At approximately 3:30pm today, Feb. 4^th, a group of about 50 demonstrators marched from a monthly Really Really Free Market to a nearby empty building owned by the CVS corporation.

Within minutes the crowd had taken over the building, hanging banners from the roof and windows, erecting tables outside with free food, and handing out welcome packets to passersby.

Others arrived with carpentry equipment, wood, furniture, a literature distro, and tools, and began building benches and tables. Some painted a large, cursive “Carrboro Commune @” and large squat symbols on the walls.

Still other supporters spread throughout the neighborhood, announcing the occupation and advertising an open neighborhood assembly in the building the following day.

The takeover, claimed by “anti-capitalists and occupiers” and done under the rubric of the “Carrboro Commune,” was aimed at holding the property permanently and building some kind of community or social center.

Eager to avoid the negative press and angry public backlash of an armed eviction of an occupied building late last year in neighboring Chapel Hill, police and the mayor were initially restrained. Unfortunately, the openness of the occupation towards random passersby also meant the Mayor himself was even in the building.

The occupation continued till around 7:30, after which police entered the building and began threatening arrests. A crowd of masked protesters left the building through a side door, chanting and carrying a banner to meet the crowd in front of the building. There were no arrests.

A bizarre scene then ensued in front of the building, where a large crowd of masked protesters, supporters, police, press, and local politicians packed together, screaming at each other in front of cameras. The mayor repeatedly tripped over his words, while some protesters cursed him and others gave speeches, chanted “ACAB”, and loudly vowed to return. One mainstream media outlet quoted Mayor Chilton as saying, “You’re full of crap,” in response to a masked person screaming about how impossible it is to survive in town on a service worker’s pay.

The Mayor’s sleek attempts to command the narrative of a peaceful de-occupation slowly started to slip away, eclipsed by the near violent hatred and frustration of a screaming crowd. The scene, which occurred in the busiest intersection of town in front of half a dozen cameras, was a bizarre shift for the supposedly tranquil and politically “conflict-free” small liberal town.

–

This is only a brief account by one participant. As of right now, we are still recovering from the last few hours, trying to figure out what went right and what went wrong. Certainly there will be a much more thorough account and analysis to come later; right now we would send our love and rage to all our comrades around the US and the world also struggling to reclaim a world that has been stolen from us.

We hope that our small efforts can inform and inspire others, and in particular offer some encouragement to our friends and comrades currently in jails on the West Coast, kidnapped for trying to also take back a future that has been stolen.

For the past 24 hours, the large space had been seized  by a group of “anti-capitalist occupiers” aimed at permanently squatting the building which had previously been empty for ten years. Banners and flags were hung across the front of the building and roof, an impromptu kitchen, zine distro, and tool area had been set up, and most of the boards removed from the large windows on the west side of the building.

While some were held down on the ground at gunpoint, a large crowd gathered outside the building, taking up a lane of traffic and screaming at the police.

Ultimately eight people were arrested, probably on trespassing or breaking and entering charges. We are waiting to hear back from the jail on the bail and charges situation, and will provide updates as soon as possible. A benefit show is already organized for tonight.

Just looking around the crowd during the raid, there’s more new and old faces showing up to support this occupation than ever before. This is definitely only the beginning.

To read mainstream press coverage, and see an incredible photo taken mid-raid (sure to be a PR nightmare for CHPD for years to come), check out this.

Ciao,

some anticapitalist occupiers

 ______

Last night, at about 8pm, a group of about 50 – 75 people occupied the 10,000 square foot Chrysler Building on the main street of downtown Chapel Hill. Notorious for having an owner who hates the city and has bad relations with the City Council, the giant building has sat empty for ten years. It is empty no longer.

Following the Carrboro Anarchist Bookfair, a group “in solidarity with occupations everywhere” marched to the building, amassing outside while banners reading “Occupy Everything” and “Capitalism left this building for DEAD, we brought it back to LIFE” were raised in the windows and lowered down the steep roof. Much of the crowd soon filed in through one of the garage door entrances to find a short film playing on the wall and dance music blasting.

People explored the gigantic building, and danced in the front room to images of comrades shattering the glass of bank windows 3,000 miles away in Oakland. Others continued to stay outside, shouting chants, giving speeches, and passing out hundreds of “Welcome” packets (complete with one among many possible future blueprints for the building – see below for text) to passersby. The text declared the initial occupation to be the work of “ autonomous anti-capitalist occupiers,” rather than Occupy Chapel Hill, but last evening’s events have already drawn the involvement of many Occupy Chapel Hill participants, who are camped just several blocks down the street.

Soon several police showed up, perhaps confused and waiting for orders. Three briefly entered the building, and were met with chants of “ACAB!” Strangely, the cops seem to have been called off, because they left as quick as they came. For the rest of the night they were conspicuously absent, leaving us free to conduct a short assembly as to what to do with the space and how to hold it for the near future. The group also decided to move a nearby noise and experimental art show into the building. As some folks began to arrange the show, others began filtering across town seeking things we needed for the night.

Within 30 minutes of the assembly ending, trucks began returning with everything from wooden pallets, doors, water jugs, and a desk, to a massive display case for an already growing distro and pots and trays of food donated by a nearby Indian restaurant. Others began spreading the word to the nearby Occupy Chapel Hill campsite, and bringing their camping gear into the building.

Over the next few hours more and more community members heard about the occupation and stopped by, some to bring food or other items, others just to soak it all in. All the while dozens of conversations were happening outside with people on the street. The show began eventually, and abrasive noise shook the walls of the building, interspersed with dance music and conversations, and ending with a beautiful a capella performance, and of course more dancing.

More events are to follow tomorrow in our new space, with two assemblies from the anarchist bookfair being moved to the new location, and a yoga teacher offering to teach a free class later in the afternoon.

As of the early hours this Sunday morning, the building remains in our hands, with a small black flag hanging over the front door. The first 48 hours will be extremely touch and go, but with a little luck, and a lot of public support, we aim to hold it in perpetuity. Regardless, we hope that this occupation can inspire others around the country. Strikes like the one in Oakland present one way forward; long term building occupations may present another.

-some anti-capitalist occupiers

For pics, you can go to www.trianarchy.wordpress.com

TEXT FROM THE “WELCOME” HANDOUT:

We would like to welcome you to an experiment.

For the past month and a half, thousands of people all over the US have been occupying public space in protest of economic inequality and hopelessness. This itself began as an experiment in a small park in New York City, though it did not emerge out of a vacuum: Occupy Wall St. “made sense” because of the rebels of Cairo, because of the indignados of Madrid and Barcelona and Athens. All of these rebellions were experiments in self-organization which emerged out of their own specific contexts, their own histories of struggle and revolution. Each were unique, but also united by the shared reality of the failure and decline of late global capitalism, and the futility of electoral politics.

Recently, this “Occupy” phenomenon has expanded beyond merely “providing a space for dialogue” to become a diverse movement actively seeking to shift the social terrain. From strikes and building occupations to marches and port blockades, this looks different in different places, as it should, but one thing is clear: Many are no longer content with “speaking truth to power,” for they understand that power does not listen.

Toward that end, we offer this building occupation as an experiment, as a possible way forward. For decades, occupied buildings have been a foundation for social movements around the world. In places as diverse as Brazil, South Africa, Spain, Mexico, and Germany, just to mention a few, they offer free spaces for everything from health clinics and daycare to urban gardening, theaters, and radical libraries. They are reclaimed spaces, taken back from wealthy landowners or slumlords, offered to the community as liberated space.

All across the US thousands upon thousands of commercial and residential spaces sit empty while more and more people are forced to sleep in the streets, or driven deep into poverty while trying to pay rent that increases without end. Chapel Hill is no different: this building has sat empty for years, gathering dust and equity for a lazy landlord hundreds of miles away, while rents in our town skyrocket beyond any service workers’ ability to pay them, while the homeless spend their nights in the cold, while gentrification makes profits for developers right up the street.

For these reasons, we see this occupation as a logical next step, both specific to the rent crisis in this city as well as generally for occupations nationwide. This is not an action orchestrated by Occupy Chapel Hill, but we invite any and all occupiers, workers, unemployed, or homeless folks to join us in figuring out what this space could be. We offer this “tour guide” merely as one possible blueprint among many, for the purpose of brainstorming the hundreds of uses to which such a building could be put to once freed from the stranglehold of rent.

In Love and Rage,

for liberty and equality,

-some autonomous anti-capitalist occupiers

Needless to say, cops arrived quickly on the scene and appeared increasingly nervous as the afternoon went on. A delegation of anarchists and ALKQN attempted to go in the building, but were prevented from doing so by armed guards and a terrified-looking Director.

After an hour and a half of drumming and screaming, we decided to march down the street so as to be in view of the rear half of Central Prison, the largest prison in the triangle-area. Though prevented from marching to the fence by a line of police cars, prisoners apparently could see us well enough to gather at the windows in the corridors of the facility, banging on the glass and pointing.

From there we marched back to our cars, taking the opportunity to take a group picture behind a beautiful black banner depicting a golden crown and the initials “ADR* – ACAB.” All in all we made a bunch of new friends yesterday, and will continue to organize with them into the future.

Though the Occupy movement has captured much attention as of late nationally, and elements of it such as Oakland’s general strike and building reclamation have inspired us, the struggle against prisons and policing in our state continues to be a major focus. We’d be lying if we did not say that this demo, as relatively tame as it was, felt like a breath of fresh air in contrast to the endless conversations by a recently disenfranchised middle-class about nonviolence and the “99%” which have surrounded us at various “occupations” in the triangle-area. Hopefully these struggles can intersect in a meaningful way, but it does seem that the “issues” of police and prisons will continue to be a major line in the sand relative to the racial and class topography of the Occupy movement.

Until Every Cage is Empty,

some NC anarchists against prisons

* ADR stands for Amor De Rey, a chant and slogan of the ALKQN.

**A brief news story and interview can be seen at: http://triangle.news14.com/content/top_stories/649140/family–friends-rally-for-inmates-in-solitary-confinement

*** For a more exhaustive reflection on anti-prison efforts in NC, check out: http://anarchistnews.org/node/1551

**** Below is the text from a handbill given out to media and passersby at the demo:

AGAINST PRISONS (and the world that creates them)

We are here to protest solitary confinement in NC prisons, and its use against politically active prisoners. The conditions are unbearable and amount to torture: years on end in a tiny cell with little to no stimulation 23 hours a day, unsanitary and inadequate food, no educational resources, completely inadequate “healthcare,” the consistent targeting of Black and Latino and politically conscious prisoners, a grievance procedure that amounts to a kangaroo court.

This protest comes on the back of the historic prisoners’ hunger strike against solitary confinement in California, which spread to over 11 facilities this summer, and inspired solidarity strikes in places as far away as Canada and Palestine. Prisoners in NC have been active for the last year as well, organizing radical study groups, staging a yard occupation in Windsor, hunger strikes in Taylorsville and Polkton, and speaking out against the beating of a handcuffed prisoner at Central Prison in Raleigh.

We are the family, friends, and supporters of those on the inside, both in general population as well as the “prison within a prison” that is solitary confinement. These people are our loved ones and comrades, stolen from us, from our families, crews, and neighborhoods, by the police and courts and this very Department of “Corrections.”

We do not accept this. We reject this modern-day plantation system. We will not sit by while our friends and family are tortured, while the prison walls continue to expand until all of society – work, school, the neighborhood, the city – resembles prison. We encourage everyone who has ever had a friend or brother or sister or parent behind bars, who has ever experienced the arrogant authority of a judge or cop, to join our protest in whatever way you can. If the whole world is like a prison, prison rebellion can happen anywhere.

—-

Two days ago, in the midst of a massive general strike which shut down the city of Oakland, CA, hundreds of occupiers took over a vacant building which had housed the homeless before it was foreclosed upon by bankers. In the windows of that building they stretched a massive banner which declared, “Occupy Everything.”

We are answering their call.

OCCUPY – NC D.O.C.

The second annual anarchist book fair in Carrboro, North Carolina will take place on Saturday, November 12. The book fair will run all at day; other events geared towards both organizing and entertainment will take place throughout the weekend. Book lovers, firebrands, and the simply curious are all invited! Anarchists have been in the news a lot this past year, and this is a good opportunity to find out what all the hubbub is really about.

Are you involved with a radical bookshop, organizing group, or publishing project? Don’t delay–email carrborobookfair@gmail.com to reserve a table, volunteer to help, or suggest activities. The deadline for reserving tables is November 1. We’ll also be hosting workshops, presentations, and discussions–feel free to propose to offer one.

You can learn more and get promotional materials at www.carrboroanarchistbookfair.wordpress.com. The venue is the same as last year: the Nightlight at 405 1/2 West Rosemary Street, in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

Just like last year, we are asking groups to pay a small tabling fee, but it’s important to us that tabling be accessible to groups that do not expect to make any money.

During the last decade, the growing movement toward prison abolition, coupled with mounting recognition of the need for community responses to gender violence, has led to increased interest in developing alternatives to government policing. Moving away from the notion of women as victims in need of police protection, grassroots groups, and activists are organizing community alternatives to calling 911. Such initiatives, however, are not new. Throughout the twentieth century, women have organized alter- native models of self-protection. This piece examines past and present models of women’s community self-defense practices against violence. By exploring the wide-ranging methods women across the globe have employed to protect themselves, their loved ones, and communities, this piece seeks to contribute to current conversations on promoting safety and account- ability without resorting to state-based policing and prisons.

STORYTELLING TO CONNECT PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE

Connecting past efforts to current initiatives allows us to both envision a future in which police and prisons are not the sole solutions to gender violence and to know that such possibilities can – and, in some small pockets, do or did – exist. In 2004, Mimi Kim launched Creative Interventions, a resource center to promote community-based responses to interpersonal violence. Recognizing that, while activ- ists and others are increasingly embracing the idea of community-based accountability as an alternative to the police, many have difficulty envisioning what accountability processes might look like. The group developed STOP (StoryTelling and Organizing Project), a resource for people to share their experiences with community-based accountability models and interventions to domestic violence, family violence, and sexual abuse. ‘In a lot of ways, we are building a long, long history of everyday people trying to end violence in ways that don’t play into oppressive structures,’ she stated (Huang, 2008, p. 60).

In their 2001 statement on gender violence and incarceration, Critical Resistance and INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence challenged communities to not only come up with ways to creatively address violence, but also to document these processes: ‘Transformative practices emerging from local communities should be documented and disseminated to promote collective responses to violence’ (Critical Resistance and INCITE! 2001). By connecting past and current organizing initiatives from across the globe, ‘Where Abolition Meets Actions’ hopes to contribute to the conversations around safety and abolition as well as inspires readers to organize in their own communities.

THE 1970S (WOMEN’S LIBERATION: DEFENDING THEMSELVES AND EACH OTHER)

Women’s liberation movements of the 1970s allowed women to begin talking openly about their experiences of sexual assault. Discussions led to a growing realization that women need to take their safety into their own hands and fight back. Some women formed street patrols to watch for and prevent violence against women. In Cambridgeport, Massachusetts, members of Women’s Liberation group Cell 16 began patrolling the streets where women often left their factory jobs after dark.

‘We were studying Tae Kwan Do and decided to intentionally patrol, offering to accompany women to their cars or to public transportation,’ recalled former Cell 16 member Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz. ‘The first time two of us went to the nearby factory to offer our services to women workers, the first woman we approached looked terrified and hurried away. We surmised that my combat boots and army surplus garb were intimidating, so after that I dressed more conventionally.’ Later efforts were better received: Dunbar-Ortiz recalled that one night Cell 16 members met Mary Ann Weathers, an African-American woman, at a film screening. ‘After the film we introduced ourselves and told her we provided escorts for women. We asked her if she would like us to walk her home, as it was near midnight.

Mary Ann Weathers, who joined our group, marveled over the bizarre and wonderful experience of having five white women volunteer to protect her’ (Dunbar-Ortiz, 2001, p. 136). Dunbar-Ortiz also recalled that she traveled around the country speaking and encouraging women to form similar patrols. Students at Iowa State University and the University of Kentucky responded, forming patrols on their campus. The lack of police and judicial response to gender violence led to increasing recog- nition that women needed to learn to physically defend themselves from male violence. In 1969, Cell 16 established Tae Kwan Do classes for women. Unlike existing police offered self-defense classes that promoted fear rather than empowerment, Cell 16’s classes challenged students to draw the connections between their learned sense of helplessness and their role in society as women (Lafferty & Clark, 1970, pp. 96–97).

In 1974, believing that all people had the right to live free from violence and recognizing that women were often disproportionately impacted by violence, Nadia Telsey and Annie Ellman started Brooklyn Women’s Martial Arts (BWMA) in New York City. ‘I have felt that it [self-defense] is connected to self-determination,’ stated Ellman. ‘We wanted to take our training into our own hands to prevent and avoid violence. We developed programs to reflect and understand that many people who came to our program were oppressed not just because they were women; there were multiple oppressions going on and we felt it was important to address them all.’ By the mid-1970s, the concept of women’s self-defense had become so popular that the demand for training sometimes exceeded the number of available instructors. A 1975 issue of Black Belt Woman, a feminist martial arts publication, ran an ad for certified women teachers by the Meechee Dojo in Minneapolis to fill the daily requests for self-defense workshops by schools, community groups, and continuing education programs (Lehmann, 1975, p. 19).

The idea of women taking training into their own hands to protect them from violence did not dissolve after the 1970s. Some of the programs and schools founded in the 1970s, such as the BWMA (renamed the Center for Anti-Violence Education or CAE in 1989) and Feminists in Self-Defense Training (FIST) in Olympia, Washing- ton, continue teaching women’s self-defense today. Women’s groups that emerged in later decades also took on the task of teaching women to defend themselves.

In 1992, women in Taos, New Mexico, responded to police indifference to gender violence by forming the Taos Women’s Self-Defense Project. Within two years, the Project had taught self-defense to over 400 women, presenting classes in public schools, busi- nesses and health departments (Giggans, 1994, p. 41). Although much of the 1970s rhetoric and organizing around gender violence presupposed that women were attacked by strangers, women also recognized and organized against violence perpetrated by those that they know, including spouses and intimate partners. In Neu-Isenburg, a small town near Frankfurt, Germany, a group of women called Fan-Shen decided that, rather than establish a shelter for battered women, they would force the abuser out of the house. When a battered woman called the local women’s shelter, the group arrived at her home to not only confront her abuser, but also occupy the house as round-the-clock guards to the woman until her abuser moved out. When the strategy was reported in 1977, Fan-Shen had already been successful in five instances (‘Women’s Patrol,’ 1977, p. 18).

Anti-violence organizing in communities of color Women’s Liberation groups were not the only ones to recognize the need for alterna- tive models of preventing gender violence. Communities of color in the USA also developed methods to ensure women’s safety without relying on a system that has historically ignored their safety or further threatened it by using gender violence as a pretext for increased force, brutality, and mass incarceration against community members.

In 1979, when Black women were found brutally murdered in Boston’s primarily Black Roxbury and Dorchester neighborhoods, residents organized the Dorchester Green Light Program. The program provided identifiable safe houses for women who were threatened or assaulted on the streets. Program coordinators, who lived in Dorchester, visited and spoke at community groups and gatherings in their areas. Residents interested in opening their homes as safe houses filled out applications, which included references and descriptions of the house living situation. The program screened each application and checked the references. Once accepted, the resident attended orientation sessions, which included self-defense instruction. They were then given a green light bulb for their porch light; when someone was at home, the green light was turned on as a signal to anyone in trouble. Within eight months, over 100 safe houses had been established (Dejanikus & Kelly, 1979, p. 7).

At a 1986 conference on ending violence against women at UCLA, Beth Richie spoke about a community-based intervention program in East Harlem, a New York neighborhood that was predominantly Black and Latino. Community residents orga- nized to take responsibility for women’s safety. ‘Safety watchers’ visited the house when called by the abused person or the neighbors. They encouraged the abuser to leave; if the abuser refused, the watchers stayed in the house. Their presence prevented further violence, at least while they were present. ‘Beth feels violence will probably continue but community consciousness has been raised,’ noted one confer- ence attendee. ‘In these communities, people do not call the police fearing more violence from the police. Men are not going to jail because the communities are work- ing together’ (Bustamante, 1986, p. 14).

Precedents and influences Women’s collective action and organizing to protect themselves and each other did not originate in the 1970s. In fact, some of the methods that emerged during the 1970s had been utilized by women’s groups of the past. In the 1920s, as more women began working in Shanghai’s cotton mills, they formed jiemei hui or sisterhood societies. In addition to providing acceptable ways for women to spend time together in a gender-segregated society, the jiemei hui also offered protection to their members. Local hoodlums gathered at the mill gates and seized women’s wages on paydays; on ordinary days, they collected money by ‘strip- ping a sheep’ (robbing a woman of her clothes and selling them for money). Female gangsters specialized in the lucrative business of kidnapping young girls to sell to brothels or as future daughters-in-law. Sexual abuse was a pervasive threat: many workers had family members or friends who had been raped, beaten, or kidnapped by neighborhood hoodlums. Members of sisterhoods walked together to and from the mills to protect each other from harassment and attacks. The number of jiemei hui increased during the Japanese occupation of Shanghai when women faced the addi- tional threat of assault by Japanese soldiers (Honig, 1997, p. 490).

During the same period, another form of women’s communal self-defense emerged in rural China. During the uneasy alliance between the Kuomintang (Nation- alist Party) and the Communists during the 1920s, women propagandists organized Women’s Associations in rural villages to provide support for the armies. Village women, however, began mobilizing around their immediate concerns such as foot binding, women’s education, a woman’s right to divorce, and abuse. Women’s Associations assumed the right to punish abusive husbands and in-laws, often through public humiliation (Croll, 1978, p. 202). In Hankou and other areas, the Women’s Associations forced the offending spouse or in-law to walk through the streets wearing a dunce cap and shouting slogans on behalf of women’s freedom (Strong, 1928, p. 126).

The 1927 split between the Kuomintang and the Communists halted the burgeon- ing women’s movement. The Kuomintang suppressed Women’s Associations, arrest- ing, punishing, and even executing known members. During the Japanese invasion, however, women propagandists once again followed the Communist armies to rural villages and instigated the formation of new Women’s Associations. Unlike their predecessors, Communist propagandists were met with skepticism about the possibility of ending abuse and gaining social and economic equality. The breakthrough came with the ‘speak bitterness’ meetings in which women were encouraged to talk about their sufferings. While propagandists originally encouraged women to hold these meetings against their local landlords, many identified their husbands and in-laws as their immediate oppressors. In these meetings, each woman learned that many other women in her village experienced the same oppressions. These women, who had been raised with the ancient notion that women were inferior, began recognizing and demanding their right to equality. They also realized the advantage of collective over individual action: ‘If we form a Women’s Association and everyone tells their bitterness in public, no one will dare to oppress you or any woman again,’ stated one rural woman (Belden, 1949, p. 24).

The new Women’s Associations also utilized group action to punish wife abuse, sometimes temporarily imprisoning and/or physically beating abusive men. However, the Women’s Associations did not need to imprison or beat every abuser. Sometimes the mere threat of a confrontation with the Women’s Association was usually enough. In the village of Fanshen, for instance, the Women’s Association beat several violent husbands. After that, the women only needed to have a ‘serious talk’ with the abuser to change his behavior (Hinton, 1966, p. 159). Contemporary organizing against gender violence Recent legislation, such as the U.S. Violence Against Women Act (1994), recognizes the problem of gender violence and seeks to increase police responsiveness. However, legislation does little to protect women who are politically, economically, or socially marginalized. Instead, the focus on criminalization and incarceration often places them at further risk of both interpersonal and state violence as well as of arrest, incar- ceration, and, for immigrant women, deportation (Critical Resistance and INCITE! 2001).

Knowing this, women have acted both individually and collectively to defend themselves. Sex workers, for instance, have organized in different ways to protect themselves from violence. Some methods are fairly straightforward. In March 2006, police responded to the murders of three sex workers in Daytona Beach, Florida, by cracking down on prosti- tution. In one weekend, 10 people were arrested in a prostitution sting. Recognizing that the police response did more to target than to protect them, street prostitutes began arming themselves with knives and other weapons to both to protect them- selves and each other and to find the killer. ‘We will get him first,’ declared Tonya Richardson, a Ridgewood Avenue prostitute, to Local 6 News. ‘When we find him, he is going to be sorry. It is as simple as that’ (‘Daytona Prostitutes,’ 2006).

In Montreal, sex workers have taken a different approach to ensure their safety. In 1995, sex workers, public health researchers, and sympathizers formed Stella, a sex workers’ alliance. Instead of knives and other weapons, the group arms sex workers with information and support to help them keep safe. Stella compiles, updates, and circulates a Bad Tricks and Assaulters list, enabling sex workers to share information and avoid dangerous situations. It also produces and provides free reference guides that cover working conditions, current solicitation laws, and health information. Recognizing that the criminalization of activities related to the sex industry renders sex workers vulnerable to both outside violence and police abuse, the group also advo- cates for the decriminalization of these acts (Stella, n.d.). Sex workers are also taking direct action to stop sex trafficking.

In 1997, former sex workers began guarding checkpoints along the Nepal–India border to rescue adolescent Nepalese girls from being smuggled into India. The idea emerged with the women living at Maiti Nepal, a home in Kathmandu for women returning from Indian brothels. Many of the women, who had been kidnapped as adolescents and sold into the sex industry, were ashamed and angry about their experiences and wanted to trans- form their anger into action. They set up four guard posts along the border and began monitoring for human trafficking. During the first three years, the women caught 70 traffickers, saving 240 girls from India’s brothels. ‘All the girls want to go to the border,’ stated Anuradha Koirala, who runs Maiti Nepal. ‘They are angry but don’t know how to express themselves.’ Being able to rescue others from similar fates has helped many of the women reclaim their sense of self-worth: at the age of 14, Sushma Katuwal was sold to an Indian brothel where she was infected with HIV. After being held for 13 months, she returned to Kathmandu. ‘I came back from hell,’ she recalled. ‘I am trying to stop these girls from being sold like I was.’ In 2000 alone, the 19-year-old rescued 15 girls and caught four human traffickers. ‘As long as I survive, this is what I am going to do,’ she declared (Filkins, 2000, p. 1).

Women marginalized by other factors, such as racism and poverty, have also orga- nized to protect themselves against both interpersonal and state violence. In 2000, the police murders of two young women of color sparked a dialogue about violence against women among members of Sista II Sista, a collective of women of color in Brooklyn, New York. The group’s preexisting work had empowered young women of color to identify and work toward solving their own problems. Their response was to form Sistas Liberated Ground, a zone in their neighborhood where crimes against women would not be tolerated. ‘We wanted the community to stand up against violence as a long-term solution because our dependence on a police system that was inherently sexist, homophobic, racist, and classist did not decrease the ongo- ing violence against women we were seeing in our neighborhoods. In fact, at times, the police themselves were its main perpetrators,’ members of the group stated in 2007 (Burrowes, Cousins, Rojas, & Ude, 2007, p. 229).

Sista II Sista instituted an ‘action line,’ which women could call, inform the group about violence in their lives, and explore the options that they – and the group – could take to change the situation. In addition, Sista II Sista established Sister Circles which, similar to the ‘speak bitter- ness’ meetings of the Communist Women’s Associations in China, allowed women to talk about violence and other problems in their daily lives and encouraged the commu- nity – rather than the individual woman – to find solutions. In one instance, a woman at the Sister Circle talked about the man who had been stalking her for over a year. Although no physical violence had occurred, he was becoming increasingly aggressive toward her. Members of the Sister Circle confronted the man at the barbershop where he worked. When they learned about his actions, his male co-workers told the stalker that, if he continued to harass the woman, he would be fired. He stopped stalking her (Ude, 2006).

CREATING COMMUNITIES TO DETER VIOLENCE

Not all strategies to prevent gender violence are easily classified as ‘policing from below.’ Some grassroots groups and coalitions recognize that building communities is the first line of defense against violence and are organizing to create social structures and support networks that can collectively address harmful situations.

In Durham, North Carolina, in the aftermath of the 2006 rape of a Black woman by members of a Duke University lacrosse team, women of color and survivors of sexual violence formed UBUNTU. UBUNTU, named after the Bantu meaning ‘I am because we are,’ is a coalition working to ‘facilitate a systematic transformation of our communities until the day that sexual violence does not occur’ (UBUNTU). Alexis Pauline Gumbs recounted an instance in which an UBUNTU member encountered a woman who had been beaten by her former partner:

This UBUNTU member called the rest of us to see who was home and available in the direct neighborhood, took the young woman into her home and contacted the spiritual leader of the woman who had experienced the violence along with other women that the young woman trusted from her spiritual community, who also came to the home, and made sure that she was able to receive medical care. She also arranged for members of our UBUNTU family to have a tea session with the young woman to talk about healing and options, to share our experiences, to embrace the young woman and to let her know that she wasn’t alone in her healing process. (Piepzna-Samarasinha, 2008, pp. 80–81)

Gumbs noted:

These responses were invented on the spot … without a pre-existing model or a logistical agreement. But they were also made possible by a larger agreement that we as a collec- tive of people living all over the city are committed to responding to gendered violence. This comes out of the political education and collective healing work that we have done, and the building of relationships that strongly send the message … you can call me if you need something, or if you don’t. You can call me to be there for you … or someone that you need help being there for. I think it is very important that we have been able to see each other as resources so that when we are faced with violent situations we don’t think our only option is to call the state.

In that way, everything that we do to create community, from childcare to community gardening (our new project!), to community dinners, to film screenings, to political discussions helps to clarify how, why, and how deeply we are ready to be there for each other in times of violence and celebration. (Piepzna-Samarasinha, 2008, p. 81)

From this community-building, UBUNTU members began organizing around the idea of a Harm-Free Zone – an area in which violence would be addressed by the community rather than by the police.

‘We shall see [what this looks like in practice] because we’re still at the beginning of it,’ stated Gumbs in 2009, a year after the idea of a Harm-Free Zone emerged. ‘A lot of times we talk about community as if it already exists, but I don’t actually think that we have autonomous, completely sustained community. We live with all sorts of dependence on the state, [on] outside institutions. We have a lot of work to do to have the type of communications and support that would fulfill the needs of our community.’

Like the Dorchester Green Light Program, organizers of the Harm-Free Zone brought these ideas to the communities of which they were already a part. ‘Those of us who came together were already working in those settings, so it wasn’t just [us] going and taking over the local elementary school. Somebody’s mom was inspired by what somebody [on the committee] said and invited them to come and speak at [the school’s] Women’s History Month,’ recalled Gumbs. ‘For each of us, we’re thinking about how we bring that analysis and that ideal into our preexisting communities.’

CONCLUSION

Many early anti-violence efforts addressed immediate instances of gender violence, often focusing on the physical aspects of self-defense or a direct response to violence. Women’s organizations taught self-defense classes, confronted abusers and assailants, and formed protective groups to escort each other safely through the streets. In contrast, contemporary organizing often utilizes a multilayered approach, creatively addressing not only immediate instances of violence but also creating dialogue to challenge and change some of the root causes of gender violence. For instance, the efforts of Stella and UBUNTU are not traditionally seen as self-defense tactics, but they do work to keep women safe from violence. Despite these differences, each project emphasizes the importance of community – as opposed to individual – actions and responses. None of these projects – from the Women’s Associations of the 1920s and 1940s to the Dorchester Green Light program in Massachusetts to the contempo- rary organizing among sex workers – would have succeeded without a collective sense of responsibility toward each other.

Alexis Pauline Gumbs has described UBUNTU’s fledgling Harm-Free Zone as ‘building safety from the ground up’: ‘When we say “from the ground up,” [we’re talking about] really participating in the full life of a community and not just creating a special utopia of ten friends who have a vision that’s so abolitionist and radical,’ she elaborated.

Annie Ellman also talked about the importance of community and community- building: ‘What people gain here [at BWMA] besides self-defense skills is some understanding about collective action, about struggling with your community … If we believe that people have the right to live free of violence, we have to work together to try to transform our communities as ones who will stand up and fight against different kinds of injustice.’

While not every project and group explicitly identifies as an abolitionist group, their practices work toward a radical re-envisioning of creating safety without relying on police. In addition, some groups do work with other antiviolence and abolitionist organizations.

BWMA has, at times, joined in coalition work against police brutality and in support of Mumia Abu-Jamal as well as women incarcerated for self-defense. By the time it changed its name in 1989, CAE had broadened its focus to teach self-defense to other populations disproportionately impacted by violence such as gay men, trans- gender people, people living with HIV and AIDS, and queer homeless youth (of all genders). ‘What we often do is we go out and do educational work for organizations that are more on the front lines doing organizing work,’ stated Ellman. After 9/11 increased racist violence against Arab American, South Asian, and Muslim commu- nities, CAE provided free self-defense and violence prevention workshops to women at grassroots organizations that served these communities (‘Spotlight on Community Action,’ 2004, p. 19).

Alexis Pauline Gumbs noted that UBUNTU’s Harm-Free Zone organizing was inspired and influenced by Critical Resistance organizing: one member had previously helped organize a Harm-Free Zone with the New York City Critical Resistance chapter and several people were part of both the Durham chapter of Critical Resistance and the Harm-Free Zone organizing committee.

Although each of the initiatives described works specifically in certain communi- ties, there is the potential for these models to be shared and adapted to other locations and situations.

Gumbs pointed to the Gulabi Gang, a group of women in India who physically punish abusive husbands, and to Sistahs Liberated Ground as inspirations for the Harm-Free Zone organizing in Durham: ‘We understand that work in that context while also understanding that our conditions are really specific.’

Other groups have also drawn on past and present models of collective action and community accountability processes. The 1970s German women’s group Fan-Shen derived its name from the model Chinese village where Women’s Associations stopped wife abuse. More recently, activists in Santa Cruz were influenced by a docu- mentary about a 1970s feminist group that collectively confronted sexual assaulters, forming Snap Back! in 2002. Snap Back! members used a similar tactic to confront a man who had sexually assaulted their friend. ‘We went to his house at night with her and we made him come outside,’ recalled Snap Back! member Megan Reed. ‘She talked to him about what had happened while the rest of us stood there showing soli- darity with her. She decided to go inside to have a longer conversation with him (about an hour). Then we left.’

Although nothing more happened, Reed believed that their action had further- reaching effects: ‘I think it scared the crap out of him and he’ll think twice before doing anything like that again,’ she stated. The action also ‘gave her [the survivor] a sense of closure. If you don’t want to go through the legal system, there are few alter- natives as to what you can do to get closure and confront that person and feel that a politically justifiable result has been attained.’ Knowledge about a past group’s approaches toward sexual assault enabled Snap Back! members to help their friend confront her assailant in a way that did not involve the police or prisons.

‘Where Abolition Meets Actions’ utilizes Mimi Kim’s storytelling approach to envision different possibilities of a world without policing and prisons. These models are important for imagining and then realizing abolitionist principles. By examining the variety of approaches in their vastly different contexts, we can begin to connect the abstract ideal with concrete actions that make another world possible. We should be drawing lessons from these projects and approaches to create models that work for our own locations and communities.

NOTES

Acknowledgments

As an independent researcher, I am blessed to have a network of friends, writers, and activists who provide crucial support. For this article, I owe much thanks and appreciation to China Martens for feedback on early drafts, Jessica Ross for introducing me to several of the women interviewed as well as extensive feedback, and Jenna Freedman for material support. This article could not have been written without them. This article orignially appeared in the journal Contemporary Justice Review.

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In addition to acting in solidarity with California’s prison rebels, Graham also used his strike to address a number of immediate issues surrounding living conditions on lock-up at Lanesboro. Less than a week after submitting his demands along with an announcement of his strike, most of his requests were addressed. We recently received word of this by mail. Below is a list of the demands accompanied by the results of the strike.

“This notice brings to light a hunger strike that will start on July 15^th, 2011 and includes the following demands:

-Provide toilet brushes, so that prisoners can adequately clean their toilets on lock-up during weekly clean-up.

Results: On 7/19, the Unit Manager and Assistant Unit Manager came personally to show me we now have toilet brushes to clean our toilets.

-Provide shower mats outside the shower, to prevent injury by slipping.

Results: On 7/22, the Asst. Unit Manager passed ou shower mats to go outside the showers on every block.

-Provide Adequate Food/Medical Soft Diet. We want wholesome nutritional food served in sanitary conditions. Also, I requested personally to be put on a soft vegan diet due to a medical condition.

Results: On 7/20, I was finally placed on a soft vegan diet after being denied and lied to by saying, “There is no such thing…” Also, prisoners have been saying that portions have increased.

-Fix Prisoner’s Nightlights.

Results: On 7/18, maintenance men came to every block and replaced ever prisoner’s bulbs that were out.

-Provide Adequate Medical Care. We want nurses to execute prompt response to sick-calls and medical emergencies and to perform daily seg checks.

Results: On 7/21, they finally called prisoners for sick-calls that had been waiting for over a month. They still haven’t been performing daily seg checks to check on the well-being of lock- up prisoners.”

We’ll do our best to keep folks updated about struggles going on at Lanesboro, particularly if there is a need or call for outside solidarity actions of any kind. We hope that small victories like this one can encourage greater unity and resistance behind the walls.

In love and rage,

a few anarchists against prison

Our presence was purposely timed with visitor’s hours at the jail, and for the hour and half we were there there was a constant stream of family and friends coming in and out of the large, modern, Orwellian structure. Handbills in English and Spanish explaining the various anti-prison struggles around the country (see text below) and business cards with information on how prisoners can get material support from local anarchists on the outside were given to folks visiting loved ones. Others banged on pots and pans, played drums, blew on kazoos, held banners, and chanted (“Cops, Pigs, Murderers!”, and “Abajo las Presiones, la Policia son Cabrones” were two favorites). One person just waved a large stick in the air with word “against” written on the end of it. 

Soon after we arrived, prisoners on every floor of the building began cramming up against the plexiglass windows of their cells to get a better look, while some stood in stairwells or on balconies waving and throwing fists in the air. Eventually many of these prisoners managed to make small posters out of paper on hand, reading things like, “I love this,” “Fuck Cops,” and “@.” Others started banging on the plexiglass. Most of the family members expressed similar sentiments. Though a fleet of cop cars showed up to watch, and a couple of us were eventually forced off the jail property for “agitating the prisoners,” the demonstration otherwise proceeded without incident.

This kind of breakdown of the isolation of prison, however brief, along with the love and rage expressed back and forth through a thin vein of plexiglass, however circumstantial, alone made the demonstration feel worthwhile. Of course, we also hope that hearing about such things can raise the spirits of prison rebels in California, not to mention inspire similar rebellion to spread here. We also want comrades in the Northwest to know that despite the repression they’ve faced, their struggle continues to be an inspiration. And of course, though we only just learned of it, we send our best to those engaged in fighting the police this very moment in London.

Text from the handbill is printed below. Pictures should soon be available at the beautiful, brand new www.trianarchy.wordpress.com

(handbill…)

SOLIDARITY WITH ALL PRISON REBELS

On July 1st, dozens of prisoners in the long-term isolation unit of Pelican Bay in California began an indefinite hunger strike. Their strike quickly spread, and has now been joined by over 6,000 prisoners in at least 11 prisons across the state. Though some prisoners have entered into negotiations with officials, an estimated several thousand in southeastern CA remain on hunger strike.

These prisoners are held in soundproof cells with no windows for 22½-24 hours per day, often for years at a time. The only way out of this slow torture is to “debrief”, i.e. inform on other prisoners, a situation which clearly encourages false accusations. They are served unsanitary and unwholesome food, punished collectively for the actions of individuals, and routinely denied access to basic services like phone calls or warm clothing. In an attempt to change these conditions, these prisoners have united to put their own lives on the line. Over 100,000 American prisoners are held in these solitary conditions. Solitary confinement is not an aberration from the norm but in fact the logical result of a country that locks up more of its population per capita than any other nation in the history of world.

We are here to support the efforts of these strikers, and the struggle of all prisoners to free themselves from the brutality and isolation of prison. We also want to draw attention to other acts of state repression on the west coast. This past weekend 26 Seattle anarchists were arrested, seven attacked and critically injured by police armed with shovels in their own home. Only a matter of days earlier, police in the Bay Area murdered an unarmed African-American teenager for not paying a $2 metro fare. Both of these incidents have elicited acts of solidarity and counter-attacks.

It goes without saying that the brutality of the police and the torture of prisons are inextricably linked. In both cases, the function of these institutions is not to reduce crime but to perpetuate a long history of slavery and exploitation. If prisons are to be understood as warehouses for the poor, then the police are the bosses of the unemployed. As such we wish for nothing but their destruction.

-some anarchists against prisons, and the world that creates them.

www.prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com | www.trianarchy.wordpress.com | www.prisonbooks.info

AGAINST POLICE AND PRISONS!