In the carceral (and colonial racial capitalist) imagination, cosmic + social order demand sacrifice, which means the state—God’s hangmen—can only ever be innocent: it is just doing its job. If we value life—innocent or guilty of any harm—this social order + its prisons must end.

I want Marcellus Williams to keep on living past this evening. And I hope the fact that millions of other people share that desire is a sign that this system will not last.