“I Use My Love to Guide Me”: Surviving and Thriving in Impossible Situations

“I Use My Love to Guide Me”: Surviving and Thriving in the Face of Impossible Situations is a video series by Reina Gossett, Dean Spade, and Hope Dector

Police and Prisons Don’t Keep Us Safe/We Keep Each Other Safe

I Use My Love to Guide Me

Prisons Aren’t Safe for Anybody

Fighting the Isolation and Dehumanization of Prisons and Policing

About the Series

In 2011, CeCe McDonald and her friends were attacked by a group of white people shouting racist and transphobic slurs. When CeCe stabbed one of their attackers in self defense, she was arrested and imprisoned for 19 months. During that time, CeCe’s evocative and thoughtful writing inspired an international community of activists to support the campaign to Free CeCe and to advance the broader movement for prison abolition. In February 2014, one month after her release from prison, CeCe joined prison abolition activists Reina Gossett and Dean Spade in a conversation about her own experiences surviving trauma and impossible situations, and the importance of love and collective organizing for people facing systems of violence.