SONALI KOLHATKAR is an award-winning multimedia journalist. She is the racial justice editor at YES! Magazine and the host of YES! Presents- Rising Up With Sonali, a weekly television and radio program that airs on Free Speech TV and Pacifica Radio stations and affiliates around the United States. Sonali is a senior correspondent of the Economy For All Project at the Independent Media Institute and the author of Rising Up- The Power of Narrative in Pursuing Racial Justice. She has won numerous awards, including Best TV Anchor and Best National Political Commentary from the LA Press Club, and has been nominated for Best Radio Anchor four years in a row. Sonali earned her MS in Astronomy from the University of Hawaii, and two undergraduate degrees in Physics and Astronomy from the University of Texas at Austin. She resides with her husband and two sons in Pasadena, California. ROBIN D.G. KELLEY is the Distinguished Professor and Gary B. Nash Endowed Chair in U.S. History at UCLA and author of many books including Africa Speaks, America Answers- Modern Jazz in Revolutionary Times (Harvard University Press, 2012); Thelonious Monk- The Life and Times of an American Original (Free Press, 2009); Freedom Dreams- The Black Radical Imagination (Beacon, 2002).
""Through these powerful interviews, Sonali provides a window into the visionary work of on-the-ground organizers developing the concrete practices of an abolitionist future. In the process, she reminds us that abolition is not an abstraction, but instead a guide for the work we do now to build a better future."" —Alex S. Vitale, author of The End of Policing ""Prison and police abolition can seem radical, counterintuitive, and absurd. But in Talking About Abolition Sonali Kohlhatkar—whose journalism has unflinchingly looked at America's racist, sexist, classist, and bloated punishment bureaucracy through a critical lens for many years—weaves her conversations with twelve extremely original and insightful thinkers into a clear, concise, and compelling argument for abolition: its social justifiability, practical feasibility, and moral necessity. Taken together, these interviews are a masterclass in justice-driven journalism."" —Jody Armour, Roy P. Crocker Professor of Law at the University of Southern California