008

On this day in 1797, Isabella Baumfree (Sojourner Truth) was born in Ulster County, New York. Sojourner Truth was a former slave, women's rights activist, abolitionist, and great orator. On November 26, 1883, Sojourner passed away in her home in Battle Creek, Michigan.