How Spotify Is Pushing To Abolish Police and Prisons

A Spotify original podcast featuring Black Lives Matter cofounder and “trained Marxist” Patrisse Cullors calls for abolishing police and prisons, labels America a “white supremacist” state, and contends that the severely mentally ill are actually “shamans” and “spiritual guides.”

Spotify launched Abolition X, which “focuses on alternatives to police, jails, and punishment,” in February. {snip}

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{snip} Abolition X‘s bread and butter consists of discussions centered on dismantling America’s police and prisons. In Cullors’s Feb. 15 episode, the hosts open the show by explicitly calling to “replace police and prisons” with “mental health care.” Reseda later argues that “people who break the law” do not have a “moral problem” that requires criminal justice. Instead, the host says, people commit crimes solely due to “a health problem they’re having” that requires treatment. Mensa goes on to contend that those mental health issues exist as a byproduct of America’s status as an “uber-capitalist, white supremacist, violent-ass state.”

Cullors’s musings on the podcast include similar denunciations of capitalism. At one point, the BLM cofounder argues that in a “capitalist world,” the “self doesn’t exist for black women,” because they “are at service to everybody.” Less than a year before she joined the podcast, Cullors purchased four high-end U.S. homes for $3.2 million. Mere weeks after the episode’s release, meanwhile, New York magazine revealed that, under Cullors’s leadership, the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation purchased a $6 million Southern California mansion in cash using funds donated to the group. Cullors later resigned from her role as executive director of the foundation in order to focus on a multiyear television deal with Warner Bros.