ethan ucker
Stick Talk

Personal Bio

ethan ucker (he/him) is an abolitionist organizer who scaffolds healing spaces and leadership, economic, and political education opportunities for young people who are in conflict with the law. He is the co-founder of Circles & Ciphers, a nationally recognized, hip-hop infused restorative justice organization in Chicago. He is a member of the founding collective of Stick Talk, which builds capacity for survivor-centered community safety beyond carceral and abstinence-based responses to urban gun violence. He currently serves as Stick Talk's Co-Executive Director.

ethan is of Ora Schub, Cheryl Graves, and Mariame Kaba’s lineage: Ora and Cheryl taught him restorative justice; Mariame taught him prison and police abolition.

Project Description

Stick Talk advances a survivor-led Firearm Harm Reduction strategy to respond to urban gun violence without criminalizing firearm possession or defaulting to abstinence-based approaches to guns. We build competencies and capacities for community safety and accountability that openly acknowledge (without shame or judgment) the easy availability of firearms and are inclusive of those who carry them.

Firearm Harm Reduction is co-created by young Black and Brown people who are gun violence survivors and who, prompted by their distrust of the police, routinely carry firearms for protection.

Stick Talk has been piloting and refining Firearm Harm Reduction in Chicago, inside prisons and in neighborhoods with high rates of gun violence and gun arrests, since 2020.