voice22 :
I offer my full and
Submitted by voice22 on Fri, 2009-07-31 06:57.
I offer my full and unqualified congratulations to the @pocist@s from different parts of the country who engaged in this bold, creative and wildly courageous action in Pittsburgh! Although the outcome may not turn out as we hope this time, their attempt to address what is clearly an urgent crisis in @merikkkan @narchism through non-pacifist direct action provides inspiration for others and may be remembered as a turning point for the movement.
Many of us have grown tired of patiently enduring the nauseating stench of white supremacy which permeates our movements. Imperial, racist wars continue and expand overseas while the domestic legacy of colonization continues unabated, internalized under the rubric of gentrification it is nothing more than neo-Liberalism at home. Many of us are exhausted by the general tendency of scenesterism and the disproportionate influence of an immature, petty, spoiled, youthism within the @narchist movement. Let us out it by any means necessary. In the meantime, urgent issues have festered. For at least a decade now – and at least since the publication of Crimethinc’s racist, classist screed “Evasion” — some excellent, patient, intelligent, valiant, and time-consuming work has been done by many poc and whites, at both the individual and collective level, work that has attempted to raise consciousness around issues of race, privilege and tactics. Although clearly a very articulate group, I have yet to hear or see Crimethinc respond to any of the voices of dissent and resistance to its logic being raised from the margins. As these threads attest, while some have accepted the challenge of self-criticism and bridge building, others have fed on the open-ended, anti-authoritarian nature of the @narchist impulse to wallow in tired ideological game playing and evasion of the most ugly and inexcusable kind. At least a handful of us, it seems, are now refusing to be marginalized quietly. The urgency of the moment forces us to ask…
Where are your John Browns white @merikkka?
I hear it claimed that Pittsburgh @poc does not exist. Perhaps you are just playing games and we shouldn’t take the words of the very vocal majority here at face value. But if you are suggesting that there are no “legitimate” anarchist/anti-authoritarian people of color in Pittsburgh I suggest you think again. It shouldn’t be too hard to understand that @pocs are self identifying. In the future we might be able to have @poc register themselves in an official almanac so that they may be legitimized, but in the meantime I can assure you that there are many of us not only in Pittsburgh but also from around the country who are standing in firm solidarity with or brave comp@s, brothers and sisters who gave their time, energy, hearts and reputations to stand up to deliver this firm and unequivocal message. They have drawn a line in the sand.
Maybe Pittsburgh “black bloc” does not exist. We will see in September when it dons the masks of resistance to stand against the G-20. Let us hope that they are as energetic and creative as our allies who are withstanding this storm to break down the walls of white youth supremacy within our ranks. This action makes us stronger, not weaker.
One thing I hear far too little of in these discussions is any serious self-reflection on racism either within Crimethinc or the white @n@rchist movement as a whole. The comments on this list-serve are vile and despicable. They provide a very convenient window, for anyone who cares to look through it, of the ugly AmeriKKKan and prove, beyond a doubt, that despite denials and assertions to the contrary, Crimethinc and its allies are largely composed of the sons and daughters of colonial settlers. The ethics of freedom, liberty and anti-statism were central to the Homesteading Movement of the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, a period which saw the wholesale military depopulation of indigenous lands and their resettlement with a people seeped in a hypocritical, self-righteous ideology of exceptionalism and rugged individualism. These were also a people stubbornly resistant to making any link between their own freedoms and the oppressions of African and Mestizo people, the slavery and forced labor which produced the surplus value and goods which made white freedom and enlightened, philosophical liberty possible. Sadly, I sense almost zero willingness among the activist “left” to even touch upon that difficult terrain. In fact, all of the threads that I have read so far only appear to justify the critiques made against Crimethinc and its followers by the diversity of folks participating in the @poc action.
This action has provided us with a radical, revolutionary opportunity to look critically at these issues. It has, in fact, brought the scum to the surface and shone a light on the roaches within our midst. Let them scramble but don’t let them hide.
We needed this action people. Times are crucial.
Peace,
voice AkA dAlton

I am pointing out the effort to erase the ideas of pre-Mecca Malcolm in favor of a MLK-style post-Mecca Malcolm minimizes the contributions of Malcolm as a whole, and that post-Mecca Malcolm was not the apologist for white accountability he is often made out to be.

This version of events you cite is popularly taken from Alex Haley’s posthumous “autobiography.”

If I ever wrote the OAAU was not founded post-Mecca, perhaps I didn’t see I wrote that.

As with those who reduce MLK to pacifism and loving one’s enemies, the revisionism that makes Malcolm a man who didn’t understand the nature of white supremacy DOES come with an agenda. Do you have that agenda? I do not know. I DO understand this version you present DOES have an agenda… either the one I mentioned or, as you write, to be symbolic of an opposing way to go (instead of the way the evicters chose to go).

To avoid a difficult conversation because of notions about real enemies, etc. is not a sufficient reason to avoid a conversation.

I am an anarchist, and a person of color, where do you get off representing everyone of color in the anarchist community?

Ayo, the eviction was conducted by a group of apoc supporters. The only people who say the evicters ARE apoc as a group are those with apoc beef.

Malcolm X in his first interaction with the Nation of Islam in the US made divisive blanket statements much like APOC’s, he spoke of the “white devil” and promoted Elijah Muhammad’s version of Islam.

This is a wrong and misleading (but popular) view of Malcolm X = early Malcolm, bad; later Malcolm, good.

Early Malcolm was correct on many questions, from the nature of the civil rights movement to the repressive role of whites in American society.

“ballot or the bullet” speech? Pre-Mecca Malcolm.

“chickens coming home to roost” comments about JFK? Same.

Malcolm’s trip to Mecca is credited by those writing a revisionist history of the man as bringing him to repudiate the Nation. In truth, the issues going on were a lot more complex and had to do mostly with internal moral issues within the Nation of Islam (namely Elijah Muhammad’s infidelities) and competition within the organization.

The popularly held view of post-Mecca Malcolm is he somehow freed whites of their accountability for and collaboration in white supremacy = false.

POC should recognize people spinning this story have an agenda, and depend on our ignorance of early Malcolm to let them off the hook.

- a matriarchal apocer

Maybe you should have a smack a white girl?

i don’t know if anyone cares, or if this changes anything- but during the convergencce in pittsburgh there were 5 different workshops dedicated to talking about racism (not including two workshop blocks dedicated to apoc), and 4 workshops blocks dedicated to talking about how to deal with the convergence’s possible gentrifying affect on the near neighbourhood. during the gentrification workshops there were some good suggestions on how to deal with the situation, people took responsibility on making it happen (the same people who were “white allies” during the evicition action) but nothing really happened from there. all of this was not genreated by the action, but happened before the action.

throughout the convergence the same people who did the eviction kept talking about the neighbourhood response to the convergence in a way that made me feel very uncomfortable, as if the neighbourhood was a unified block. they claimed to have done the action in order to stop the gentrification (at least they did during the action) without explaining how an eviction of the convergence will contribute to that. now they say their action was more about criticizing white supremacy within crimethinc., which to me is very confusing and makes me feel like the action was not as thought through as they want to represent it. needless to say, the action was not discussed in the apoc cocous during the convergence, and non of the other apocistas (and there were a few of us) were informed about it happening.

i have a sensitive legal status and could not, in any way, get arrested or even carded. the only point in which i felt worried and afraid was during the action when the police have showed interest in what was going on in the building. it is nice for the people who did the eviction to talk about us non-citizens as if they represented us, as if our voice was heard, but the fact is that they put me in danger.

it saddens me so much that people actually put time and energy in this type of actions. people in my home country are dying everyday, and on a very personal level, i feel the urgency of stopping genocides and white supremacy takes priority over fighting crimethinc.

mostly, this concerns me because it makes me feel like there is no space for my passions and my needs within apoc, and it is heart breaking.

i thought i would share a statement from the 2002 queer disabillity conference, particularly because as POC and mixed-race folks, we outlined what we would want from future conferences.

this was the first and only queer disability conference and the lack of resolution of these and other issues significantly contributed to that fact. i would like to see more events organized across communities who share common experiences and/or goals, rather than privileged folks setting the stage and defining the agenda. i hope you enjoy our statement.

xo billie

We are a group of people of color and mixed race individuals who would like to acknowledge and thank the Ohlone First Nation, whose land this university and conference exists upon.

We would like to thank the organizers for all of their work and energy in putting together this conference. We have produced this statement in a spirit of change in the hopes that that these considerations will be taken into account in the future.
As an organizing committee that played the central and foundational part in forming this new international community dealing with the intersections of disability and queerness, we feel that the responsibility of including communities of color has been grossly neglected. Usually, this problem stems from people of color not having involvement in the planning process, but only as an afterthought to diversity. To build an international movement, it is important to understand that in our world, numerically speaking, people of color are the majority. At a conference in San Francisco, CA, in an area that is predominantly Latino/a, there is no reason for this lack of representation.

With this in mind, we would like to draw attention to the following concepts:
How can we have a queer disability conference and not discuss issues of access to healthcare? 

How can we have this conference and not discuss housing issues? 

How can we have this conference and not discuss race issues? 

How can we have this conference and not discuss class issues? 

How can we have this conference and not discuss youth and elders issues?
How can we have this conference and particularly not discuss how all of these issues overlap and intersect, which many of us are good at theorizing about but do not practice?
How is it possible that the local communities of color and First Nations people in the bay area are not represented here?

As Emi Koyama asked at the beginning, who has this conference been the safest for? Whose community is this? With this in mind, the people of color caucus would like to offer the following suggestions for a more inclusive conference in the future.

We envision a conference where: 

First Nations people’s experiences and perspectives are centralized. 

Non-English speakers have access to all activities. 

Communities of color play a critical part in the organizing process at the beginning instead of as an afterthought. 

Poor and working-class people of color’s struggles are included. 

The conference is not based upon panel presentations, many of which are filled with academic jargon that do not allow for discussion and integration of everyone’s thoughts, feelings, and insights into the issues at hand. 

We are not placed in the unenviable position where we must organize at the conference due to the inherent lack of inclusivity at the existing conference.

In conclusion, as Diana Courvant stated in her panel earlier today, we must recognize issues of race, class, gender, sexuality, disability, religion, age, and so forth, as many rivers that have separate qualities, but are also part of a larger water system. In essence, the confluence of the waters is representative of a larger and more desirable act of decolonization.

i wasn’t there but i have two comments:

1. crimethink needed a shake up as they are if anything assertively naive. whether this is the only form said action could have taken well, i don’t know. but bravo for carrying out a direct action against the direct action-ers. i hope this gives them pause for a desperately-needed re-assessment.

i think you should have called your action “kicking crimethink’s ass again for the very first time”.

2. your communique screams for some basic editing. if your intention was to make a statement then that statement needs to be much, much clearer and include examples of the behavior/ideas that you claim are endemic to crimethinkers (even though i know what you are talking about) for those who don’t know them.

this is delivered in the spirit of solidarity and discussion.

saludos,

dmz

And yes there was a lot of butthurt and crying about the intervention immediately after, but the end result was a stronger anarchist community.

I hope the people who where evicted take this as a pedagogic opportunity to evaluate their own stances and treatment of non white activists , because its only THEN we can stop worrying about fighting each other, and instead learn to be each others strength.

I know the crimethinc kids aint stupid, so I trust they will eventually come to the right conclusions and use this as an oportunity to grow and learn.

You can plant a flower in this hole, if you think about it right.

1. Since when does anyone seriously consider Crimethink part of the Anarchist movement?

2. Why is it at all important to confront white college students? Why aren’t we focusing on confronting racism, hetero-sexism, and patriarchy within working class organizations?

3. How is kicking white people out of a building (which they were going to leave in a day or two anyways) putting a dent in the gentrification of that commuinty?

I was already pretty embarassed to call myself an anarchist before this, and I don’t know how much more infighting I can take before I refuse to participate in established anarchist communities altogether…

The Philly APOCista’s are behaving like the New Black Panther Party, and now I’m worried about my own safety. Am I going to have to wear a mask at the Philly G-20 not just to hide my face from cops but also from APOC?

My only worry with this action at the crimethinc convergence is that, had I been there (I wasn’t, for many reasons, one of them being the serious (and seriously ignored) act of gentrification being proposed), I would probably have been evicted as well (alas, I am a cracker) before I could join the apocistas in evicting the self-serving, deluded, patronizing, patriarchal, and (the obvious one) white anarchists. I would not ever think to butt-in on an apoc congress, I know that my input is not valuable therein, but in an action that, quite frankly, NEEDED to happen, I would certainly hope that I could join in with such an effort.{r@ss}

-Just a privileged cracker who hates that whole identification, but knows that denial doesn’t break chains.