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Recent articles by Romina Akemi
3 años de comunicar desde abajo, 3 años de Radio Comunitaria Amiltzink... Jan 19 17 Building Working-Class Defense Organizations: Dec 27 16 Policía Comunitaria de Guerrero: una institución de los pueblos para l... Dec 21 16 Setting Fire to the Noose![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() The Baltimore Rebellion & the More to Come
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In the last couple of weeks, the Black community in Baltimore has mobilized protests in response to the brutal murder of Freddie Gray by the Baltimore Police Department (BPD).The news footage of Baltimore’s Black youth resisting riot cops is reminiscent of images from the Ferguson protests last summer. Yet, they are also reminiscent of the 1992 Los Angeles Uprising, as well as the many eruptions of popular unrest across the U.S. in 1968 against racist police violence. And we can go farther and farther back into history. The stories are many. The death toll to racist state violence is vast. And many are wondering: Is this our moment to bring down the racist capitalist system?
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Setting Fire to the Noose: The Baltimore Rebellion & the More to ComeIn the last couple of weeks, the Black community in Baltimore has mobilized protests in response to the brutal murder of Freddie Gray by the Baltimore Police Department (BPD). The news footage of Baltimore’s Black youth resisting riot cops is reminiscent of images from the Ferguson protests last summer. Yet, they are also reminiscent of the 1992 Los Angeles Uprising, as well as the many eruptions of popular unrest across the U.S. in 1968 against racist police violence. And we can go farther and farther back into history. The stories are many. The death toll to racist state violence is vast. And many are wondering: Is this our moment to bring down the racist capitalist system? Over the course of three years a movement has blossomed opposing anti-Black state-sanctioned violence. The 2012 assassination of seventeen-year-old Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman—a member of the Neighborhood Watch in Florida—sparked rallies and marches across the U.S. Zimmerman claimed to feel threatened by Martin, noting that the young man was wearing a hoodie as an indicator of “anti-social” intentions. In response, Martin’s family and the daily experiences that Black Americans have experienced exclaimed that the only “issue” was the color of Martin’s skin. Zimmerman’s acquittal further highlighted how Black lives are valued in the United States of America. They are not valued at all. During the summer of 2014, two high profile police killings reinvigorated a movement that responded to Martin’s death. Bystanders filmed the executions of Eric Garner in New York City and Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, transforming a largely individualized occurrence into a collective memory. The dying words of Garner pleading “I can’t breathe” and the description by witnesses who saw Brown with his hands up became the battle calls for the Black Lives Matter movement. But as people clamored for the pretence of justice, police executions have continued. This last February a person recorded the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) confrontation and shooting 39-year-old Charley “Africa” Saturmin Robinet, a houseless man living on Skid Row. In April a video surfaced of a North Charleston police officer chasing and gunning down 50-year-old Walter Scott. In an unusual move by the North Charleston Police Department, Michael Slager—the officer who murdered Scott—was charged with first-degree murder and is currently awaiting trial. The Murder of Freddie Gray & the Baltimore UprisingOn the Sunday morning of April 12th, Baltimore police officers on bicycles chased 25-year-old Freddie Gray in the Sandtown-Winchester neighborhood of West Baltimore, a predominantly Black and working class neighborhood. A video soon circulated shot by Kevin Moore of Gray being dragged by police as Gray screamed in agony before he was placed into a police van. By that early afternoon Gray was in a coma at a local hospital and passed away nine days later. Since then information has surfaced that Gray’s spinal cord was severed and his larynx was crushed while in police custody.While Gray lay unconscious in the hospital, rallies were organized to protest the BPD. After his passing, Black Baltimoreans enraged over the loss of yet another Black life to police violence responded in force. Following Freddie Gray’s funeral on Monday, April 27, the residents of West Baltimore were met with a militarized occupation that included large numbers of police in riot gear. High school students leaving school were quickly faced with harassment that erupted into confrontations in which Black youth were pelting cops with rocks, chasing and pushing back the occupation forces. The following day the state of Maryland deployed the National Guard, creating further tension within a movement that has expressed a loss of legitimacy for a system that has failed in every sense. The response by the national media has been to represent the interest of state officials, mainly quoting those few individuals that call for non-violence and describe those partaking in the uprising as “thugs.” One would almost believe that broken windows are religious idols as media outlets emphasized concern and disgust over shattered glass. In a country in which private property is valued over someone’s life, it reflects well what the capitalist system esteems. Allen Bullock, who unfortunately followed the advice of his parents, turned himself over to the police for smashing a cop car window. The 18-year-old is currently being held on “$500,000 bail for one count of riot, two counts of malicious destruction of property over $1,000, two counts of rogue and vagabond, one count of disorderly conduct, and one count of theft less than $100.” Yet, some of the police being charged for second-degree murder for the death of Freddie Gray had bails set between $250,000 and $350,000. Do Black Lives Matter? In an article by Ta-Nehisi Coates titled “Non Violence Is Compliance” in The Atlantic, he noted, “When nonviolence begins halfway through the war with the aggressor calling time out, it exposes itself as a ruse.” It is a ruse that halts the development of independent and mass organizing from below. A movement that seeks to break from dependency from the state for meager handouts and Kafkaesque justice, but instead builds prefigurative politics that can create the form of sociability that benefits humanity. Furthermore, we have to question when and what this capitalist society calls violence. When at least 24% of the population of Baltimore lives below the poverty level and when we live in a country in which 1 in 3 black males will go to prison in their lifetime. In an article by Mother Jones, they reported, “Between 1968 and 2011, black people were between two to eight times more likely to die at the hands of law enforcement than whites.” State violence is racist and racism is systemic, fully embedded in the capitalist system. Recurring claims that the issue with the police are a “few bad apples” are as misconstruing that racism is equivalents to “bad ideas” by a few people. These are the people who are shocked that racist violence recurs in 2015. Really? The rise and spread of liberal capitalism was constructed on the genocide and labor of kidnapped Africans and Native peoples across the Americas. While in the years of early colonial rule, the supremacy of the Christian religion was the guiding light of violence by colonizers, overtime a racial and racist system developed that allowed those of either Spanish, Portuguese, British, or Dutch descent (depending on the colony) to control the politics and economics of the colony. Across the Americas, race and racism developed differently. In the U.S. a clear politics of white supremacy was built and embraced by sections of the white working-class (see The Wages of Whiteness by David Roediger), cutting against class solidarity and pushing the Black working-class further into abject poverty. It is the specter of the Klu Klux Klan’s noose that continues to terrorize people of color across the so-called “land of the free.” However, it is a specter that is tangible and real, experienced daily through the systemic and material realities of racism that has categorized entire groups of people based on their skin color and phenotype as prone to criminality and whose labor has been devalued and classified as unskilled. Poverty enacts a violence that is psychological and physical, reminding an individual that they are marginal and that nothing will change. Yet, we are supposed to feel an emotional attachment to the goals of the U.S. nation-state that will use and dispose of our bodies as needed for its wars abroad and at home. As people organize to not only temper but burn that motherfucking noose there is a growing sense of loss of legitimacy for that territory known as America brewing alongside a growing trust between those of us who are building sociability in our streets. It is through these struggles—confronting anti-Blackness and capitalism–that we will rebuild a new society and destroy forever white supremacy.
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Front pageFalse hope, broken promises: Obama’s belligerent legacy Primer encuentro feminista Solidaridad – Federación Comunista Libertaria Devrimci Anarşist Tutsak Umut Fırat Süvarioğulları Açlık Grevinin 39 Gününde Recordando a César Roa, luchador de la caña Prison Sentence to Managing Editor of Anarchist Meydan Newspaper in Turkey American Anarchist and Wobbly killed by Turkey while fighting ISIS in Rojava Attaque fasciste sur la Croix Rousse et contre la librairie libertaire la Plume Noire Red November, Black November – An Anarchist Response to the Election 1986-2016: 30° anniversario di Alternativa Libertaria/fdca El feminismo es cuestión de vida o muerte ¡Contra el machismo dominante Anarquismo Militante! [Colombia] El NO se impuso, ¿qué sigue? Hamba kahle comrade Bobo Makhoba (1975-2016) Where to now, Zimbabwe? Beyond the “good” charismatic pastor. Contre la loi Travail: le bras de fer continue Announcement of Nationally Coordinated Prisoner Workstoppage for Sept 9, 2016 North America / Mexico | Community struggles | en Wed 25 Jan, 22:52
In a time when people are experiencing unparalleled hardship, Miami-Dade county is ramping up to steamroll more foreclosures. This news comes as rents are rising[1] in Miami spurred on by international speculators and investors, and people losing their homes. Nationally homeless is increasing due to the pervasive unemployment, sub-poverty wages of the lowest tier of the working population, and the multi-decade long attacks on housing safety nets. We are now witnessing a homelessness that includes young able bodied people some of whom are working while homeless[2]. Now that President Obama is “safely” ensconced in the White House for another four years and “disaster Supreme Court decisions” are averted, liberal and progressive voters need to join radical activists in the fight against endless war, ecological destruction, and austerity. Obama no longer has an incentive to make any pretense of throwing a single crumb to liberals – resignation and acquiescence on “pragmatic grounds” will allow bargains that are hostile to the interests of the working class.
On Saturday, June 18th, dozens of anarchists and other community members staged an angry protest against gentrification and green capitalism at Greenbridge, a “green” development of condos for eco-yuppies. Demonstrators held banners outside while others occupied the lobby in an expression of outrage against the displacement of renters from the neighborhood. Three people were arrested and charged with felony “inciting a riot” and misdemeanor property destruction, and have been released on bail. The demonstration drew attention to the ongoing tolls inflicted by the development, which was built by a coalition of multi-millionaires over the protests of community members to profit off the bourgeois craze with all things “green.” But money is the only thing green about Greedbridge, as it has been nicknamed by neighbors. WSA extends solidarity and our most sincere wishes for victory to the workers of Wisconsin in their current fight. And to all public sector workers now struggling against attacks on their pensions and their rights. Yesterday, November 6, the Collectif Emma Goldman of the Québec UCL, along with the student employee's union of the University of Québec in Chicoutimi organized a demonstration against the privatization of health care and fees for service. The following is translated from the original French at the Québec City Voix De Faits Blog. More details and photo reportage are available at the Collectif Emma Goldman site.
A request for the public records the city of Olympia, Washington keeps on anarchists, Wobblies, and members of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) has forced into the open a military infiltrator who posed as an anarchist for two years, in clear violation of the Posse Comitatus Act. Schachaf Polakow, a member of Anarchists Against the Wall, will be touring the U.S. and Canada from February 1st to March 9th. His presentation will include film and photos, and will focus both on AATW's recent work in solidarity with Gaza and our ongoing work in the West Bank. Seattle today is a tale of two cities. For developers, government officials, and many new residents, Seattle is about its places of plenty: shopping opportunities, property values, beautiful views, and potential profits. Look beyond the skyscrapers and a different image of Seattle emerges: that of a blue-collar port city with an immigrant soul--a place of strength, survival, and struggle against racism and poverty. When these two Seattles collide, it's called gentrification: the displacement of poor and working class people by upper-income residents. It's a conflict over values, over purpose: who is claiming the city? For more than seven months, we, communal land owners from Juchitan de Zaragoza, Union Hidalgo and Xadani, have dealt with the irresponsibility of the civil judge of Juchitan de Zaragoza, Oaxaca, in front of whom we've placed more than 120 claims for the nullification of contracts we were deceived into signing with transnational wind energy corporations.
On the July 15th eviction blockade led by Paula Taylor and the City Life/ Vida Urbana Bank Tenants Union more >>
The horrific execution of an unarmed, handcuffed, on the ground black man in front of dozens of witnesses has led to an outburst of struggle whose fire is not spent and whose meaning is still being defined. In this article, I will argue that what is at stake in this struggle is the future of North Minneapolis, which, in miniature, is a question of the future of our cities and of working class people across the country.
When considering creating an "Eviction Free Zone," you have to remember that it is only a rhetorical tool in the advance of a class-based agenda. [Italiano]
In the housing defense movement, we often get bogged down in legal approaches and the banking fraud we use as leverage. But what about situations when it is merely a lack of funds for the person living in the home? It is at those moments that you see the most crucial element of the struggle, and how you can use this organizing to transform the conversation about housing.
How do we move beyond movement moments, and start taking strategic advantage of the moment in such a way that strengthens our efforts decades down the road? Did we gain strength from involvement in the Occupy Wall Street movement, or not? Is the idea of Occupy Wall Street a short-sighted route to building mass revolutionary movements?
A movement is born. Across America and around the world occupations have spread. We witness the beauty and struggle of a new protagonist joining the fight against oppression and exploitation.
WSA extends solidarity and our most sincere wishes for victory to the workers of Wisconsin in their current fight. And to all public sector workers now struggling against attacks on their pensions and their rights.
Schachaf Polakow, a member of Anarchists Against the Wall, will be touring the U.S. and Canada from February 1st to March 9th. His presentation will include film and photos, and will focus both on AATW's recent work in solidarity with Gaza and our ongoing work in the West Bank.
"Comrades of the Other Campaign in Mexico and other countries, we ask you to be on the alert because the soldiers said they’ll be back in two weeks. We don’t want war. We want peace with justice and dignity. But we have no other choice than to defend ourselves, resist them, and eject them when they come looking for a confrontation with us in the towns of the Zapatista support bases...All we can tell you is to look and see
A statement by the New York Metro Alliance of Anarchists, endorsed by the anglophone secretariat of NEFAC, on the murder of Brad Will and others, and the situation in Oaxaca.
On Saturday, September 30th, as Mexican military helicopters flew over Oaxaca City with the intent of threatening and intimidating the peaceful movement of the Popular Assemblies of the People of Oaxaca, Boston activists gathered at the Boylston T stop to spread awareness about the imminent invasion of Oaxaca City by the federal Mexican Army. This small educational action marked the beginning of an on-going campaign of Boston solidarity with the movement of the popular assemblies in Oaxaca. Read more for ideas on how to get involved! more >> |