Who you gonna call? One another!

Direct action tactics in trying times.

From the July/August 2009 issue of Intersections, the newsletter of Common Action

Your boss won’t pay you for hours you worked. The landlord won’t fix your backed-up toilet. Your friend was detained by Immigration Customs Enforcement, and now she’s facing deportation. Who you gonna call? You might call a lawyer, or a social worker, or you might file an appeal that may or may not receive a reply. But in an economy where these problems are becoming all too common, these solutions just aren’t cutting it anymore – they can be too slow, too expensive, and too isolating. Instead, many groups are turning towards a different solution: direct action.

“Direct action involves bringing people together to confront the person responsible for a problem, in order to demand a swift solution,” explains Emily, a member of Seattle Solidarity Network (SeaSol for short), an all-volunteer organization that supports workers and tenants. Through fliers on telephone poles and bus stops, a website on the Internet, and good old fashioned word-of-mouth, SeaSol encourages people who have a a problem with a boss or landlord to contact the group for support. Together, they write a demand letter and mobilize a crowd of people to deliver it to the boss or landlord’s house or workplace. If the boss or landlord fails to fix the problem by a stated deadline, SeaSol takes further collective action. Using these tactics, SeaSol has enjoyed a string of victories: winning relocation assistance for tenants and, back pay for workers; forcing employers to drop frivolous lawsuits; and more.

While SeaSol focuses on workplace and housing concerns, many organizations around the world have applied a similar approach to a range of issues. Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP), a Canadian group widely recognized as one of the first to develop the direct action model, targets government assistance offices that illegally withhold support from people. Another Canadian group, No One is Illegal, uses similar tactics on immigration and detention issues. In British Columbia the group has occuped the offices of Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) and has prevented CBSA officers from carrying out deportation orders by blocking access. In one instance, more than 1,500 people were mobilized to directly prevent the deportation of a Punjabi refugee at an airport. “Direct action is not always involved in our supportwork, and many migrants have been able to win residency without recourse to it,” explains NOII member Usman Majeed. “However, when petitions, letters to politicians, press conferences, rallies, and legal avenues are all rejected by the state, we have little choice but to use our own bodies to protect and defend members of our community.”

As times get tougher, many people are beginning to question the ability of social services and the legal system to effectively put an end to injustices committed by bosses, landlords and the government. An important book called The Revolution Will Not Be Funded, edited by the group INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence, calls this problem “the Non-Profit Industrial Complex.” The book discusses how non-profit organizations’ dependence paid staff and funding from the government or private foundations like the Rockefeller Foundation severely limits what they can accomplish. By mobilizing groups of people rather than relying solely on experts, direct action groups build something that goes beyond solving individual grievances. Direct action groups demonstrate that peoples’ issues aren’t isolated, but represent a much larger system of disempowerment.

Over time, direct action organizations can help empower a community to stand up to this system. As No One is Illegal states, “it is imperative to concretely offer support to those at the front lines of repressive immigration policies and to build our communities’ own capacity for resistance and self-organization.” Each fight is a learning experience for everyone involved, and as lessons are applied, communities win demands more and more often. At a time when we stand to lose so much, we all benefit from the empowering effect of real victory.

100 years of labor, migration, violence…

The following is the current abstract for a project that is demanding a great deal of my attention these days (sometimes I fear more than I’m able to give?). My partner on the film is my good friend Ian Morgan, who is completing the project for his senior project at Fairhaven College.

We are sponsored in part by the Whatcom Human Rights Task Force and Community to Community Development. We also submitted this to a conference concerned with similar riots that took place in Vancouver less than a week after events in Bellingham, but have yet to hear back.

If anyone is interested in taking a look at the research we’ve been doing for the film, feel free to leave a comment and I’ll email you.

“History, as nearly no one seems to know, is not merely something to be read. And it does not refer merely, or even principally, to the past. On the contrary, the great force of history comes from the fact that we carry it within us, are unconsciously controlled by it in many ways, and history is literally present in all that we do.” – James Baldwin

In 1907, more than two-hundred East Indian workers in Bellingham, WA were attacked by a mob of white workers. The white rioters broke into the East Indians’ houses and workplaces, stole and destroyed their valuables, and threatened and beat the East Indians until they were forcibly expelled from the city. In the course of one night, an entire community was driven from the town – in the approving words of a local paper, “wiped off the map.” One hundred years later, 2007, hostility towards non-white immigrants in Bellingham continues. Raids and detentions by government immigration agents are ongoing; so are surveillance and harassment from both government agents and groups like the Minute Men. How have the events of 1907 shaped Bellingham as we know it in 2007? What has changed and what remains the same?

We propose a documentary film, presently untitled, centering on Bellingham in 1907, that explores the history of immigration and racial tensions in the Pacific Northwest – history, in Baldwin’s sense, the past as it lives on in the present. Accounts of Belligham’s past, illustrated with photographs and texts, will provide a starting point for a discussion of Bellingham today. Through interviews with local activists working for immigrant rights and immigrants themselves, we will paint a portrait of immigration at present and the possibilities of the future.

The film (or, more accurately, video) is being proposed by Andrew Hedden and Ian Morgan, two college-educated white males hoping to put our access to university resources and our interest in film to use in the greater discussion about immigrant rights in the United States. The film will be completed and debut in Bellingham, WA on September 5th, the 100th anniversary of the Bellingham riots. One version of the film will be roughly forty-five minutes in length, hopefully ideal for community education and discussion, though a longer version may also be produced.

Conspiracies of 9/11: Left To The Right

I sat down to write about 9/11 conspiracies and came up with this rambling essay about 9/11; what happens when sentiments on the Right and Left converge; the Three Way Fight; and why Leftists, revolutionaries, anarchists, whatever, can’t afford to ally with the Right. What’s immediately obvious to me is that I write about political things in a very different way then I do about my personal life, or art, or history. Maybe someday I’ll learn to integrate those things together in my writing…

This dude Alex Jones has a documentary about U.S. government complicity in the 9/11 attacks called TerrorStorm. It’ll probably give you an idea of what I think about 9/11 conspiracy theories when I say “TerrorStorm” sounds to me like a freakin’ ride at 6 Flags, not an any coherent political theory. For a long time, that’s been my general attitude about the 9/11 conspiracy stuff (or the “9/11 Truth Movement,” if you’re feeling generous): that it’s worth a laugh and disdain from a distance, but little else.

Well, my consideration of the matter has gotten a little deeper as of late, thanks to an interesting back and forth with a friend of mine over e-mail about this 9/11 Truth business. He’s a smart guy and an anarchist buddy, and we go way, way back, and I’ve got to say, I was a little surprised he was so into it. Essentially, he believes 9/11 Truth is a strategic opportunity for radicals that can’t be passed up. I heard him out on the issue a little and now its got me thinking.

Quickly I realized my dismissive attitude towards the 9/11 Truth Movement had nothing to do with 9/11 whatsoever. I have no clue what happened on 9/11 – maybe a few uninformed doubts here or there – and I’m left wandering why it really matters that I know. My friend argues that were 9/11 truth revealed (assuming government complicity), it 1) would sow disillusionment with the State, and 2) prevent the government from committing similar acts.

I’m all for sowing disillusionment with the State, but I’m still not sold on the importance of organizing around 9/11 truth. One reason is that the 9/11 theories are still just that – theories, meaning they’re not concrete enough to organize people together in the same ways that the facts of daily oppression (shitty work places, sexual assault and violence, prisons, etc.) are wholly concrete and simply proved through the experiences of every life. To paraphrase Ward Churchill, there’s no need to speak truth to power because power knows what its doing. Better to organize with oppressed people – build power – than over-emphasize the shady machinations of the powerful.

Another, more important reason, is that I don’t see those most effected by the Statist aftershocks of 9/11 (immigrants and people of color in particular) taking part in the “9/11 Truth Movement.” I’m not sure it really matters, in the long run, to folks on the ground whether Bush/the government/whoever was complicit in 9/11. Just as Malcolm X wasn’t leading the call to unearth the truth of the JFK assassination after it happened.

Free speech for some, repression for others at Western Washington University

I’m no longer a student at Western Washington University – I’m alumni, oh boy – but for some its just another Spring quarter, which brings with it another day spent avoiding the ignorant, anti-Black, anti-Semitic eyesore that is the Genocide Awareness Project (or if you please, “the GAP”). The GAP is an anti-choice amalgam of righteous Christian rage, enlarged photos of lynched Black men, concentration camps, bloody fetuses, and any and all other offensive equations that could possibly guilt a young woman into a trauma-induced stance against abortion.

I could rail on, but the argument is better left to my more articulate friend Ariel Wetzel, who has written an editorial opposing the GAP for The AS Review, a WWU student paper. Each year Western opens up Red Square for the GAP, citing free speech law. She points out that the GAP can ruin an entire day on campus, complete with police protection, protective fencing, the works, but a single person of color with leaflets – SDS member Karim Ahmath – is the one worthy of ‘disorderly conduct.’

Another extended commentary on the situation, an open letter, has been written by a friend of mine who wishes for the time being to remain anonymous. You’ll find it below. It touches on the GAP but focuses more on Karim Ahmath’s case, spelling out the racist and politically repressive implications of such an incident for WWU. It also describes in detail some of the events that have occurred since Karim’s initial arrest, further revealing the biased nature of WWU’s “free speech” practices.

Dear students of Western Washington University,

Let’s take some time to reflect on this place in which we engage in higher education. Bellingham, a nice-sized, liberally progressive, friendly town is home to the equally progressive Western Washington University: our beloved liberal arts school that prides itself on its commitment to creating a welcoming, diverse campus community.

Racial profiling, a concept that is dismissed as a fabricated, conspiracy-theory by those that have the utmost faith in our law enforcement authorities, is for many white people, like me, a phrase only associated with the New York City and Los Angeles police departments of over twenty years ago. However, allow me to recount to you some disturbing recent events.

Please read on below.

My So-called Zines

“I actually published my thesis on zines and how zines can serve as kind of a way to radicalize kids from communities of privilege–you know, like young, white, middle-class kids thinking about race, class and gender issues.” So says Jason Kucsma, co-founder of the now defunct Clamor magazine. Without having read Kucsma’s thesis, I immediately know what he’s talking about – zines radicalized me in a lot of ways, particularly the act of making them myself.

I didn’t do a thesis on zines, but they played a big part in my extra-curricular undergraduate activities. When I was still a student, I found that the access to resources – internet access, software, printing privileges – conspired perfectly for making zines. I know I’m not the only one: I even know of one person (who shall remain nameless!) whose zine-making several years before I started school was partly responsible for the university’s student printing paper quota. S/he’d stay up all night printing them off – and that’s exactly what I did too (for academic purposes, of course!).

Here are a few highlights from my zine-making days – all of which I recently donated to the fantastic Zinelibrary.net, an on-line database out of Olympia, WA. Click on the titles to be directed to where you can download them.

Breaking the MANacles: An Anti-Patriarchy Reader by various authors

I compiled this anthology together as a final project for a class on Anarcha-Feminism taught by the estimable Toby Smith at Fairhaven College in Spring 2004. It focuses mainly on how patriarchy manifests itself (usually unconsciously) within activist circles, primarily from those of us socialized as men. The articles are mostly centered around debates in anarchist circles that proliferated in the early years of the anti-globalization movement, including works by Dan Spalding, Chris Crass, Traci Harris, and the Rock Bloc Collective. None of the articles are perfect, but that’s sort of the point – the zine is supposed to be an entry into discussions about patriarchy, not the final say on it. I hope you find the illustrations as funny as I do.

Looking for Color in the Anti-War Movement by Elizabeth ‘Betita’ Martinez

This an anti-war sequel to the seminal essay Martinez wrote following the WTO protests, “Where Was the Color in Seattle?“ It’s divided into two parts, the first addressed to white people and their historic ignorance of the imperialism in their own backyard; and the second addressed to folks of color concerning anti-war work. I made this into a zine when I worked at Western Washington University’s Peace Resource Center (now the Social Issues Resource Center), and I think we tried to use it in a discussion group that never came together.

Definitely one of the best articles I’ve read about the anti-war movement, along with Kenyon Farrow’s “Not Showing Up.” Martinez’s essay was written a few years ago, and definitely demands to be re-read against all the momentum the anti-war movement has been building in the past few months. Perhaps the topic for a future blog post if I can get my act together…

The Student Movement of 1968 by George Katsiaficas

My first zine I ever completed at school. As a college freshman, I was absolutely obsessed with the student movements of the Sixties, especially in images. I poured every book I could get my hands on that had pictures of the era. After reading Katsiaficas’ excellent primer on the era, The Imagination of the New Left, I decided to put together a zine matching his chapter on international student movements with my favorite pictures. Per my preoccupations at the time, this resulted in lots of militant street scenes.

Naomi Jaffe on the Weather Underground

As my studies of the Sixties era matured, I became more and more enamored with the story of the Weather Undergound Organization. I don’t necessarily care for their tactics, but more with their ability to grow over the years in a way that mirrors my own feelings on their era: from romanticizing street confrontations (e.g. the Days of Rage) towards much more strategic discussions about white anti-racism and solidarity. This trajectory is captured beautifully by Dan Berger’s Outlaws of America, but it’s also summarized by former WUO member Naomi Jaffe in this small statement written after the release of the Weather Underground film by Sam Green and Bill (for the record, a film I really don’t care for). I made this zine (more like a pamphlet, really) to be passed out a screening of the film and presentation on the WUO that I did in Summer 2005 (which didn’t go all that well).

Undressing the Other, Addressing One Another

I’ve heard it said on a few occasions that revolutionary/political organizing isn’t supposed to be a “group therapy session.” That sentiment couldn’t be more wrong-headed (or meat-headed: the times I’ve heard it said, it’s always by a male who thinks he’s being militant by saying it). This society is so fucked up, it could seriously use some healing, and that’s what therapy is for. The only defensible reason for the statement (beyond intellectual posturing), as far as I can see, is that therapy can be too private, too individual, whereas politics is first and foremost a social experience.

This opens the question of what revolutionary/political therapy looks like. James Baldwin suggested an answer when he wrote “All art is a kind of confession, more or less oblique. All artists, if they are to survive, are forced, at last, to tell the whole story, to vomit the anguish up.” Art, Baldwin saw it, was a war with society, “a lover’s war… to reveal the beloved to himself, and with that revelation, make freedom real.” If art is both a social struggle and a personal confession, it just might be therapeutic.

Last night, I witnessed art worthy of Baldwin’s definition – and therapy of a revolutionary variety. Called “Undressing the Other: the Naked Truth About Stereotypes,” it’s a “truly anti-racist-sexist-classist-elitist-ethnocentric-homophobic- xenophobic transnational feminist/womanist production” now in its third year at Western Washington University. For the second year in a row, it’s also being held in the larger Bellingham community.

The event emerged out of a “Women of Color Week” held at Western several years ago. It’s similar to monologue productions like Eve Ensler’s “Vagina Monologues,” but with several important twists. Rather than read other women’s’ pre-written stories, “Undressing the Other” focuses on young women developing their own narratives (and not all necessarily women – this year a young trans man also performed). This takes place over the course of several months, with participants working together around a curriculum based on writings by the likes of bell hooks, Gloria Anzaldua, and – of course – James Baldwin.

Staged like a fashion show, the program itself is broken into two parts. In the first, women one-by-one strut the stage in the guise of the most disgusting stereotypes: the parade of ugliness puts in bold relief how society sees women through distorted lenses of race, class, gender, nationality, sexuality. There’s the wetback, the white trash lady, the jockette. In the second part of the show, the women return as their true selves, telling their own stories, their true strengths and weaknesses on full display: righteous, doubtful, survivors, intelligent, ignorant, powerful, petty. In short, human beings.

It’s in the second part that the power of confession, in Baldwin’s sense, takes over. This isn’t Catholic confession, communication through a grate, privacy between pastor and parishioner. They “vomit the anguish up” in their words, in their performance, as art. This is social – and thus, highly radical – therapy, working through issues of identity in order to grow. By sharing their true selves against the brutal social constructs of the first half of the show, what are personal truths also become social truths.

In this way, “Undressing the Other” is all about addressing one another. Though it’s a performance with an audience, its hardly a spectacle to be simply enjoyed at leisure. By pushing the stereotypes to their ugliest limit, the monologues coax confessions of sorts from the audience. As part of the audience we don’t know to respond. Do we laugh? These stereotypes are absurd, after all. Do we cry? These are horrors in front us. Do we applaud? This is a performance, isn’t it? We realize how we see these elements of ugliness everyday, but never in such a concentrated form. Our mix of emotions is our own confession, as we must admit that in everyday life, some of us have the privilege of ignoring these images; in “Undressing the Other,” they are there, plain to see, and you can’t take your eyes away.

Which brings us back again to James Baldwin, and his definition of confession. “The effort it seems to me,” he explained to Studs Terkel, “is: if you can examine and face your life, you can discover the terms with which you are connected to other lives, and they can discover them, too — the terms with which they are connected to other people. ” And what are these terms?

Becky Renfrow, an organizer whose energy and commitment is beyond comparison, presented a possible answer in her honest monologue on white people’s experience with racism, “White Trash.” Too often white people see racism abstractly, as statistics, rather than feel it in their heart, in their gut. This is especially true on a college campus. As my friend Jeremy writes, “it’s amazing how many people there are who get paid, who get degrees, who build status and careers all trying to explain this mess, to package it as THE way, trying to argue how it’s good for us, that this is the best of all possible worlds.”

I myself have a college degree to my name that says I can think this stuff. Its most important that I feel it too, because that’s where the struggle is: the constant self-reminder of others pain and suffering, joy and growth that are so easy to intellectualize out of life. Academic study is such a individualized task, whereas our emotions are inherently social. This barrier between thinking and feeling was broken through by Undressing the Other. I felt it – and its worth risking the generalization to say everyone felt it.

Props to all those who made it happen this year: Stephany Hazelrigg, Afrose Ahmed, Elizabeth Johnstone, Antasia Parker, Becky Renfrow, Olide Valenzuela, Sandra Villarreal, Erica Merker, Rachae Thomas, Luisa Nayeli Mercado, Maribel Galvan, Yumi Ishibashi, Devin Majkut, Abiola Akanni, Anneka Ramirez, Whitney Knox, and everybody else not mentioned in the production program.