A discussion of Brittany Friedman's new book, Carceral Apartheid: How Lies and White Supremacists Run Our Prisons (The University of North Carolina Press, 2025). The author will be joined in conversation by Maris Curran (independent filmmaker) and Saleem Holbrook (Abolitionist Law Center), moderated by Hajar Yazdiha (USC). Organized in partnership with the Department of Sociology. Registration is required. REGISTER HERE

About the Book: It is impossible to deny the impact of lies and white supremacy on the institutional conditions in US prisons. There is a particular power dynamic of racist intent in the prison system that culminates in what Brittany Friedman terms carceral apartheid. Prisons are a microcosm of how carceral apartheid operates as a larger governing strategy to decimate political targets and foster deceit, disinformation, and division in society.

Among many shocking discoveries, Friedman shows that, beginning in the 1950s, California prison officials declared war on imprisoned Black people and sought to identify Black militants as a key problem, creating a strategy for the management, segregation, and elimination of these individuals from the prison population that continues into the present day. Carceral Apartheid delves into how the California Department of Corrections deployed various official, clandestine, and at times extralegal control techniques—including officer alliances with imprisoned white supremacists—to suppress Black political movements, revealing the broader themes of deception, empire, corruption, and white supremacy in American mass incarceration. Drawing from original interviews with founders of Black political movements such as the Black Guerilla Family, white supremacists, and a swath of little-known archival data, Friedman uncovers how the US domestic war against imprisoned Black people models and perpetuates genocide, imprisonment, and torture abroad.

About the Author: Brittany Friedman is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Southern California. She has written for news outlets such as The Washington Post and The Conversation, among others, and her research has been featured in media like C-SPAN, Yes! Magazine, Ms. Magazine, The Associated Press, Boston Globe, ABC News, The Grio, NPR, The Untold Story, Jacobin Magazine, This is Hell! Radio, The Appeal, and Vox. 

Open to attendants outside of USC. An excerpt of the book will be made available to registered attendants. Registration before the event is required. 

This event is part of the Levan Institute for the Humanities' “Book Chats” series, conversations about new books published by USC scholars in the humanities and humanistic social sciences. To see more events in this series, including recordings of past events, visit https://dornsife.usc.edu/levan-institute/book-chats/.