Rioting as legitimate abolitionist practice: Counterinsurgency versus radical place-making in the George Floyd rebellion

Abstract

Nearly 5 years ago, nationwide uprisings erupted in response to the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. The result was the country's largest uprisings since the 1970s and a revival of abolitionist discourse(s) in ways unseen previously. Federal and local government agencies continue efforts at co-optation and pacification to subdue riotous and political discontent. Relying on Joy James's trifold framework of ‘abolitionisms’, this article confronts the procedural abolitionism that dominates abolitionist writings, discourses, and practices during and after uprisings across the United States. Drawing on accounts from the 2020 George Floyd rebellion, we show how procedural abolitionism contributed to the state's counterinsurgent efforts to suppress and undermine the insurrectionary and autonomous positions. This psychological operation assists to pacify and funnel abolition into a procedural strategy of police defunding campaigns. From these same accounts, we demonstrate how the radical place-making of abolition geography occurred on the ground across the United States in 2020 through insurrectionary and autonomous tactics of struggle, forming what we call ungovernable abolition geographies.