In light of the recent Black rebellions that have shaken the nation into the summer months, two key positions on policing abolition have reemerged. Defund the police, which had enjoyed some surprisingly mainstream attention, is essentially the position that minimizing police department budgets is the first step towards the dismantling of police systems. And then there is community control of the police, a less mainstream, but still widely popular position among Black activists, that makes the case that police departments have to be controlled by the community before they can be dismantled. While proponents of community control don’t understand their . . .
anarkata
Anti- Racism and Anti- Colonialism: An Open Letter To My Black Kin
Image description — Black and white photo with a fist raised in the Black Power salute. Some words in white lettering are laid over it, from Ashanti Alston, which read: “I think of being Black not so much as an ethnic category but as an oppositional force or touchstone for looking at situations differently. Black culture has always been oppositional and is all about finding ways to creatively resist oppression. So, when I speak of a Black anarchism, it is not so tied to the color of my skin but who I am as a person, as someone who can resist, who . . .
No Compromise, No Retreat: Defeat the War Against the African/Black People in the U.S. and Abroad
The justice for George Floyd mobilizations today reflected the state’s worst nightmare – a multi-national and multi-racial action initiated by Black people with Black leadership. So, we say: Justice for George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Tamir Rice, Sandra Bland; for our political prisoners; for the super-exploited Black and Brown working-class; for oppressed Indigenous nations; and for the millions subjected to U.S. warmongering, sanctions, and criminality. We say this to shift the focus from the individualization of this week’s rebellion back to the objective structures of white supremacist, global colonial/capitalist domination. (BAP Newsletter ) The ruling class is befuddled and . . .
Black is Crime: Notes on Blaqillegalism
“As long as I’m alive I’ma live illegal, and once I get on I’ma put on all my people” -Prodigy “The fugitive nature of Blackness, the inherent outlawing of our bodies by the state and our positionality as being already outside of the law, gives rise to a Black illegalism where extralegal activities to further our survival are foregrounded.” – Anarkata: A Statement What a crime it is to be Black. To have the police be called on you for sitting in a restaurant, for grilling at a cookout, selling water, going to the pool, taking a nap, standing on . . .
Climate Change or Climate Control: Understanding Planetary Conditions Under Man
“While the earth is enslaved, none of us is free. While the earth is ‘a nigger,’ … so are we.” Alice Walker, Everything is a Human Being “My turn to state an equation: colonization = ‘thingification.’” Aimé Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism This piece looks at the issue of ‘climate control’ versus ‘climate change’ in the hood. There is separation in our communities around what exactly has caused the rampant, more severe, more frequent superstorms, earthquakes, monsoons, and wildfires we are witnessing across the planet. Some people embrace the idea of climate change, which typically states that levels of wasteful overconsumption . . .
The Communionist Manifesto
“…imperialism negates itself after laying the foundation for communism, and communism will eventually negate itself because of its internal contradictions, and then we will move to an even higher state. So of course there will be contradictions in the future. But some contradictions are antagonistic and some contradictions are not antagonistic.”-Huey P. Newton “First, I rejected their materialistic interpretation of history. Communism, avowedly secularistic and materialistic, has no place for God. Humans are not and have never been one-dimensional, class-based, economic creatures… …What I’m saying to you this morning is communism forgets that life is individual. Capitalism forgets that life . . .
Wildcats: Be the Wild Thing Man Cannot House
The poor, queer, Black, disabled masses have no allies in the white power structure, even if the powerful is ‘melanated.’ All these foxes do is work to convince us that our only hope is to remain subject to the very system that violates us and our cousins overseas. But, there is no savior within the Amerikkkan Empire. We alone are our magic hands, as Fanon once said, and so it is on us to protect ourselves, by ourselves, for ourselves and for our planet. . . .