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By Dana Bolger • @danabolger • 10 years ago

Over 1,000 Boston protesters show up for people in prison: “We see you.”

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(Photo credit: Jos Truitt)

Last night, 1,400 Boston protesters marched in solidarity with others nationwide over the state-sanctioned murder of unarmed teenager Mike Brown. But their march went where many others didn’t: to jail. Protesters marched to the South Bay House of Correction, where they chanted, “We see you” and “Black lives matter.”

In doing so, they chose to see those who the state works so hard to invisibilize, and affirm the humanity of those who the state works so hard to dehumanize.

Inmates joined the protest from their cells:

The prison industrial complex, of course, is at the heart of it all, just one more tool of a white supremacist state to exert control over black bodies. Prisons give the state the guise under which to disappear entire communities in this country and call it “justice.”

It’s in this context that seeing is a powerful act of resistance. And it’s a promise, I hope, to never stop.

We see you. We see you. Until we live in a world without cages, we see you.

New Haven, CT

Dana Bolger is a Senior Editor at Feministing and the co-founder of Know Your IX, the national youth-led organization working to end gender violence in schools. She's testified before Congress on Title IX policy and legislative reform, and her writing has appeared in a number of outlets, including The New York Times, Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal. She's also a student at Yale Law School, and you can find her on Twitter at @danabolger.

Dana Bolger is a Senior Editor at Feministing and a student at Yale Law School.

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