Shut It Down! Resist! BLACK LIBERATION NOW!

But first, be aware that the protests aren’t over. It’s June 29th and there are still events and actions being planned regularly across the nation, and they still need your participation and support. If you’re able, please keep your focus there; this list is for what can be done long-term outside of the protests

Know your rights. Giving the police any more information than you absolutely have to will never and can never benefit you or anyone else - positive evidence given to the police is regularly thrown out in court, whereas negative evidence will be used against you. Know what to say and what you have the right to refuse. You don’t have to answer any questions without a lawyer present, you don’t have to give the police access to your house or car unless they have a current warrant signed by a judge. They will try to intimidate you - learn your rights and don’t let up, don’t ever cooperate with the police

Don’t snitch. If you see someone breaking the law in a way that doesn’t hurt anybody, keep your mouth shut. If cops knock on your door asking you questions about your neighbors or anyone you know, don’t answer

Don’t call the cops. If you can solve the problem in a different way, do it. Cops have on multiple occasions murdered the people they were called to help (or bystanders) without provocation. Don’t be complicit in that. Learn how to handle situations as a community or with the help of qualified experts

When you see an interaction with the police happening, stop and observe. If necessary, film the interaction. Organize and work with groups such as Copwatch to observe the police and hold them accountable

Use proper opsec, especially if you’re involved with anything that might make you a target for the cops. Downloading Signal is a great simple place to start

Learn about jury nullification, and spread the word. When serving in a jury, you have the right to vote not guilty on a defendant that you believe did commit the crime but doesn’t deserve punishment for it. Don’t be complicit in unjust punishment

Refuse to do work for the police or prison system. Workers keep the world running and the state relies on our compliance to keep our neighbors under their thumb. We can shut it down

Continue to support bail funds, even for non-protesters. Cash bail is unjust, and people shouldn’t be in jail just because they can’t pay

Continue to support legal defense funds as well, such as that of the National Lawyers Guild

Write to prisoners, either by yourself or with groups such as the Anarchist Black Cross or Black And Pink, and organize/support books to prisons programs, commissary funds, reentry programs, and other forms of prisoner support

Organize and support community-run crisis response organizations like the CAHOOTS program in Eugene, Oregon or the Birmingham Peacemakers in my hometown

Here are some other organizations to join that are doing good work in this area:

Black Lives Matter is obviously a huge voice in racial justice right now. The list of “official” chapters on their website is very incomplete, though, so you may have better luck doing a web search for “[your area] black lives matter” (beware of fakes though)

Showing Up for Racial Justice is another very active and widespread racial justice network

Critical Resistance is a grassroots prison abolitionist organization founded by Angela Davis

The Revolutionary Abolitionist Movement is another active prison abolitionist organization

The IWW’s Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee works with prisoners to organize strikes, phone zaps, and other actions combating injustice in prisons

Again, the Anarchist Black Cross does great work supporting political prisoners through letter-writing and more. The link I’ve been including is to an unofficial federation of ABC groups, though - there may be a group in your area that’s not part of that federation, so a web search for “[your area] black cross” may be better

Black And Pink is a prison abolitionist organization focused on queer people and people living with HIV/AIDS

Antifascism is of course an important aspect of racial justice and community safety. See @antifainternational‘s guide to getting connected to your local antifascists - though, again, beware of fakes (the “antifa checker” accounts on fedbook and twitter can help)

The police state and prison industrial complex rely on the complicity and cooperation of all of us to function and be effective. By building a culture of noncompliance and active resistance, we can drastically reduce the state’s ability to oppress communities of color. Don’t let the struggle be forgotten with the changing of the news cycle - keep up the struggle until all are free!

The photos I am posting are not meant to be disrespectful, but rather a tribute to the Black people whose lives have been unjustly taken away by police brutality and our society that turns a blind eye. As an ally, I think it's important to know who we're fighting for and why. If this, as an ally, makes you uncomfortable, it should. In a better world, we should not know these names for these reasons. However, we do, and we should be fighting to prevent the same fate for other Black people.

These are not my photos, but photos from activist accounts on Instagram such as @ tenderbi and @ feministvoices. The thread that takes up a majority of this post is originally from @REALITIGIRLFRIEND from Twitter. I encourage you to look through their accounts and others for information on the Black Lives Matter movement, as well as spreading awareness.

It’s New Years Day and what a ride it’s been. Many people’s immediate sentiment will be to put 2020 behind us. But we can’t do that. Forgiving and forgetting is what caused this shitstorm in the first place. 

Let’s review. 

The year started with the Australian bushfires, brought on by the continued carbon emissions and the lack of efforts to reduce them. Climate change has been sidelined again and again because investing in our future will change the status quo that benefits corporations in the now. Politicians either outright deny it, or downplay it, or give vague and unenforceable promises that they do not act upon. Why? Because the same system that allows corporations to spew carbon into the atmosphere also rewards them financially (and extremely generously) for that, which in turn allows them to buy out politicians - meaning that the same people who can most effectively tackle climate change are also in the pockets of those that cause it. 

After that warm-up act, the main event: COVID. We didn’t really think much of it at first, as it was just some virus confined to some small corner of the earth a million miles away - nothing to worry about, right? Well it reached the US and Europe, and we were totally unprepared. We didn’t have masks and gloves and respirators stockpiled, and we had already gutted public scientific research and pandemic response teams in the name of “budgeting” and austerity. Once again, capitalism chose profit over human life. Instead of sending out more supplies and support, the US president said it would “disappear” and played golf while people were dying. He opposed shutdowns and mask mandates, he did not support economic relief, he did not support pausing rent and evictions. Congress bailed out the biggest businesses, the people who make money off of the suffering of others. And so while millions of workers were forced back to work and the risk of death, the wealthy retreated to their second or third homes in the countryside and happily refreshed the browsers on their stock portfolios, healthy as ever thanks to the CARES Act. 

And then we came to BLM. Massive protests sparked by the murder of a man who did not deserve to die, someone who was racially profiled and killed by the police on the streets of Minneapolis. Police brutality was thrust to the forefront: some became aware, and others were painfully reminded, that black people have to be constantly cautious of the people who are meant to protect us. That a large segment of the population live under threat of being shot in their own house, just for an improperly conducted police with some trigger-happy cops. All of this boiled over and become one of the biggest ever campaigns against police violence and systemic racism -  the civil rights movement of our time.