Time; A Radical Analysis
Time isnât neutral. In radical work, time is often the difference between life and death. I learned this not through theory, but through lived experience â through every second wasted in pointless meetings while lives in our community hung in the balance. Time is a material condition. Itâs a resource. Itâs a tool. And when itâs misused â whether by the state or by so-called comrades â it becomes a weapon.
Time and space away, taken out of necessity because of dangerously high blood pressure, chronic pain, and a body battered by years of surveillance and burnout, gave me perspective. A painful but transformative one. From the beginning, MANY proclaimed social justice groups showed me that they did not understand or respect time as a survival tool. They wasted hours arguing over things that couldâve taken minutes. They avoided urgent matters. They created chaos.
There was never any discipline or structure â not because it couldnât be built, but because they didnât care to build it. This refusal to create collective discipline was violent. It allowed infiltrators to thrive, like in the case for that group, the co-director who embezzled money for nearly two years while I was expected to quietly take over her work â for a fraction of the pay â while still risking my safety filming the police and having other jobs to keep a roof over my head as renter.
âActivistsâ played with peopleâs lives every time they delayed, every time they made me the enforcer of their conflicts, every time they avoided accountability and pushed it onto me. Thatâs how we got scammed. Thatâs how people got harmed. Thatâs how my labor was exploited.
If you want to understand the cost of that waste, look at the case of Richard Price. As captured in this video, the events leading up to him being unalived happened within seconds â while my partner was just blocks away, on his way to film. My time, my presence, could have made a difference. But mismanagement and disorganization meant I was forced to waste precious hours navigating their internal dysfunction. And because of that, I wasnât there.
Not to mention, a serious-almost deadly incident involving a killer cop that happened just feet away from our home, which my partner also unfortunately got caught in the crossfire of. I wasnât able to be fully there for him due to everything happening around us.
Just a couple of examples of the chaos that kept me from showing up when it mattered most. It bled over to everything, including onto my partner. I just couldnât do that anymore.
Ruth Wilson Gilmore means when she talks about organized abandonment â that systems (and sometimes, movements) organize neglect, chaos, and disrespect into our daily lives in such a way that it becomes lethal. Ruth Wilson Gilmore: âOrganized Abandonment and Organized Violence: Devolution and the Policeâ 11.9.15 on Vimeo
People didnât just waste my time. They stole my capacity to respond, to care for my partner, for myself, for my community. When my partner was set up to be shot outside our home, or when I was stalked and hacked, or when I nearly died from sepsis, I was already worn down by the very groups that claimed to have my back. Their refusal to respect my time, body, and safety was a betrayal â and it was deadly.
When I had to take a medical leave â after a years-long campaign of being stalked, entrapped, burglarized, surveilled, and abandoned â it wasnât just burnout. It was survival. I had no support from MediCAL, no help from disability services, and no solidarity from a movement infiltrated by agents and opportunists. I had no choice. I had to save myself. Self-preservation.
If I am to do this work â if anyone is to survive this work â we need to treat time like the radical tool it is. The very thing that stands between harm and healing. Between presence and loss. Between life and death.
