We will publish any writing sent to us that conforms to our editorial standards for authenticity, conflict, and rigor.
ABOLISHmke demands authenticity. “Objective journalism” is a false posture that supports the status quo. We have seen trained journalists publish the vague speculations of police and government officials as unquestioned fact while ignoring the grounded expertise of organizers and impacted people. Everyone writes from a point of view, our viewpoint is against all authority. We refuse to water down or muffle the call for liberation. We write what we mean and we mean what we write.
We will not pretend that the united states is anything but a white supremacist empire. That’s why we often refer to it as George Jackson did: amerika. We recognize that Wisconsin is a settler state and Milwaukee is an imposition unto land that nurtured Ho-Chunk, Menominee, Potawatomi, and other indigenous peoples for many generations before this city despoiled it. We reject both the perpetuation of the current authoritarian system that calls itself democracy and any attempt to replace it with a new authoritarianism. We will require edits of any submitted articles that uphold or venerate any state authority.
ABOLISHmke values conflict. Wisconsin is steeped in a culture of conflict avoidance and self-policing. This culture permits horrible atrocities. Police in Milwaukee shoved a pencil into Frank Jude’s ear in 2004, and Wisconsin’s conflict avoidant culture allowed one of the involved officers to be promoted in 2021. This culture is why Michael Vagnini and other officers were able to sexually assault at least 74 Black men in broad daylight between 2008 and 2012. It is why guards at Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake got promoted after torturing children and helping them attempt suicide in 2015. It is why adults are routinely tortured and killed in Wisconsin prisons to this day. Milwaukee can be a dark and twisted place, we will not conceal or downplay that darkness.
We expect our writers to honor the dead and fight like hell for the living. Do not hesitate to name the killers and denounce their acts. Treat any politician that tries to expand the power of police and prison terror with all the disrespect they deserve. Freely savage any organization or individual that apologizes for cops and guards, that pretends they aren’t terrorists. We don’t only encourage it, but require it.
ABOLISHmke seeks rigor. We aren’t here to re-write mainstream news a dollop of leftist snark, but to actually investigate stories. We are a zero-budget, all-volunteer project, but we won’t let that prevent us from digging deeper and providing our readers with stories and details they can’t readily get elsewhere.
This is no small task, and we greatly appreciate your interest in writing, editing, or otherwise joining this project. Please do not hesitate to contact us with any questions: abolishmke [at] protonmail [dot] com.
ABOLISHmke 