A few weeks ago, Dr. Brittany Friedman, author of Carceral Apartheid: How Lies and White Supremacists Run Our Prisons, explained how she handles the painful nature of her research subject:

I everyday have to set the intention that my job is to observe, document what I see, and just make it plain, but not absorb it…. Observe, don’t absorb — because I want to be part of creating a new world that does not replicate history, does not replicate these systems.
— “Friends Like Us,” with Marina Franklin and Akeem Woods, March 12, 2025 (time stamp: 1:01)

I’ve been mulling, and deeply appreciating, this bit of wisdom for a few weeks now. Anyone touching any part of the carceral systems around us has to grapple with similar questions of balance: How to know enough to be of use without becoming overwhelmed with despair, how to address carcerality without becoming either paralyzed or enraged or both by the constant cruelties, how to help one another survive without perpetuating systems of harm.

There are many reasons we might want to look away from specifics and the wider implications of Friedman’s work. But it is crucial that we NOT skip this book. In addition to its powerful lessons about how white supremacy fuels and serves apartheid, near and far, Carceral Apartheid models how, and why, to approach a subject filled with such pain and violence. And offers needed hope:

Carceral apartheid never sleeps, but just like with any golem, we can create the means to dismantle it and the pathways to build the structures needed to survive. — Carceral Apartheid, p.163

More in this review essay: “Carceral Apartheid’s Potent Clarity.”

In addition, this week’s Torah study at Tzedek Chicago will include some focus on what we are asked to observe — including the above words from Dr. Friedman. For those interested: Source Sheet for Torah study on observing, being inside and outside, in a framework of Jewish text and calendar.