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Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2000 00:21:33 -0800
From: L.A. Kauffman <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [freeradical] NOW WHAT?
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FREE RADICAL: chronicle of the new unrest
an internet column by L.A. KAUFFMAN
www.free-radical.org
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NOW WHAT? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Issue #13
Throughout the interminable U.S. election mess, the various radical
listserves I follow were pointedly quiet about the whole affair. But even
without much discussion about the tussles within America’s ruling class,
there’s been a sense in which we outside-the-system types have been on hold,
waiting to see which of the two evils would prevail.
Now finally we can move on to pressing matters, like the tantalizing
inauguration protests already being planned for January 20 in Washington,
D.C. There’s never been such a legitimation crisis in our lifetimes. Or such
a sterling opportunity to show our disaffection with the many faces of
plutocratic rule: the disenfranchisement of African-American voters in
Florida; the role of big money in elections; the corporate domination of our
political system; and the insult of having an idiotic twerp and serial
executioner installed as president.
Meanwhile, activist preparations are well underway for “the next big thing,”
the Summit of the Americas meeting next April in Quebec City, where the
heads of every state from Canada to Argentina (minus Cuba, of course) will
gather to ratify a free-trade agreement aptly called “NAFTA on steroids.”
Yes, everybody agrees that we shouldn’t just engage in protest tourism,
jumping from big action to big action. But, based on how much buzz I’m
already hearing about Quebec, I suspect that won’t stop many American
activists from showing up for the next Carnival Against Capitalism.
The border police, on the other hand, are likely to stop all the Yanks they
can. We learned during the September 26, 2000 actions in Prague that the FBI
had almost certainly turned over a list to Czech authorities containing the
names of every person arrested at the WTO protests in Seattle, the A16
IMF/World Bank actions in D.C., and the protests outside the Republican and
Democratic Party Conventions. Any of these folks who tried to go to Prague
were turned away at the Czech border.
On the subject of police repression, the preponderance of charges against
the arrestees at the Republican Convention in Philadelphia have now been
dropped. You’ll recall that people were charged with all kinds of crazy
things, like “possession of an instrument of crime” for using a cell phone,
and were held on bails as high as $1 million. This clampdown was clearly
intended to have a chilling effect on activism – particularly on the very
dangerous-to-the-authorities alliance in Philly between movements of color
working on criminal injustice issues and the predominantly white movement
against corporate globalization.
The prosecutors have been able to make very few of the R2K charges stick,
and the City of Philadelphia should be facing lawsuits up the wazoo for its
over-the-top civil rights violations. That said, several felony cases are
still pending, including that of ACT UP/Philadelphia’s Kate Sorenson, and
the activists’ legal defense effort still needs financial and other support.
(Links to R2K Legal and much more at the end of this message.)
Meanwhile, with the loathsome George W. Bush on the way to the White House,
New York City activists are losing sleep over a nightmare (though not too
likely) scenario: Rudy Giuliani for Attorney General. Brrrr.
*****
New York City’s Direct Action Network celebrated the anniversary of the
Seattle World Trade Organization protests with a packed-to-the-rafters
evening of events at CHARAS/El Bohio Community Center in the Lower East
Side.
The main subject of discussion there – and in many movement circles these
days – was race, particularly the tendency of white activists to view our
movements as THE movement. People were asking: Who sets the radical agenda,
and who defines radicalism? Why is DAN so white, and what should be done
about it?
Some people suggested that DAN needed to diversify its membership if it were
to be an effective radical movement. Others, myself included, disagreed,
questioning whether the recruitment model is the best way to tackle racial
disparities in the movement.
Attempting to recruit people of color into a pre-existing white
organization, after all, means inviting folks in AFTER the group’s
character, culture, and mission are largely set. Not surprisingly, activists
of color tend to opt instead for developing their own organizations and
leadership.
It seems to me that white activists in groups like DAN, instead of
defensively castigating ourselves for the whiteness of our organizations,
should be interrogating what that whiteness means: how it shapes our
political visions; what sense of entitlement it gives us, and how that
affects our actions and our relationships with others.
That means acknowledging whiteness as a key component of who we are, rather
than obliviously viewing racial identity as something that only people of
color have. It also shifts the emphasis of whites’ anti-racist work away
from recruitment to learning how to build productive alliances with
movements of color, alliances that respect their autonomy and leadership.
*****
On a more whimsical note, the day after the “DANniversary,” there was a
festive anti-corporate parade through the East Village led by Reverend
Billy, the New York performance artist and activist who has created the
pranksterish “Church of Stop Shopping.”
These days, there is no shortage of corporate chain stores to visit in New
York’s erstwhile bohemia. We stopped at either three or four Starbucks – I
lost track – plus two Gaps, a McDonald’s, and a Barnes & Noble.
“Today we’re pretending,” explained a Reclaim the Streets flier, “that these
mega-corporations are giving up and leaving the neighborhood voluntarily.”
The leaflet included critiques of each chain: Starbucks, for instance, buys
its coffee from countries where human rights and environmental laws are
routinely flouted. Moreover, it continued, “In the U.S., Starbucks chokes
off locally owned competitors by oversaturating neighborhoods with stores.
They also removed the nipples from their Mermaid.”
There was no strategic objective to the event. In classic RTS style, it was
expressive and disruptive instead. On occasion, that character annoys me,
when it seems that RTS is merely agitating for the right of downwardly
mobile white kids to party in the street at will. But this time, I thought
it was great.
After we freaked out two Starbucks in succession – the manager of the first
one locked the door to keep us out, but a big crowd made it into the second
one – the Reverend Billy parade triggered something wonderful to behold. The
police felt obliged to send reinforcements ahead of us, to guard the next
chain stores we would meet. Soon cops were flanking the entrances to
Starbucks number three, and then Barnes & Noble, on one of the biggest
shopping days of the year. Said my friend Eileen, “Well, that certainly
clarifies the relationship between the chain stores and the neighborhood.”
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LINKS
The Structure of White Power and the Color of Election 2000
http://www.arc.org/C_Lines/CLArchive/story_web00_05.html
Great printable posters for the Inauguration protests
http://www.bradkayal.com/i20/
D.C. Police Prepare for Inauguration protests
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines/121300-02.htm
April 2001 Carnival Against Capital in Quebec
http://www.quebec2001.net/
Organizing list for Quebec protests
write to: [log in to unmask]
with the word subscribe in the body of the email
FBI protester blacklist
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2000/09/29/surveillance/index.html
Cases against Philly protesters fall apart
http://www.r2kphilly.org/media/nyt-121000.html (links to R2K Legal)
http://www.r2kphilly.org/media/vv-112900.html
http://inq.philly.com/content/inquirer/2000/12/07/front_page/PPROTEST07.htm
Direct Action Network
http://www.directactionnetwork.org
Church of Stop Shopping
http://www.revbilly.com
NYC Reclaim the Streets
http://www.rtsnyc.org
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FREE RADICAL is an e-column on the current upsurge in activism, written by
L.A. Kauffman ([log in to unmask]). It aspires to weekly publication but
in practice appears irregularly.
This issue is archived at http://www.free-radical.org/issue13.shtml
************
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
L.A. Kauffman ([log in to unmask]) is perhaps the first person in U.S.
history to be arrested for allegedly committing a crime by fax machine. (The
Manhattan D.A. declined to prosecute.) She is currently writing DIRECT
ACTION: RADICALISM IN OUR TIME, a history of U.S. activism since 1970. A
longtime radical journalist and organizer, she is active in a number of New
York City direct action campaigns. Her work has appeared in the Village
Voice, The Nation, The Progressive, Spin, Mother Jones, Salon.com, and
numerous other publications.
*************
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