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By Juliana Britto Schwartz • @JulianaBrittoS • 8 years ago

Feministing Jamz: Taina Asili’s “Freedom” challenges mass incarceration

Taína Asili is a Puerto Rican vocalist and longtime activist for prisoner justice and against mass incarceration. In her latest music video, she worked with Detroit-based poet Michael Reyes to make a tribute to the movement for black lives, with a shout out to the historical roots of mass incarceration and anti-black racism. 

Taina Asili looking fiercely at the camera.The video follows a young Black Lives Matter protestor running from the police, interspersed with shots of the same actress dressed as an enslaved person running between stops on the Underground Railroad. It’s a powerful message from two artists with a history of freedom fighting: mass incarceration has replaced the slave trade as a means of exploiting and oppressing Black and Brown people. The battle has changed slightly, but our enemy remains the same.

Check out Asili’s “Freedom:”

I’d be so grateful if someone took a moment to draft up a transcript in the comments!

Bay Area, California

Juliana is a digital storyteller for social change. As a writer at Feministing since 2013, her work has focused on women's movements throughout the Americas for environmental justice, immigrant rights, and reproductive justice. In addition to her writing, Juliana is a Senior Campaigner at Change.org, where she works to close the gap between the powerful and everyone else by supporting people from across the country to launch, escalate and win their campaigns for justice.

Juliana is a Latina feminist writer and campaigner based in the Bay Area.

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