By Caroline Cheung

Coming from an abolitionist framework, this talk questions how the prison-industrial complex operates through configurations of whiteness. By using proximities to whiteness as a barometer for acceptance, (lighter-skinned) people of color are weaponized to expand both white supremacy and the prison-industrial complex. Specifically, the creation of the model minority myth forced people of color into a “comparative framework” where Black and darker-skinned people were the targets and lighter-skinned people of color were the weapons and actors. I offer a brief analysis of the intricacies of white violence to ultimately suggest the need to dissent from and dismantle the state itself.