Transcribed by: Sydney Henriques-Payne
Completion date: January19, 2022
Shana Pinnock: [00:00:03] What’s up, Grio Fam, welcome to Dear Culture, the podcast that gives you news you can trust for the culture. I’m your co-host Shana Pinnock, Social Media Director here at The Grio, and [00:00:11][8.0]
Gerren Keith Gaynor: [00:00:11] I’m your co-host Gerren Keith Gaynor, Managing Editor of Politics and Washington Correspondent at theGrio. And this week we’re asking Dear Culture, how do we become abolitionists? This week, we’re talking with author, educator, abolitionist and Black Lives Matter co-founder, Patrisse Cullors about her new book, “12 Steps to Changing Yourself and the World: An Abolitionist’s Handbook” in which she charts a framework for how every day activists can effectively fight for an abolitionist present and future. [00:00:48][37.2]
Shana Pinnock: [00:00:50] Whew! Listen, I’m so excited to talk to Patrisse because I have questions, Gerren, you already know because I think while we hear a Dear Culture oftentimes touch on themes of social justice and activism, more times than not, it can really feel unattainable. Right? So we can believe in social justice ideals and practices, but figuring out what everyday activism looks like can be a challenge. I also know for me, abolition is… That kind of ideology might not. I’m still I’m working there. It’s a journey is the journey. So I’m excited to take a step back with her and actually have a real conversation about what it means to be an abolitionist in layman’s terms. [00:01:28][38.4]
Gerren Keith Gaynor: [00:01:29] Absolutely. You know, there’s so much in this new book to unpack, including reimagining reparations, how to care for ourselves while fighting for the greater good —And you know how I feel about my self care— and how to navigate the feelings of seeing flaws in the system, but not yet being able to operationalize an alternative. So I’m really excited to really dive into this conversation with Patrice. So without further ado, let’s get into it. [00:01:55][26.3]
Shana Pinnock: [00:02:04] Patrisse Cullors is a New York Times bestselling author, educator, artist and abolitionist from Los Angeles, California. Co-Founder of the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation. Patrisse has been on the frontlines of abolitionist organizing for 20 years, so she began the Black Lives Matter movement in 2013. It has expanded into a global foundation supporting Black led movements in the US, UK and Canada, and has been nominated for the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize. TIME100 also named Patrice as one of the 100 most influential people in 2020. [00:02:35][30.9]
Gerren Keith Gaynor: [00:02:35] Patrice has led multiple Los Angeles based organizations, including Dignity and Power Now Justice L.A. Reform LA Jails, which have won progressive ballot measures, fought against a three point five billion dollar jail plan and implemented the first ever Civilian Oversight Commission of the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department. Patrisse is also the faculty director of Arizona’s Prescott College, co-Founder of the Crenshaw Dairy Mart, writer and author of When They Call You a Terrorist and her new release, which we will talk about today “12 Steps to Changing Yourself and the World: an Abolitionist’s Handbook.” She The Force and we’re so excited to welcome her to dear culture. Patrisse, welcome. We’re so happy to have you. [00:03:21][45.5]
Patrisse Cullors: [00:03:21] Thank you. That’s humbling. Introduction. I really appreciate it. Absolutely. [00:03:28][6.4]
Gerren Keith Gaynor: [00:03:28] I think it’s very deserving. And I’ve been reading your book and you really define abolition very clearly in your book. And there was a point in there. There was a part of the definition that really resonated with me, and that was defining it as a system that does not rely on punishment as accountability. And I want to open up the discussion for our listeners defining what abolition is and more importantly, how has abolition been defined traditionally and what is the goal of the abolition movement today? [00:04:03][34.4]
Patrisse Cullors: [00:04:04] Beautiful. One. I just want to say I love y’all. I love theGrio and I’m so grateful to be in this conversation with you all at some of my favorite things to do is talk with Black people about abolition. We have a long history. I think what some people think of the word abolition, they think about slavery and the abolition of slavery. And while the abolition of slavery did happen, it happened with one caveat. And many people, you know, many of the listeners have seen the documentary by Ava DuVernay, The 13th, that explains that yes, we abolished chattel slavery. And then we replaced it with the system of imprisonment and policing, and the 13th Amendment really sealed the deal on that. So in our modern day abolitionist movement really led by the one and only Angela Davis and many of her colleagues, like Ruthie Gilmore and so many other mostly Black women, but also, you know, brilliant Black men and Black folks of all genders who are really deciding that this modern day abolitionist movement must look at our relationship to prisons and police. And for me, really, the simple definition for abolition in this time in this modern day time is us getting rid of police, prisons, court systems, surveillance and detention centers. And people are scared of that. It’s scary to think about, “Wait, hold up. We got we got this whole thing in place. I know it don’t work, but getting rid of it, like why would we get rid of it? Why wouldn’t we just reform it or amend it?” And my argument in this book is we’ve tried that so many times. It’s it’s the time now, as Apple, many abolitionists say, to imagine a new system. And I’ll say this. I’ll say this one last thing, and then I know you go, I know we’re about to get into it, but right now we’re in the middle of a pandemic. We’re two years and I know, raise your hand. If you did not think we’d be two years in to a pandemic, exactly as you know, we thought like, OK, we got a couple of weeks off of work. Got it. [00:06:16][131.5]
Shana Pinnock: [00:06:17] I literally just told some of my, my sorority sisters, I was like, Remember what it means that they I thought six months tops and then I’m going to be celebrating my half birthday. It’s going to be great. Lies. [00:06:27][10.6]
Patrisse Cullors: [00:06:30] Two years into it, and I don’t I don’t think this pandemic is going anywhere. And so we’re watching also this current infrastructure fail us. It’s failed us around health care. It’s failed us around child care. It’s failed us in so many ways. And so abolition is also calling for us to imagine something new and give us the possibility of something new. [00:06:52][22.0]
Gerren Keith Gaynor: [00:06:52] I also have a follow up because I live here in D.C. covering Washington politics, and we know that there’s the word abolition is not used anywhere when we’re talking about policy and legislation. Oftentimes we hear “reform” and reform has been brought up a lot when talking about policing and the prison system. Can you because you touch on this in your book and I would love for you to explain the difference between abolition versus reform. [00:07:19][26.5]
Patrisse Cullors: [00:07:20] Sure. Well, I’ll say this reform is not a bad thing. As long as it’s and this is, I think, chapter nine. I think it’s called “non reformist reforms.” And so yes, we we’re not going to be able to like shut down prisons overnight, close all police stations overnight and detention centers stop surveillance. That’s not how the world works. But we can move towards abolition. And so for me, the non reformist reforms— reforms that get us closer to freedom; reforms that don’t pour billions of dollars back into this terrible system, for example, you know, big reform that got touted and then we realized it don’t work, which is police body cameras. OK, everybody thought just we just got to put a body camera on a cop. It’ll is what’s happening and they’ll feel accountable, like that’s actually not how it’s worked, right? And south central, we put body cameras on cops and they turn the cameras off. [00:08:20][60.2]
Shana Pinnock: [00:08:20] They turn them off. Mm hmm. [00:08:21][1.1]
Patrisse Cullors: [00:08:21] So we we poured all this money into this reform and we touted it right as like, this is going to be the solution. And all it did was give more money to police. So what we’re actually asking for folks to do is think about reforms that are going to get us closer to getting rid of the systems that harm us and closer to building systems that care for us. Los Angeles, we were able to stop to three point five billion dollar jails. That’s a reform because we still have more jails and we’re still working towards having an economy of care. But we stopped those. And so there’s a there’s a lot of folks across the country that are trying to figure out how they challenge police budgets, right? How they challenge the over incarceration of our communities. And so, I really think that that’s where we’re at. [00:09:11][49.1]
Patrisse Cullors: [00:09:11] So, OK, I have a question because I often think, can you be an activist? Write a quote unquote activist and not be an abolitionist or like, how does abolition intersect with activism? Like are there distinctions? Can you not be a real true activist without being an abolitionist as well? [00:09:32][21.3]
Patrisse Cullors: [00:09:33] That’s a good question. No, I’m not going to, you know, I’m not. I’m not going to do us like that because of our own journey. I call it an abolitionist journey in the book, and I and I talk about this on my socials like, not everybody’s going to be an abolitionist. That’s not how we ended slavery. Not all. Not all enslaved people were abolitionists. Let’s tell the truth. You know, and that’s not a judgment. Like, the conditions under the conditions. There were folks who believed in abolition and there was a growing movement to abolish chattel slavery. But it didn’t. It wasn’t all of us. You know, and there’s a famous Harriet taking people to freedom and that they stopped a put a shotgun and adam was like, “You know, you can’t stop now.” So at this point, you know, folks are going to be on a journey. And I think I am calling for people to truly understand that abolition can bring real policy change. Abolition can be a culture that we build if we think about the culture of white supremacy and patriarchy. They have a culture. And so I’m calling for us to build a culture for ourselves, a culture that will help shift and change the world. [00:10:40][66.8]
Gerren Keith Gaynor: [00:10:40] And I love that you mentioned Ava DuVernay’s 13th. I would love for you to talk more about that direct relationship in the history of that. When we think about that punishable clause that basically made slavery legal, still. [00:10:55][14.3]
Patrisse Cullors: [00:10:55] Absolutely. Well, you know, the 13th Amendment says that slavery has been abolished unless you’ve committed a crime and you’re in servitude to pay that debt for that crime. So it’s very simple. Like, it’s literally like, “Yes, we this is this is over— except if you did this thing” and we have to understand that laws, especially under this countr,y laws, were created from a white supremacist framework. And so I think we think about the Black codes, we think about Jim Crow. And so all of a sudden there is no slavery anymore. And yet all these laws come in place that are actually laws that are criminalizing everyday Black life. We can think about all of our loved ones who have been fallen by and stolen by police that were literally living their lives as Black people and they were criminalized for that. We could think about the over 1.8 million people in prison right now. Half of those people are Black people. There is a reason for that. There’s a system in place. It’s not a conspiracy at this point. There are so many books that have been written, so many speeches that have been spoken about this long history of Black people being impacted by a criminal legal system that was created to keep us criminalized. And so this conversation around abolition is also about challenging that system. Do you think about how much of an industry the prison industry is? And I’m not talking about private prisons. That’s actually a small part of our prisons. We mostly have public funded prisons that have created an industry. And so who is making those beds? Who’s making those those clothes, who’s giving the contracts for those prison buildings and jail buildings? And then what elected officials are benefiting for calling for being harder on crime, being tough on crime. We could look at the 80s and the 90s and the impact of that and then what happened to our communities. We were decimated, destroyed. I grew up in a community that was deeply impacted by the war on drugs, war on gangs. By the time I was 13 years old, I had watched almost every single young man of color and my community be taken off to juvenile hall, be criminalized, be arrested. And then I went to mostly white schools growing up. So, then I would go to the white schools and all them would be doing drugs. There’d be no cops. And I’m like, “There’s something going on here. If the local drug dealer is actually living in Sherman Oaks and he has all the drugs and not getting busted for it, but my brother has a nickel bag and being pummeled by the police, there’s something going on here.” And so that is really the conversation. [00:13:49][173.3]
Shana Pinnock: [00:13:50] So I kind of have like a two part question now, I’ll save the second half later, but I did. You know, first off, thank you for being able to walk through the historical context around systemic racism and just, you know, all together. And you know, I’ll say — and Gerren and I have very differing opinions on some of this because, you know, yes, I agree that while the system is flawed, I I often feel a little bit conflicted, right? Because there’s also the need to see people being held accountable. So granted, while you have, you know, the data that basically shows that racism and prejudice had lives in everything, including, you know, this carseral system, you know, Black Americans have the highest rate of incarceration in the country. But even still with that, for those of us who are struggling with, you know, knowing that information, especially in a time where, Hell, DNA, is telling you, “Oh, that person who we convicted 40 50 years ago should actually be free because they didn’t do it.” And you know, all of these things, you know, how do you? There’s still so many of us, myself included, who still support prison system in jail time for certain acts. How do you reconcile abolishing the castle state and also holding those people accountable? And you know what? What, if any, what are the alternatives to prison in jail time? [00:15:12][82.0]
Patrisse Cullors: [00:15:12] Yes. So I’ll just say that that is a very normal reaction. And, you know, I never want people to feel like, as an abolitionist, that I’m ignoring or minimizing the impact of harm on our communities, you know. Many of us are victims of harm and really terrible harm. And so that feels important like we just have to we have to, you know, agree with that, right? There’s one. On the one hand, there state violence, right? The harm that the system causes us. And on the other hand, it’s the harm that we cause each other in our own neighborhoods and communities. But what? I’ll what I’ll challenge you on and our listeners on is that accountability, policing and jailing and imprisonment doesn’t equal accountability. And that there are other ways in which we can create accountability, not just for the systems in place, but the people also who cause harm. And that if you talk to people who both caused harm and who often are victims of harm as well, they will tell you that the criminal legal system didn’t make them feel more accountable. They made them feel guilty, made them feel ashamed. And we don’t always make our best choices, also from a place of guilt and shame. I also challenge us because jailing and imprisonment as we know it inside of those systems are incredibly violent. They don’t rehabilitate. Those are not spaces that actually make people more whole, their spaces that make people more traumatized. And when we have more traumatized being, we will most definitely have more harm caused. And so what we’re really trying to get to the root here, abolition is about about the root causes. What are the root causes of harm? Of what are the why do people steal? Why do people murder? Why do people rate? Why do people do those things? We have not actually answered any of those questions. We have not thought about that, and the police are definitely not trying to figure that out. And so it’s actually our job to get to the root of why these issues are happening and then deal with the root of why those issues are happening. That doesn’t mean that we’re always going to get what we what our feel or see. I also have to really, you know, challenge folks. The way we’ve been taught is to think that punishment is accountability, right? There’s so many times where I’ve seen people write in the post, this person did this to me or this happened to me. I want them to rot in hell. That’s the way we’ve been taught. But we have to actually unlearn that way of dealing with harm and learn to forgive actively. Another chapter of my book. And it doesn’t mean that we have to forgive, pass and a passive way or in a way that continues to harm us. We can set our boundaries. We can. We can be healing. But there are so many other ways a good example with all of its flaws with South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Those folks caused serious harm. And if you look at those commission tapes and you see those folks, many of them law enforcement are often sometimes community members, you know, talking among each other, other South Africans talking among each other or on harm they caused. And sitting in a circle and facing the person who harmed you and making demands of that person to change. Because when what we want to happen often right is we want someone to feel apologetic for what they did and then we want them to change that. We want them to never do that thing again. And I can’t promise you that our current prison system will do that. I know for a fact that it doesn’t. [00:18:51][218.8]
Patrisse Cullors: [00:18:52] So, and I’m so glad that you brought up that I believe is Chapter five, on forgiveness, because that was my my follow up. So because I and Gerren and I have talked about this on this show at length, I am a person who I’m the Lord is still working on me and learning how to forgive people. Right? So, you know, you talk about like, act of forgiveness. And I think for me, I sometimes even find that a little bit triggering because, you know, we’re from people that are very forgiving people of trust. And if we weren’t, this would have been burned to the ground a long time ago, right? And but then, you know, you have situations in which, you know, just judges are handing Bibles off to Amber Guyger. And then, you know, it’s Oh, I forgive x y z, and I’m like, Are you forgive? Are you glad you forgiven? Because that sounds like a god problem. I am not God. And so, you know, how do you how do we reconcile that for those of us? Because for me, I do not forgive George Zimmerman. I do not forgive Gregory McMichael and Travis McMichael and Roddie Bryant. I do not. So how do we reconcile that among all of this? How can we be active forgivers? [00:20:04][72.3]
Patrisse Cullors: [00:20:06] OK, so this is a very, very important one. I wrote this chapter last. My hardest chapter. When I’m talking about forgiveness, I’m often not talking about the person who did the most harm to you. I’m talking about in our interpersonal relationships and the places where we have the most trust. I don’t think I forgive George Zimmerman either. I don’t even think I can.. I don’t think I can give him that. He doesn’t deserve my forgiveness. I’m actually talking about people we are in direct relationship to. We are taught so much about. Of shunning people, pushing people out of our lives that we can often block our blessings. So what I what I’m talking about forgiveness of actually talking about the people who you love the most that may cause a lot of harm to you that you know, actually, “I want to be in community with you. I want to be family with you. How do I?” Actively work on this forgiveness, so I’m not asking us to forgive white supremacists. That’s actually not. Some of us may want to, some of us may want to in our hearts and that, you know, more power to you. But I’m actually I’m actually asking us to forgive the people we love the most, the people we are and committing the most and sometimes the people that we can cut off more quickly than… than we should. So that’s really where that comes from. But but I’ll say, the journey of forgiveness is also a really important journey. Do not forgive quickly, because sometimes, as you said, you know, part of our shaping as Black people as part of how we’ve survived, was that sort of like we’ve got to forgive immediately, right? But that can also be dangerous for yourself if you forgive too quickly and try to enter back into a relationship that can be really damaging and be traumatizing. So the forgiveness process is one that when I say actively is one that you’re investigating, one that you’re coming back to. “What does this person do or what can I do?” Sometimes it’s about forgiving yourself actively. What have you done that you feel is unforgivable that actually you should be giving yourself forgiveness first and go to that process of forgiveness. I have, you know, my own processes of forgiveness for people in my life. You know, when I was 12 years old —and I talk about this in the book– my mom told me who my real dad was, you know? And I was like, Wait a second, what? Well, because that means for 12 years, I didn’t know a whole family, a whole structure. And you know, when I met these folks, when I met my family, I was like, That’s why I’m the way I am, like, I am. I’m more like them than I am and the other side of my family. And that made all the sense to me and it was hard. I was very upset. I was very hurt. You know, I was a child, but as I look back, you know, what I needed was a process so that I could hold what this meant for my life as a as a young person and then a real learning around like, what does it look like to actively forgive my mother? You know, the person who held this from me for so long and those ways when we when we give ourselves more room to forgive, we actually give ourselves more room to be in connection because at the end of the day, you know what trauma does to us and what trauma has done is that’s kept us disconnected from ourselves, from our purpose and from each other. And so forgiveness to me opens us up to more connection with ourselves and others. [00:23:34][208.3]
Gerren Keith Gaynor: [00:23:35] Wow. Patrice, thank you for saying that because I am on my own journey like me and I like, she mentioned. We have talked about this quite a bit. I’m more of a forgiving person like my, I would say, my philosophical and spiritual beliefs, you know, requires me to do that. I believe in radical love and liberation. However, you know, I was sexually abused as a child and the person who did it was someone who was a close family friend. And I remember contemplating whether I wanted to turn to the criminal justice system. But I’ve been really fascinated with restorative justice and figuring out how do we find that accountability without without seeking imprisonment and. While I’m struggling with that, I know many people are as well. And for those who are struggling, who are trying to reimagine a world without incarceration, can you what can you say to them that kind of jumpstart that deprogramming, if you will? [00:24:38][63.0]
Patrisse Cullors: [00:24:38] Yeah. And I just want to send you a lot of love as a survivor and thank you for sharing that. And you know, it’s it’s the real failure of the criminal legal system because it actually doesn’t center on survivors and survivors needs. It truly centers on what is legal, what’s the law? It’s the reason why it took forever for the criminal legal system to actually criminalize our Kelly right to actively seek accountability for the harm that he had caused. You know, I think for for me, the power of Toronto Burke’s work in particular in the MeToo Movement, was that, you know, so much of what she talked about was restorative justice and how our criminal legal system is not a system that actually is interested in survivors needs. And so much of the work, especially inside Black community, is this because often, you know as many stories of sexual abuse that happens inside your family, it’s it happens with close loved ones. And so this idea of sending that person off to the police and to a prison system is deeply conflicting. And so then survivors are often left to just sit with it because there isn’t an alternative system and that is where we are collective. That’s where we have to dig in more. We have to create new avenues for folks to feel like they can be and have the justice that they deserve. And it means that our communities have to be holding that as well. What would it look like if you had an infrastructure where if something happened to you could have went to active adult in your life? That was like, “You know what? Unacceptable. We have to remove this person in this way, and we have to actually figure out what the process is to healing again.” Those things happen not inside of the current government infrastructure, but people are doing this all the time in different ways in their own communities. So I think, you know, this book is also asking us to create new community structures, new spaces inside our communities where we can hold space for all of the very, very painful and complicated ways that harm happens to every single one of us on a daily basis. [00:27:11][153.0]
Shana Pinnock: [00:27:13] So one of the things that I really love about the book is how accessible it feels and like even from like the intro at the on set you say like, “Don’t let this be a book that’s just sitting on yourself. You, you, you activate it every day. So you know you making notes, you better find some sticky notes, some sticky note something.” So in the book you talk about, you know about how abolitionist practice incorporates like every aspect of our lives, like you break down from from what we eat to what we listen to. Just all of that can be an abolitionist practice for the audience really quickly. Can you share about that like your personal practices and kind of any ideas about how do you integrate activism and abolitionist ideology into your day to day life? [00:28:00][47.4]
Patrisse Cullors: [00:28:00] I love that. So first thing that’s important for folks to know about me is like, I really care. I really care about people, but I really care about Black people. And so first tenants for me of abolitionists as care and how we care for each other, because the opposite of abolition is exactly what we see. It’s a system of punishment, revenge. It’s a system of profit over people. And so the first way that I practice abolition is I show up for the people, my loved ones, I show up for the people around me. I give them the care that I feel like they deserve. And I also ask for that care back, ask for a reciprocity in care. I’m a person that is really close to my family and community. Among several text threads a day checking up on my loved ones. I’m, you know, making sure people get what they need. My brother, who has severe mental illness that I’ve talked about this a lot over the last 20 years. I am his primary caregiver, both legally but also I, before the legal system was involved, I was his primary caregiver. And so I really do believe that like we have to build those infrastructures of care together. I like to feed my loved ones a lot. I like to have folks over when there ain’t a surge. You know, I like to gather a lot, and I think for me, you know, a big part of my abolitionist practice is also continually reevaluating what my values are and how they’re important to me and how I can help use those values that extend them to others. I think the one place and maybe you will ask this, but I want to just say it now. The one place I struggle with that, I think this is like something that Black women struggle with particular as boundaries because I really do think that’s a part of the abolitionist practice as well. And so that’s something that like twenty twenty two, I’m like, Let’s practice my no more. Let’s practice my maybe I’ll get back to you more. Let’s practice my I’ll have to give everybody everything you know. I can save that for the people, my trusted circle. And I think that has been important for my evolution as an abolitionist. Wow. Wow. Patrice, I wish we had more time. [00:30:23][143.1]
Gerren Keith Gaynor: [00:30:24] Wow. Wow. i wish we had more time. I can talk to you. Like all, like all day. There’s something really comforting. [00:30:29][4.1]
Shana Pinnock: [00:30:29] Mm hmm. [00:30:29][0.2]
Gerren Keith Gaynor: [00:30:30] Something very comforting about hearing from you. But but you are our first guest for twenty twenty two. So, thank you for that. This is like an honor to be able to have this conversation with you. A very important conversation. So thank you so much for your time. And thank you for writing this book, and I hope that it really starts to heal and transform in the ways that we need to see, especially in our communities. So thank you for that. And to learn more about Patrisse Cullors, visit her website at Patrisse Cullors dot com. That’s P a t r i s s e c u l l o r s dot com. You can also purchase both of her books there as well. And be sure to preorder An Abolitionist’s Handbook today. It is released on January 25th. And as always, for more news and commentary on the culture, visit the Growcom. That’s Growcom and follow our podcast on Instagram at Dear Culture Pot. [00:31:29][59.0]
Patrisse Cullors: [00:31:38] We want to remind our listeners to support your local Black businesses and donate to your local organizations and religious institutions. The business that we will highlight this week is Harlem Hops. Harlem Hops is Manhattan, New York’s first 100 percent African-American owned local craft beer bar from frothy draft to chili bottled beers. Harlem Hops prides themselves on working with the best local breweries to offer a bespoke collection of niche, interesting and innovative beers to explore. To learn more about Harlem Hops, visit their website at WWW Dot Harlem Hops.com that’s H A R L E M, H O P S dot com. theGrio has published a list of 50 plus Black businesses to support during the coronavirus pandemic. If you’d like your business to be featured. Email us at info at the Grio dot com. That’s G-R-I-O, dot com. [00:32:24][45.9]
Gerren Keith Gaynor: [00:32:28] Thank you for listening to Dear Culture. If you like what you heard, please give us a five star review. Subscribe to the show wherever you listen to your podcast and share it with everyone you know, [00:32:36][8.1]
Patrisse Cullors: [00:32:36] and please email our questions, suggestions and compliments – we love those — to podcasts at the Grio dot com. The Dear Culture podcast is brought to you by The Grio and co-produced by Taji Senior, Sydney Henriques-Payne and Abdul Quddas. [00:32:36][0.0]
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