from Anathema
Volume 4 Issue 3 (PDF for printing 11 x 17)
Volume 4 Issue 3 (PDF for reading 8.5 x 11)
In this issue:
from Philly Antifa
As many of our readers are probably aware, in the aftermath of the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, VA in August, there was a huge push among Neo-Nazis, especially those associated with 8chan’s nazi-infested “Pol” board, to dox and harass Anti-Fascists who participated in protesting the rally.
One nazi in particular, going by the alias Jack “Pale Horse” Corbin, was especially prolific in doxxing Anti-Racists and Anti-Fascists. Eager to unmask Pale Horse, Anti-Fascists within the TORCH network, as well as independent Antifa, rushed their research and made a critical error by falsely identifying Corbin as Jake Loubriel of Dania Beach, FL.
To be fair, not only is Loubriel a far-right racist Trump supporter, he has participated in doxxing Antifa, just not under the alias Jack Corbin. Corbin stole pictures of Loubriel from social media and intentionally used them as a red herring to throw off Antifa. This was an deliberate deception by Corbin; not an oversight by Antifa. Loubriel and Corbin are both living in Florida and have intersected on open carry and 2nd amendment pages.
Loubriel also appears to support Corbin doxxing and threatening Anti-Racists and Antifa. So while we should always strive for 100% accuracy in our reporting, and those who rushed to identify Corbin as Loubriel should take a serious lesson from this, they can take solace in knowing that the person falsely accused of being Jack Corbin is still a piece of shit far-right racist who has participated in the doxxing of Antifa, just not this Corbin piece of shit in particular.
For our part, we would like to apologize to our readers for re-posting and blindly accepting the dox of Loubriel. The information seemed legitimate and the source was trusted, but, obviously, we should have independently confirmed it as such.
After learning that Loubriel was not Corbin via an infiltrator, our intel department went to work trying to positively ID them once and for all. After much research, we are prepared to name Jack “Pale Horse” Corbin as Daniel William McMahon of Brandon, FL.
from Radical Education Department
Introduction
West Virginia has been rocked by a statewide strike by teachers, bus drivers, and other school employees. Today, March 2nd, the strike enters its seventh day.
Beginning on February 22nd, workers shut down public schools in all 55 of West Virginia’s counties, rejecting abysmal and declining teacher pay and the state’s attack on public employees’ health insurance. The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), one of the unions helping to organize the strikers, reports the following worker demands:
A natural gas severance tax that creates a self-sustaining source of revenue for PEIA [Public Employees Insurance Agency] and public employee pay.
No regressive taxes, which ultimately affect working-class families more than the wealthy elite.
A permanent tabling to any and all legislation pertaining to co-tenancy and joint development, which allow large natural gas industries to engulf local landowners.
A pay raise of 5% per year over the next half decade.
A permanent tabling to any and all legislation pertaining to charter schools, voucher systems, and any attempts to privatize public schools.
On February 27th, Governor Justice announced an agreement with three of the major teacher unions in the state: a 5% pay increase for teachers as well as a 3% increase for state employees generally. Union officials and the governor alike pleaded for school employees to return to work, despite the fact that key demands remain unmet.
On March 1st, however–defying the governor and official union leaders–teachers refused to return to work, swarming the capitol and chanting “It’s not over.”
Meanwhile, that same day, even the modest pay raise was refused in the state legislature.
Below is an interview conducted via email between John Schultz of RED and Michael Mochaidean, a West Virginia teacher and member of the IWW.
JS: Can you give a brief account of how the statewide teachers’ strike in West Virginia began and developed? What role did the rank-and-file play, and what role did the IWW as well as the major teacher unions (AFT, WVEA, etc.) play?
MM: I am speaking here as an individual within the IWW, not as a representative for the West Virginia IWW or the IWW broadly speaking. […]
The statewide strike did not originate with the unions and their leadership, but rather with the rank-and-file of their membership. It began as an effort by members to do away with the strategies of leadership that seemed stale and unable to adapt to changing times. For example, leadership had endorsed Governor Jim Justice as a Democrat, but he soon changed his party and was in opposition to the unions and teachers by and large, so we felt that this strategy of endorsing and electing conservative Democrats would only backfire in the future. This movement was entirely rank-and-file in its beginning and as it has progressed over the past week. Both AFT and WVEA have worked jointly on these issues at the county and state level, with many members acting on behalf of the other.
This cross union solidarity raised the consciousness among many teachers of the need to perhaps consider uniting the associations in the future. The IWW is relatively new to West Virginia in the sense that we have no official chapter in the state and only a few disconnected members. However, the outpouring of support from IWW members has been immense. Wobblies from the southern states reached out to me after they listened to my interview with IGD and we began organizing for more direct control over the unions. We developed brochures, pamphlets, and literature to be distributed throughout the state to keep up the momentum for grassroots organizing within and outside the official associations. We also set up a strike fund to fund possible leafleting campaigns, renting halls, inviting speakers, and the like.
JS: What conditions as well as organizing strategies do you think helped make this strike a broad and powerful one? And what could others–not only unions, but social movements generally–learn from the West Virginia teachers?
MM: The anarcho-syndicalist tradition offers the best analysis, in my mind, as to how we can understand the teachers movement and its efficacy. The inherent contradictions in capitalism and the resource paradox nature of our state provided necessary conditions for public service personnel to slowly lose their rights as laborers. However, the history of West Virginia is one of mutual aid and community support that grows organically rather than through vanguard party structures. Therefore, anarchist traditions of mutual aid and support are more palatable and grew within the associations themselves. Furthermore, by framing this discussion as one of public employees versus the state, we engaged in the syndicalist tradition that workers of those areas should determine their destinies.
I would say that other social movements should try to look at what is happening here in the state as part and parcel of our current late stage of capitalism. Focus the discourse on larger, interrelated issues, but at the heart, deal with one issue that can connect all others. For us, it was our insurance plan. By tying the issues in our insurance plan to larger issues of worker autonomy, capitalism, and corporate elites profiting off of our labor, we could bring in these other points simultaneously without losing traction on the issue of healthcare.
JS: On February 27th, it was announced that the teachers’ strike would end: Governor Jim Justice had come to an agreement with leaders from three of the major unions organizing the strike. And yet the IWW-WVA points out that key demands haven’t been met: a tax on natural gas to help fund teachers’ health insurance and pay, for example. What does this deal signify about the major unions and their relationship to workers?
MM: Our statement [which can be found here] is reflective of the conditions of public employees who were overwhelmingly opposed to any compromise with the state that did not include long term funding for PEIA. The severance tax, proposed by Sen. Ojeda, has been continuously shot down by the legislature, in part because of the control the oil and natural gas industry lobby has in the state. Public employees seemed to feel that the deal was intended to fracture the unions and their support among all public employees, as well as the communities they serve. Thus, they decided to engage in another day of work stoppage (03/01) until these issues have been voted on.
We do not wish for rank-and-file members to leave their primary unions, but rather to engage in more direct efforts to hold their leadership accountable and ensure that whatever deals are made are done so with full knowledge by all of those involved.
JS: Teacher have often been on the front lines of union struggles in recent years. What role do teachers play within the broader struggles of workers in America? What possibilities are there for teachers to connect with and support other kinds of workers?
MM: Teachers had to take to the front lines in this state because other public employees – police officers, DOH, EMTs – are unable to call a walkout because their careers are deemed essential. Since we still have a relatively strong union presence for educators in this state, we used this avenue to push for benefits for all public employees, knowing that if we succeeded, they would succeed, but also that if we failed, they would fail, too.
Teachers are the public face of our communities, and work stoppages by educators can highlight the complexities of local autonomy, funding, and the economic conditions of our time.
JS: Where does the IWW in West Virginia go from here? Can you share some key short-term and long-term goals, not only as for teachers but beyond too?
MM: Short-term, we hope to push union leadership to not compromise on deals that their rank-and-file members reject. After all, it is the members that pay their salaries, so the members deserve to have a say in what is voted upon.
Long-term, we hope to grow the IWW in the state and in major areas where membership can be sustained. This strike has brought attention to issues we as an industrial union have been describing for over a century – the working class and the capitalist class have nothing in common. Business unions, while good in their own right, will make decisions for their members against their wishes. Since the IWW is entirely democratically run, we hope to raise awareness in the state about these ideas, how to continue organizing against capitalism and its effects, and connect the local struggles in our state with international struggles for worker solidarity.
JS: I’ll end with a broader question: what limits are worker struggles facing in the coming year, and what important possibilities are opening up for them? What do you think is needed for those struggles to become broader, more coordinated, and more powerful?
Currently, we are seeing electoral strategies touting the singular way that the working class can regain its rights in this state and in the country at large. The Democrats are pushing hard at midterms for a blue wave to bring a coalition of forces to Congress and state legislatures. However, in this state, we have a long history of conservative Democrats who differ little from the Republican Party. We do not wish to see this movement become simply another Wisconsin in 2011, where the working class struggle was diverted by establishment politicians into establishment politics. When that struggle ended, and we had lost, the momentum had been shattered. By not allowing our struggle to be co-opted, we can control the narrative, direct its course, and ultimately use direct action to gain our freedom.
Solidarity from WV.
from Anathema
On February 8th, Congress passed a budget bill to end the government shutdown that did not include protections for DACA recipients. This budget would not have been possible without Democratic participation — in the Senate, 37 out of 49 Democrats voted for the bill, along with 73 House Democrats. Efforts by Congress in the following week to pass a new bill on immigration failed due to pressure from Trump’s administration. The fate of DACA now lies with the court system.
“Fascism, then, is a way of channeling discontent and hostilities into a consolidation of the status quo when democracy is no longer able to do so.”
Democrats had put up an appearance of resistance to the bill, symbolized by minority leader Nancy Pelosi holding the floor for eight hours to rail against it. Pelosi could have gone all out and used her leverage to whip up Democrats’ no votes, but chose not to. Despite the fact that, according to a Public Policy Polling/Center for American Progress poll, 58% of Americans wanted to include Dreamers as part of the deal to reopen the government, Democratic and Republican lawmakers colluded to ensure that this would not happen.
That means that what looks a lot like a new stage of an ethnic cleansing project by this settler colonial nation-state and its openly white nationalist presidential administration is set to move forward. Hundreds of thousands of people of color in the United States are facing the threat of deportation. In January, the government ended Temporary Protected Status for Salvadoreans, Haitians and Nicaraguans. DACA, which protects 690,000 people, expires on March 5.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) removed 226,000 people from the country in the 2017 fiscal year, a slight decrease from Obama’s record last year because of Trump’s enhancements to border security. ICE’s immigration arrests are up by 42%, however. At least 8% of the approximately 110,000 arrests are “collateral arrests,” i.e. other people that the agency finds and kidnaps along the way while arresting an intended target.
ICE has specifically targeted migrants who are leading activist resistance to U.S. immigration policy. In early January, ICE suddenly detained and deported Ravi Ragbir, the executive director of the New Sanctuary Coalition of New York City. This was the second arrest in one week by ICE of a leader in that coalition. Despite New York being a sanctuary city whose Democratic mayor has pledged safety for migrants, the NYPD colluded with ICE to arrest 18 people who attempted to stop the ICE vehicle from carrying away Ragbir.
Though the government has usually tried to excuse deportations by blaming migrants for their “criminal” records and going after low-income people, ICE arrests have now also started to target non-white American residents regardless of how much time they’ve spent in the country, their lack of criminal history, or their class position. In January, ICE kidnapped Syed Ahmed Jamal, a chemistry professor who has lived in the U.S. for 30 years, outside his home, and deported Amer Adi Othman, a Youngstown, Ohio business owner who had lived in the U.S. for nearly 40 years.
Taking measures to limit legal immigration is also now on the table for the first time in many years. This is notable because authorities are only discussing restricting immigration from majority non-white countries, and further indicates that the primary motivation on issues of immigration, on the part of both the Trump administration and his grassroots supporters, is to keep the U.S. a majority-white nation-state.
The U.S. is heightening its borderline-fascist state polices, and Democrats have shown they will go along with anything when the stability of the federal government is at stake. Regardless of individual lawmakers’ reasons for their decisions — the inner workings of which are nearly impossible for lowly plebian commentators like ourselves to know anyway — both political parties now seem willing to toe the line between so-called democracy and fascism in order to deal with the escalating crisis of capitalism and the accompanying threat of mass uprisings.
Because the state’s function is to unify civil society in such a way that preserves the economic system, fascism is not a subversion of capital, but a tendency that, like representative democracy, the state can turn to so as to maintain order. Historically, signs of a crisis in the state’s ability to maintain social cohesion have included an inability by democratic states to impose order after waves of revolts had been snuffed out, continual governmental crises, and imaginary plots against the nation. As with the current U.S. administration, states often respond to such crises by inventing an internal enemy and deflecting domestic conflicts by pursuing militaristic projects abroad.
The current crisis of capital requires a consolidation of force in the hands of the federal government, which either instating a dictatorship or pursuing more modest proto-fascist measures can accomplish. As in Spain, Germany, and Italy in the first half of the last century, economic misery and the rebellions it has produced in the U.S. are currently being channeled into anti-fascism, on one side (which tends to deprive revolutionary tendencies of their original anti-capitalist content) and grassroots fascism that rallies to consolidate the current administration. Meanwhile, Trump’s administration continues to accumulate resources for its police and military forces, fortify its borders, blame migrants and radicals, mysteriously kill off or deport black and brown rebels and activists, and threaten large-scale warfare abroad.
As economic theorist Gilles Dauvé noted in 1998, “An essential aspect of fascism is its birth in the streets, its use of disorder to impose order, its mobilization of the old middle classes crazed by their own decline, and its regeneration, from without, of a state unable to deal with the crisis of capitalism. Fascism was an effort of the bourgeoisie to forcibly tame its own contradictions, to turn working class methods of mobilization to its own advantage, and to deploy all the resources of the modern state, first against an internal enemy, then against an external one” (Endnotes Vol. I, 23-24).
Fascism, then, is a way of channeling discontent and hostilities into a consolidation of the status quo when democracy is no longer able to do so. Fascism, or proto-fascist governance like what we’re currently seeing in the U.S., historically has thrived off of grassroots support that mimics revolution, while drawing anti-capitalist tendencies into a “popular front” approach that gives control back to more liberal agents and institutions and no longer threatens to totally transform the miserable conditions of our lives.
Many radicals and progressives recognize that there’s a rupture in U.S. society and have in response called for rebuilding democratic power — for example, as Bernie Sanders and the Democratic Socialists of America have done. This mass movement strategy should be avoided, as it is another way of rebuilding the social unity that capital needs.
Pursuing false alliances with those who want to defuse hostilities and reform the socioeconomic system will not help us get free. The ruptures and antagonisms within this society are what the state is straining to reconcile because they threaten capitalism — they are serious disadvantages for capital, and thus advantages for us. In the face of the state’s white supremacist maneuvers, we can try various short-term strategies depending on our inclinations — for example, looking out for those who will first be targeted, helping people cross the border, or attacking agencies like ICE and impeding their ability to function. But ultimately it is the borders, and capital along with it, that must go.
from Anathema
There have been so many mass shootings in recent years that they rarely get national coverage unless they set a new record, precedent, or it is a slow news day. They have been on the rise to such a degree that the United States has been averaging one school-specific shooting a week. In the aftermath, wherever the shooting occurs, blame is always assigned to political agendas, religious radicalism, advanced weaponry, mental health, or whitewashed for the sake of maintaining order in a way that assigns no blame to “random” or “thoughtless” crimes – the latter being most often assigned to white male shooters. But the return to calls for gun control most disempower the marginalized and reinforce the same authority that murders with impunity.
Mass shootings are said to have begun with a white military veteran in Camden, NJ in 1949, who bought the Luger he used in Philadelphia, the day after he had felt scorned by a lover. The story is too familiar, but the idea that this was the first mass shooting ignores the massacres of indigenous people on this continent by white settler-colonialists that have contributed to Native American genocide (like the nearby Conestoga Massacre of 1763, at least some of which occurred without guns). Still, it is of note in that “the first mass shooter” murdered 13 people and wounded 3 with only a pistol, and not anything resembling the AR-15 that has been so focused on lately. More to the point, mass killings preceded the existence of semi-automatic weapons and largely targeted non-white people.
It was only when non-white people picked up the gun to defend themselves that gun control became a popular political stance. Some of the less-remembered gun control advocates of the past include a post-Civil War Ku Klux Klan, the National Rifle Association, and California Governor Ronald Reagan, who sought to prevent Black Panthers from carrying loaded rifles while patrolling their neighborhoods or protesting at government buildings. Before Reagan signed the bill that outlawed such practices, there were reported occurrences of Black Panthers avoiding unjustified arrest and murder when white police stopped and harassed them on the street by being armed.
Presumably, little has changed from the legal lynchings of the past except that the police have less to fear from civilian elements, as they continue to be criminalized and othered without the fear of return fire as reprisal. Shootings of police in Camden, NJ and upstate PA, which occurred last year after police approached young men, have even been described as self-defense because the police have been known to shoot people with similar profiles for little or nothing in other situations, often to be exonerated for their transgressions later. Gun control has historically sought to keep guns out of the hands of black and brown folks, when it is clear that a gun in hand could keep them alive.
While sympathies lie with those trying to reduce violence in their inner city communities through gun control, it still fails to address the problem. Inner city violence often pits the most marginalized against each other, in attempts to overcome the violence of poverty thrust upon them. The logic of capital, after all, being that one must conquer others in order to move up in the economic strata. As such, one cannot end inner city violence without abolishing capital, as hierarchies (and poverty) are necessary to its operation, as it institutionally brings down violence from the upper echelons onto the lower.
This is why elements of left and anarchist circles have recently renewed advocacy for arming of marginalized peoples, in addition to bringing up concerns regarding civil war with conservative elements that tend to be better armed and more familiar with weaponry. The same conservative element that has been doing research on the best “truck gun” with which to “defend” themselves against protesters who tend to disrupt traffic, as was written about in a recent issue of Guns & Ammo magazine.
The same political associates of white supremacist organizations that are currently calling for armed escalations and lone-wolf murders of their opposition – organizations of which many mass shooters have been members. This, again, in a country where the first machine gun, invented by Richard Gattling, was created to deal with anarchists and other dissenters.
There is no need for romanticization of armed conflict and related imagery, but there is a real need to know how to defend ourselves from the threats we face. And the threats we face include murderous white supremacists, governments, and even gun manufacturers, who favor disarming and killing dissenters whenever they can get away with it – indeed there is significant historical precedent from Haymarket, to massacres of striking workers and their families, to the biased trials and execution of “reds.”
Yet none of this gets down to perhaps the most significant contributing factor to an increasingly violent society – the continued alienation by and violence of civilization at large. The division of labor, especially along gendered lines, and the creation of private property that resulted from the agrarian revolution that birthed civilization marked a notable development in the existence of hierarchies. Gender and racial divisions might not exist on the same level, if at all, without this development. The degradation of the environment, our separation from the natural world, and our separation from each other have been steps in a process that have increased rates of depression, anxiety, suicide, in addition to mass shootings. The New York Times reported a steady increase of suicides over the last 30 years, with 42,773 recorded in 2014 – not a sign of an healthy society.
In such a society, built on and maintained by violence, any attack on its institutions can be painted by the marginalized as self-defense. But framing the argument is perhaps less interesting than an attack that actually inspires and destabilizes, without the possibility of recuperation.
Gun control won’t stop the police from murdering people every single day. It won’t stop the military from imperializing and murdering abroad. It makes sure those forces are likely to be the few who have guns. Gun control won’t stop the cycle of violence perpetuated by poverty and authority. Those most prone to suffering violence at the hands of institutional oppressors are the ones whose survival is most inhibited by those measures, including those that intend to dismantle the root causes of those oppressions. The patriarchal and white supremacist entitlement that empowers both individual and group “mass shooters” can only be halted after the toppling of institutions that teach them they are right (i.e. churches, schools, government). And the alienation that drives people to senselessly murder will only cease after unplugging a civilization that drives us apart, mediating interactions through screens and algorithms, to reconnect with a simpler way of life.
From Radical Education Department
You can find another RED article by the author on monuments here.
“What time is it?” asks artist Tyree Guyton in his mural installation at Kensington, Philadelphia. A question I take to asks more than what the clocks show at the present moment. As if the name of the installation, The Times –in plural, not the singular time of the one accurate clock– asks how many times are there that order this monumental space, how many temporalities cross-cut each other at the walls of that old Kensington factory, now being a special installation within the city wide temporary public art and history project: Monument Lab.
Monument Lab: A Public Art and History Project was a temporary installation of monuments across 10 sites of Philadelphia, produced by a curatorial team and Mural Arts Philadelphia. It centered on an overarching question: “What is an appropriate monument for the current city of Philadelphia?” which is posed initially to 20 artists. It exhibits artists’ responses in the form of temporary monuments at 10 different publics sites between September 16th and November 19th, 2017. Installations accompany with research laboratories where visitors participate through proposing their appropriate monuments for the current city of Philadelphia, and shared with public on a mapped here. I think it is fair to say that Monument Lab was a majestic collective inquiry and experimentation on the ordering of public spaces of the city with art installations and citizen participations.
The project was topical as well. It opened within the heated national debate around the politics of the monuments, primarily of the confederate monuments in the Southern states and protests for the removal of Frank Rizzo monument at Philadelphia’s Thomas Paine Plaza. It provided a local venue to carry out the debate on a proper monument in a positive form of proposing new monuments that would tell the story of Philadelphia. Monument Lab Research Director Laurie Allen’s call in the project’s newspaper summarizes the historical-political starting point of the project: “Our monuments have meaning. They are city’s way of telling its story, of picking out moments in history for elevation, and for making a statement about who and what deserves to be honored and remembered. In 2017, we must recognize that the story told by our monuments is not our city’s full history. Help us elevate a richer reading of our history and move creatively toward a better future” (3).
Some of Lab monuments, such as Sharon Hayes’ “If They Should Ask” at Rittenhouse Square, marks precisely this selective historiography of the existing monuments in Philadelphia. Hayes problematizes that in the entire city there are only two monuments that are dedicated to women: French heroine Joan of Arc and Bostonian Quaker Mary Dyer. By half-scaling nine pedestals of the existing monuments in Philadelphia and writing dozens of names of public women figures from the Philadelphia-area on the pedestals, Hayes monumentalizes the absence of women’s monuments and powerfully makes the case for the exclusion of women in the public memory.
“A monument” writes Jane Golden, the executive director of Mural Arts Philadelphia, is what “commemorates something or someone, in order to uplift and keep it in public memory –an enduring symbol.“[1] Monuments are mostly[2] deliberate symbols engrained in the build environment of the city/town that encapsulates a particular past to carry it to the future. Most monuments are symbols of the state and commemorate the founding acts and heroes of the nation to remind whose heritage that land is loyal to. For critics such as Kim Dovey, “Public monuments often use the memory of a past use of force by the state to signify such future possibility.”[3] Others uplift political principles such as the human rights monuments, cultural figures or commemorate past tragedies such as genocide memorials. Each monument’s commemoration of the past has a particular purpose in the present to frame future social and political relations. Monuments’ symbolic universe dictate a certain code of conduct, a way of thinking and acting in the public, and depend on the material they are made and the surrounding social-political relations, they usually do so for long durations.
Art historian William J.T. Mitchell, in his lecture “What do Monuments Want?” observes that the desire of the monument is “to live forever, to defeat death and history.” He says that they express power and desire to immortality while at the same time; almost all of the monuments eventually scum to the blows of history and crumble. Monuments are temporal, in both sense of the term. They are made to remain intact over time, defeat death and history, but they are also products of history and the social-political relations that erect or remove them. In that sense, the time of the monument is not less frail than human time in the longue durée. Nevertheless, when it is intact and granted its demand of honor, monuments’ time poses a contrast to human temporality. Our mobility and short life span stand out against the background of monuments’ claim to stability and immortality.
Lab’s exhibit of monuments, installed for a short period of time, defeats this conventional logic of monument-time from the outset. It occupies what art critic Krauss Rosalind calls a “negative condition of the monument” where monument becomes nomadic by resigning its usual position of established place and entering into a field of “sitelessness, or homelessness, an absolute loss of place.”[4] With temporary monuments, Lab not only experiments with various monumental contents fitting for Philadelphia, but also questions the temporal logic of monumentality.
The purpose of this photography project is to contemplate on the contrast between the time of monuments and that of human beings against the background of the questions Monument Lab opens up. It can be considered as a visual dialogue with, or maybe rather an ocular ode to, the artists, curators and participants of the Monument Lab. Maybe it is even a photographic attempt to immortalize the passing of multiple times at each monumental site before they migrate to their next location. Each photograph in the series is taken with the same long exposure technique using an ND filter in daylight, which allows the photographic moment to be as long as 25 seconds. I am grateful to people who kindly accepted to be in the frames even though their faces are not really recognizable.
You can view all the images here:
from Anathema
Volume 4 Issue 2 (PDF for printing 11 x 17)
Volume 4 Issue 2 (PDF for reading 8.5 x 11)
In this issue:
Submission
The following report back was written days after the Unite The Right rally that took place in Charlottesville during August 11th and 12th of 2017. We have chosen to release our collective accounts on the 6th month anniversary of the torch rally because we believe that as anarchists and anti-fascists, it’s critical for us to remember our history and to learn from it.
Friday, arriving in Charlottesville our crew knew what to expect. For weeks we had been aware of the Alt-right’s plans to have a torch march the night before the Unite the Right Rally. Having known about the torch march, we had no choice but to oppose it. We feel that as anti-fascists, we don’t “save our energy for the big fight,” we must oppose fascism whenever and wherever it chooses to rear its ugly head. Other traveling counter protesters we networked with for the weekend events were made aware of the size of the demo we were expecting Friday night, and we consider it a tactical failure that so few fellow anti-fascists came to oppose the torch rally with us. To those who did, we hope we’ll you see on the barricades. We were aware of the level of danger of the situation, and decided it was best to try to plug into the area and see if the locals were planning anything, as well as figure out the most tactically logical way to oppose the march with so few numbers. We found out about a gathering at St. Paul’s Church for local radicals and progressives. In order to learn more and connect with the locals, two of our crew went to the church to find out more. The following is an account from that encounter in the words of our crew members who attended:
The church was conducting a non violent direct action training, and later hosting an interfaith sermon featuring Cornell West calling for 1000 faith leaders to oppose the hate driven Unite the Right Rally. We were able to meet with a local radical minister deeply involved with the struggle in C’ville, and discuss the churches worries, plans, and needs for the upcoming troubles. The good Reverend shared with us that he had personally been doxed, the church had received multiple threats, and white nationalists were attempting infiltration. There was a lot of concern about the Neo Nazi torchlight display of force that was in the works very, very, very nearby the doors of the church. We offered to assist with the physical security of the church. The Reverends response to paraphrase was,” Sure, we can use an extra set of hands. But we recognize and appreciate a diversity of tactics. Perhaps what is just as important is that the Nazi torchlight march is opposed and disrupted.” From there we were introduced to other radical actors on the ground. This was something that struck our delegation, some of us who have been involved in Anti-Fascist politics for a number of years thought,”Wow- this is the first time we’ve ever basically received a Reverends blessing for doing this kind of work.” A small number of us returned to the church in the evening to see where we could fit in and support the local community and the larger community of faith. Redneck Revolt and a number of other groups and individuals had set up a layered security perimeter to ensure the physical security of the church. The people and the church were at serious risk as it was standing room only, packed to full capacity with a fascist paramilitary force wielding fire as weapons across the street.
While members of our crew were in the church, the bulk of our group was scoping out the scene. As the nazi’s started to amass in Nameless Field, we quickly realized our numbers were nowhere near as high as we had hoped. We decided the best course of action would be to meet them at the statue of Thomas Jefferson, their end point, and disrupt their photograph. In total the number of people opposing the group of nazis was under 40. Around 15-20 anti-fascists circling the scene as well as 15-20 peaceful student demonstrators. As the march commenced, we got word that there were around 250-300 nazis on the field lighting their torches. The students linked arms and circled the statue, chanting and singing in protest. The small group of anti-fascists floated around them ready to fight and defend the protesters from the oncoming group of nazis snaking their way over and down the steps towards us. The nazis encircled us, chanting “Jews will not replace us, you will not replace us.” They came ready to kill any protesters, bearing not only torches, but also bottles of kerosene, cans of mace, and other miscellaneous weapons. Then they attacked, And we fought like hell.
That evening, we had noticed police lurking around, even having walked by a group of officers who greeted us, suspecting nothing wrong. While we were waiting for the nazis to arrive, A police vehicle was parked at the bottom of the steps across the street as well as one not more than 100 yards further. During the battle at least 4 officers stood less than 10 feet away and watched while unmasked student protesters were attacked by a violent, angry, torch wielding, mob. We are not in the least bit surprised. The entire concept of “police” supports the agenda of white supremacy, and with it the systematic murder of the oppressed. The battle was madness. Every member of our crew was pepper sprayed and beaten, with multiple people doused in kerosene. Nearly every protester was injured during the altercation, and a team of medics did their best to aid them during and immediately after the battle. However, even though we were heavily outnumbered we were successful in stopping them from taking the boastful picture they had planned. When the nazis began to lose momentum, and the police finally told everyone to disperse, about 50 of the nazis took a picture without torches that hasn’t since made it onto any social media because of how defeated they were. Around the same time, a group of between 35-40 racists dressed in the American Vanguard uniforms approached the steps of the church chanting “You will not replace us, Jews will not replace us” again. There was a call from Redneck Revolt and the Socialist Rifle Association to defend the church using the high ground and our smaller numbers managed to keep the marchers from reaching the church. The entire evening was a terrifying reminder of the level of growing seriousness in the alt-right movement. What was even more powerful, however, was what we managed to accomplish when a small number of people stood their ground and fought back.
Charlottsville revisited: moving forward in the antifascist struggle
We’ve come a long way since Charlottsville. In the days following these events, it felt like most of the world was flooded with a storm of media coverage, interviews, report backs, and solidarity actions. For a brief moment, one could almost feel like we had beaten the nazis back into their caves and we could once again focus on combating our real enemy, the State. However, as Charlottesville fades further into history, we are aware that this is not the case. Fascist activity around the so called United States is slowly picking back up, with a myriad of gatherings and speeches being coordinated to happen over the next few months. We feel that it is critical to analyze the tactical choices made in August, and how we can learn from them.
For us, one of the most glaring tactical missteps was that the general consensus from counter protestors that the torchlit march held by the nazis would be significantly smaller than it was, even when we had reliable intel regarding the numbers who planned to be present. As antifascists, we believe that we should never underestimate our opponents, especially in situations such as these. Solidarity is our most powerful weapon against the rising fascist creep and we need to make sure we use it. Moving forward, with the Alt-right conference (Detroit, MI March 4th-5th), the TPUSA regional conference (April 14-15th Chicago IL), The NSM meeting in Temple, Georgia (April 20th-21st) and the American Renaissance conference (Burns, TN April 27th-28th) on the horizon, we recognize that we must grow our networks of solidarity both within more clandestine circles and local communities. We’ve beaten them before and we’ll beat them again.
The solidarity actions that took place after Charlottesville were incredibly powerful. With these, antifascists around the world were able to not only support comrades fighting in Virginia, but to send a message to those in power and the paramilitary far right organizations that defend them: We will never stand down. We are everywhere. Once again, we want to analyze this level of solidarity and how it can be used to further support each other in the future. From our perspective, anarchists and antifascists in North America could do a better job of supporting both local and international struggles through solidarity actions. The fight against fascism goes far beyond street battles and we recognize that any struggle against domination anywhere, is our own. We want to send our love and support to every crew, friend, and stranger who supported the struggle in Charlottesville.
6 months later, we still feel the pain of Heather Heyer’s murder and with it, the burning rage we hold towards each and every fascist scumbag that’s infected our communities. With every action we take, we carry the memory of everyone who’s lost their lives in the struggle against fascism and in the fight for a better world. We have a long battle and a long road of healing ahead of us.
In Love and Struggle,
-LCA
Submission
On February 4th, 2018, the Philadelphia Eagles stomped out the New England patriots in a classic expression of proletarian violence versus the statist symbol of a modern day “patriot.” Such highlights as known trump supporter and nerd Tom Brady getting dunked on will continue to inspire us. With this event in mind, our affinity group coordinated with other anarchists and anti-authoritarians in the weeks leading up to it to make sure that we all agreed to violently attack institutions and pigs using the sports celebration as cover. Fliers were posted all throughout the city calling for a loose “bird bloc” aka wear eagles gear and fuck shit up. We set the meeting point as city hall, leaving it vague and open to interpretation with the intention of autonomous groups coming together to perform their own actions. We felt this type of action would be more productive for this situation than an organized bloc. From everything we’ve seen so far, this is exactly what happened.
Decked out in Eagles gear, our crew used the cover of this celebration as an opportunity to attack what we view as the structures of domination that continue to keep us in chains. Instead of choosing specific targets, we recognize that with the oppressive structure of civilization, everything in the major business districts of a city, is a valid target. Hidden amongst thousands of eagles fans, we joyfully wandered the streets smashing, painting, and torching whatever we pleased. We also used this opportunity to violently assault police officers with a scattered volley of projectiles. For some of us, this was our first opportunity to physically strike back against the police with the aid of more experienced anti-cop militants. It was wonderful to see the way our friends eyes lit up with joy when they realized that they had all the tools they needed to fight back in ways they felt most comfortable.
We reached out other east coast anarchist crews to assure that we all got the opportunity to experience the fun of this attack, and as an opportunity to reconnect with friends we’ve made while traveling to actions in other cities. It was extremely refreshing both physically and mentally to share these moments of insurrection with people we don’t have the chance to revolt with in our everyday lives. We urge other insurrectionaries and revolutionaries to call upon friends in other places more often. Borders aren’t real and we shouldn’t let imaginary lines define our friendships.
We feel that it’s critical for anti-authoritarians to look for events such as this to plan attacks but also not to wait for them. This sports riot was perfect cover to carry out actions to temporarily liberate ourselves but these events are rare and we strongly believe that we must create our own spaces to act in however ways we see fit. It is worth noting that the NFL is an extremely fucked up hyper-masculine, sexist, racist, oppressive, capitalist institution that profits off the bodily harm of people who, for the most part, grew up in working class neighborhoods. We are also disgusted by the way the state uses the super bowl as an opportunity to further occupy and militarize cities. We stand in full support of the folks in Minnesota holding it down with protest and direct action. Philly loves y’all. Keep up the good work.
We took these actions with the memories of the murders of David Jones, Trayvon Martin, Philando Castile, Scout Shultz, Laquan Mcdonald, Alexis Grigoropoulos, our Russian comrades being tortured, and everyone else who has been murdered, tortured, assaulted, or imprisoned by the state. We one day hope to see the structures of domination that keep us unfree as piles of ashes and distant memories.
Free Meek, The Move 9, Mumia, the remaining J20 defendants, and all political prisoners
Fuck the Patriots, fuck the pigs, fuck 12
To Amazon: Fuck you, theres plenty more where this came from. STAY OUT
To all our friends who couldn’t be with us today: We love y’all
Last of all “GO BIRDS”
With Love, rage, and solidarity
-Philly anarchists and 161s
from Radical Education Department
(Flynn and Dave’s article was originally published in Forum.)
RED’s Introduction to “The Koch Brothers at Villanova”
The article that follows was recently published in the Villanova student magazine Forum. It uncovers the hidden influence exerted by the billionaire industrialist Koch brothers on Villanova University’s campus. The Matthew J Ryan Center, Flynn and Dave show, receives large sums of money from the Kochs precisely in order to serve as their puppet in peddling neoliberal indoctrination under the disguise of the academic pursuit of
knowledge.
RED has a particular interest in the Koch’s secret influence at Villanova, since our group first banded together–under the name “Nova Resistance”–to disrupt a Ryan Center event. In early 2017, the center hosted a talk by the widely disgraced pseudo-intellectual Charles Murray, who became infamous in the 1990s for openly embracing the eugenicist view that workers, women, and people of color are genetically inferior to rich, white men. The event was billed as an expression of Villanova’s deep commitment to academic “free speech”–a ridiculous claim, given that the talk was secretly purchased by billionaires spreading an agenda that does not stand up to academic scrutiny, on a campus that refused to allow the “free speech” of an openly gay performance artist on campus. Moreover, it came to light that the university paid between $10,000 and $15,000 for additional “security” from the local police department out of fear that activists would exercise their purportedly constitutional right to protest the Charles Murray event. For more on our disruption of this corporate bank-rolled, over-securitized, pseudo-intellectual spiel, see this official statement.
Dave and Flynn’s article highlights a problem that goes far beyond Villanova University, however. Corporate and military interests regularly shape academic life on college campuses, in what some aptly call the military-industrial-academic complex. See, for instance, this article and this piece. The university system is not set apart from the forces of social domination that structure our society. It is neither a pure “ivory tower,” nor simply a harmless public service aimed at helping students find jobs. It is a site of social struggle. In it, reactionaries seek to advance, by any means necessary, an agenda of social domination. But history repeatedly shows the university can also be a means to infect society with radical, liberating social change.
The aim of the Left should not just be to protest corporate and military interests on university campuses. Such a reaction is defensive; it fails to make a lasting change, leaving the university at the mercy of reactionaries. Instead, the goal must be nothing short of a radical offensive: transforming universities into spaces from which to spread radical social change. This is precisely one of the reasons why we founded RED in the wake of our disruption of the smooth functioning of the military-industrial-academic complex at Villanova University.
– RED
from Anathema
The following piece offers some thoughts on anarchist activity in Philly in 2017. Like any reflection worth its salt, this one is meant to inspire thought, conversation, and ultimately action.
The most noticeable change in the anarchist space has been its increase in size, alongside a deepening and broadening of anarchist activity in Philly. An ever-changing place, the anarchist space has seen an influx of new people and ideas. More punks, more overlapping with the left, and definitely more anti-fascism. Many of the struggles anarchists engaged in prior to 2017 have escalated, and anarchists have also opened new fronts on which to fight the social war. The anarchist space itself is constantly in flux; with people dropping in and out, relations between people changing, organizations forming and collapsing, new alliances and hostilities emerge. Each change affects our capacity, growing it, limiting it, moving it in different directions. Like all changes, these present both new opportunities and new challenges. How can we move beyond increasing our numbers to seeing our activity flourish? What would it mean to qualitatively assess the growth we’re experiencing?
Other aspects of the anarchist space have remained the same. We have yet to open large public conflictual spaces within big marches and protests. Theoretical conversation and deepening stays confined within one-on-one conversations and small groups. Assemblies and larger discussions continue to feel like spaces where many people show up with the expectation of being told what to do, of finding a group to join, of coming to a decision all together about what should be done, instead of being spaces where people arrive with their own initiative. As always, there is room to improve; this is not something we should shy away from.
The shift toward anti-fascism, fighting the right, and opposing Trump has affected local social conflict in interesting ways. Longtime anti-fascists expressed both bitterness and pleasure to see large sections of the population finally take seriously the dangers the far-right poses, a danger they have been fighting for years. One unfortunate effect of this shift towards anti-fascism has been a shift away from black revolts against policing and from anti-colonial struggles, as well as a shift away from insurrectionary interventions among anarchists. The rise of anti-fascism has birthed a curious and misguided belief among the mainstream that anarchists and anti-fascists are the same thing. What would it mean to understand the fight against fascism as part of a holistic struggle against all domination? How can we use this supportive climate to move forward without playing down our radical politics for the masses? How can we reimagine anti-fascism as proactive and offensive rather than reactive and defensive?
Small and large autonomous actions proliferated! Last year saw consistent anarchist propaganda in the forms of graffiti, posters, and stickers in multiple neighborhoods, mostly in West and South Philly. A practice of attacks and sabotage against symbols and mechanisms of authority have become normal. The attack against a Philly police substation and several cop cars outside it was a notable escalation; Philly police property has not been successfully attacked in such a way, to our knowledge, for many years. The struggle against gentrification has continued without devolving into liberal activism, appearing mostly as targeted vandalism both in and out of demonstrations. How can this practice of attack be sharpened and expanded? What experiments in coordination, escalation, and diffusion can we try in 2018?
The May Day demo and the J20 march on South St were a dramatic escalation of anarchist street presence, creating short-lived spaces where people could freely express their rage against capital and the state without the threat of immediate arrest. This model of demonstrations, planned and promoted out of sight, have the potential to continue creating inviting space to experiment with attack on a scale impossible for a single affinity group to pull off alone. How can we keep creating space to collectively build our confidence and capacity to attack together in the year to come? How can we break out of the anarchist calendar and create moments of collective rage outside of a few anarchist holidays every year?
Support for local and national J20 defendants took many forms. The punk scene began to take political action in a way that hadn’t been seen in years. Lots of benefit shows and an all-day barbecue were organized. Meals, a rally, and benefit shows created a number of opportunities for the punk scene and the anarchist space to intermingle and draw new lines of solidarity.
Speaking of punk, at least twice in 2017 fascists were fought in or around punk shows. This return to the anti-authoritarian roots of the subculture is an example that can be carried over to other scenes and subcultures. How can we intensify the subversive potential of diy music, graffiti scenes, drug culture, or other alternative spaces? What would it look to begin transforming scenes and subcultures into rebellious countercultures?
The murder of anti-fascist protester Heather Heyer in Charlottesville, VA and nationwide debates around public monuments this summer led to a renewed interest in removing the monuments to former police chief and mayor Frank Rizzo. Public rallies and petitions pressured the city government to remove the Rizzo statue in Center City. At the same time, people vandalized the statue and mural, hung an anti-Rizzo banner, and put up posters depicting the statue being torn down. These actions worked to immediately discredit and attack the symbols of racism, and to pressure politicians to take action. This instance of national anti-confederate momentum being directed at symbols of racism and homophobia locally is an interesting example of adapting trends to fit our own contexts and desires. We might do well to learn from this and imagine ways to funnel popular sentiment in anti-authoritarian directions in the new year.
These practices, and the consistent rhythm they have created in the city and the anarchist space, are an accomplishment in themselves. What are ways to further spread and deepen these rebellious activities? What new ones can we imagine and experiment with?
Anarchists have not yet been able to create large confrontational demonstrations. We have had little success with this here since at least before the Occupy movement, and this was also notable in 2017. In March, the MAGA march was confronted by the largest black bloc seen on the east coast in years, yet the opposition was mostly symbolic; the cops ultimately shut down the MAGA march. The Black Resistance march in February, which did clash with the police and vandalized a bank, led to arrests and injuries. Reports and many discussions of the march framed the protesters as passive victims, and the number of arrests and injuries left many feeling less empowered than they started. Attempts to create participatory confrontations were made during the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) conference in October, but fell flat. The history of vicious police repression and Quaker pacifism in Philly have certainly contributed to this failure, yet it is up to us to create the activity we want to see.
Anti-fascist organizing has faced some challenges despite its sudden increase in popularity, as new methods are now needed. The wave of new people means that security and communication practices must be reviewed and tightened up.
When police killed David Jones in June, the response by anarchists was remarkably tame. The possibility of expressing an explicitly anti-cop position in solidarity with those who knew David never became a reality. David’s name was painted around the city, but it was the activists who made the most noise around David Jones’ death, asking for truth, justice, and at times community control of the police. This is not a call to dismiss the grief and suffering of those close to David whose ideas we disagree with, rather a suggestion to be honest about our politics and to act on them when police killings happen.
Our networks outside of the city seem to be lacking. Our location along the east coast means we could communicate and coordinate with anarchists in Baltimore, NYC, DC, Delaware and New Jersey. These types of connections could have made responding to the Vaughn prison revolt in February feel more possible. Additionally, international solidarity has not seemed like a priority for anarchists here this past year.
Lastly, and most straightforwardly, anarchists could have done a better job of presenting anarchy as a viable and desirable alternative to Trump and democracy. Despite a spike in activity by anarchists, many people still do not understand why anarchy is so appealing to us. We cannot look to the media to tell our potential accomplices and comrades why we do what we do. Only we can explain ourselves and what we fight for.
Submission
On January 21st, we took the opportunity to take part in the temporary autonomous spaces created by the post victory fervor of thousands of football fans. Realizing that the soon to be victory of the Eagles was an ample time for us to strike back against the domination of civilization, the police, and the prison walls built by our own deteriorating mental, we met up with friends outside of Lincoln Financial field with the intention of freeing ourselves, albeit temporarily. We joined up with fellow members of the continuous class war in their celebration, singing, chanting, lighting fires, and using this opportunity to attack ATMs and throw a little bit of art on the dismal walls of south Philadelphia. We moved down broad street with a roving party that the Philly PD just couldn’t seem to shut down.
After the pigs threatened an individual with noise violations for playing music to the crowd, the atmosphere took a more exciting turn. South Philly sports fans who normally shrieked about the thin blue line became agitated at who they viewed as their protectors. We took this opportunity to begin chants such as “Fuck the Patriots” and “Fuck Tom Brady” which many didn’t notice quickly became abbreviated to “FTP” and “Fuck 12” (Brady’s number). The crowd began to swell, with people leaving and even more left their homes to join the party and follow what soon became an autonomous, spontaneous anti police demonstration.
We made our way to city hall where our moving party joined up with an even larger group, the smell of smoke and alcohol filled the air and the distinct sounds of chanting bellowed in our ears, drowning out the orders of the Philly PD. With growing anger, the police attempted to clear the street. We used this opportunity to use the hundreds of bottles littering the streets as projectiles, with many others soon following our lead. The riots moved slowly, untamed by the police as people continued to share their joy and release their rage against the city through attack. More and more riot cops materialized from the side streets as someone with a speaker played NWA’s “fuck the police” to the excitement of many within the crowd. We continued to throw projectiles, light things on fire, and paint the walls with many other folks, most of whom we had never struggled against domination with, but whom we certainly hope to have at the barricades with us in the future. The crowd moved towards 15th and JFK and eventually dispersed. At this time, we are unsure of anyone arrested for taking part in this spontaneous riot.
This action was super great for us and hopefully for the hundreds of others who took to the streets at our sides. It was a beautiful change of pace to strike back in such a low stress environment on such a large scale without the traditional cover of the black block. As insurrectionary anti-authoritarians, we’re far too aware of how damaging to our mental health the institution that is the state is, and how little we get to exercise our rage to the capacity we would like to. This battle in the on going class war was extremely refreshing, and most importantly it was fun. By striking back, we were reminded of the level of joy only experienced when we make our executioners fear us, to watch the uncertainty and terror that manifests in their eyes when they realize that they’ve lost control. We are reminded that within the chaos, we can be free. Most importantly, we are reminded of our own power and that class war and insurrection will never be a few small groups taking actions, but a writhing unstoppable horde of love and rage.
We took these actions in memory of all our comrades across this dying world who are no longer with us and those who are slowly slipping from our embrace, whether it be from toxic institutions pushed onto them, or ones they’ve summoned for themselves. A riot will always carry the ghosts of our losses, and our hopes for a world we hope to see one day. For this reason, we view every attack as a eulogy, and a chance for inspiration. We hope to see y’all in the streets February 4th.
Fuck Cops, Go Birds
from Anathema
Volume 4 Issue 1 (PDF for printing 11 x 17)
Volume 4 Issue 1 (PDF for reading 8.5 x 11)
In this issue:
from It’s Going Down
We’ve all heard the story before. People still tell it from the moldering dankness of their mom’s basement. It goes like this: George Soros contacts The Anarchist Antifa Supersoldiers and hands over bulging bags thick with gold in exchange for doing his bidding. Interesting story, right? Well, turns out plenty of shitholes on the internet tell it nearly every week. Since we can’t seem to convince anyone that we’re broke a a joke, and since everyone is calling everyone else a Russian spy, we thought it appropriate to celebrate our current predicament by weaving it all together in a simple and clear narrative. Contrary to popular reports, the international anarchist movement is beholden to neither George Soros or Vladimir Putin. All flags look the same to us. Every country is our homeland.
While the techno-overlords continued to blast the San Francisco Bay Area with their continuously stoked housing crisis, several individuals found it wise to begin burning down luxury housing developments in the city of Oakland. These fires began in 2016 and continued into 2017, each of them completely destroying their targets and costing ten of millions of dollars. The latest was in July when a luxury apartment block caught fire in the heart of Downtown Oakland. These arsons have been wisely left unclaimed by their authors. With the housing and homeless crisis plainly visible for all to see, the sight of burning luxury apartments is a simple message difficult to misinterpret.
Across the continent in Philadelphia, the local anarchist movement has grown quite strong in the past years and become popular for organizing and marching against Trump. Since the fall of 2012, local anarchists have printed their paper Anathema and chronicled events in their city and beyond. With housing costs rising and homelessness increasing, some individuals found it wise to sneak into some luxury developments and torch them to the ground. This arson took place in the Point Breeze neighborhood in 2017 and garnered wide attention in the local media. In another act of rebellion, a group of fifty people rampaged through a series of new developments and trashed everything that reeked of luxury. These two events happened within weeks of each other and sent a clear message against this new luxury development most liberals view as normal. Because of the fluid and toxic news cycle of our current era, few people remember these important activities outside of Philadelphia.
from Tubman-Brown Organization
By Tubman-Brown
On November 2nd, Philadelphia Councilwoman Cindy Bass introduced legislation to further regulate corner stores and restaurants — specifically to introduce new restrictions and reinforce existing restrictions on these stores. The bill has passed through City Council and has now been signed by Mayor Jim Kenney as of December 20th. The contents of the bill can be viewed on the city’s website, here.
News about this bill has been circulating around the internet. The articles are generally condemning the Councilwoman’s bill as an unfair imposition on business owner’s rights to operate as they please. The Conservative Tribune claims, in an article called “Big City Dem Wants Bulletproof Glass Banned for Being Racist“, that the bill is evidence that: “We now live in a world where almost anyone and everything can and will be labelled ‘racist.’ Some store owners in Philadelphia are the latest victims of the PC police.” But the liberal majority in the city government agrees that the bill would improve quality of life in the city and passed it unanimously. We would like to criticize both of these positions and provide our own view from the perspective of poor Philadelphia, and use this example to draw attention to larger problems in American politics, particularly how the interests of the poor and working class are never represented. A better source for this story is Philadelphia’s The Inquirer, who published a more balanced article called “Barrier windows in Philly beer delis: Symbols of safety or distrust?” that tries to present both arguments and provides good testimony from some stores owners, but as a piece of reporting it does not look at the wider situation.
Councilwoman Bass is a liberal and a Democratic Party politician, and a black woman from North Philadelphia. She told Fox29 News: “We want to make sure that there isn’t this sort of indignity, in my opinion, to serving food through a Plexiglas only in certain neighborhoods.” This is in reference to the statements of Yale sociology professor, Dr. Elijah Anderson, who describes the presence of bulletproof plexiglass as a “symbol of distrust”, a suggestion that the customers are not “…civil, honest people.”
Bass’s statement is strange. Why would the plexiglass barrier make us indignant? Is it because it shows that we live “…only in certain neighborhoods”? Well, those “certain neighborhoods” are poor neighborhoods. If you live in a poor neighborhood you know it, and your problems definitely have a lot more to do with affording your groceries than whether or not the cashier selling you them is behind glass and wire. What Dr. Anderson of Yale fails to recognize, or does not say clearly enough, is that if the glass and wire is ugly it’s ugly because it reminds us of our own desperation and the desperation we are surrounded by. If it were not a symbol of the reality of poverty and violence it would not be troublesome. The trendy coffee shops and restaurants of University City and the recently deceased neighborhood of Fishtown are often decorated like warehouses and factories, with exposed piping, steel, and gritty lighting to create an urban atmosphere — the people eating there are not reminded of the reality of hard labor and poverty because it is not a reality to them, it is an aesthetic choice. Dr. Anderson and Councilwoman Bass equate the presence of bulletproof plexiglass with an aesthetic choice meant only to impart a message and ignore the circumstances that created it. The most important factor, regardless of whether the plexiglass is necessary or not, is finding out why it is there in the first place.
Poverty is violent. Most of the danger comes from the lack of jobs, healthcare, and education, but those threats sometimes spill over into robberies and shootings. Bulletproof glass is a sad reality in poor neighborhoods, a reminder of the interaction between one person robbing a store because they’re struggling and another person trying to run a little store. And these people running the stores are treated as the primary opposition to Councilwoman Bass’s bill. Bass claims that “…the bill has been mischaracterized by the people who run those stores – people who are exploiting a loophole in state law and hurting the neediest neighborhoods in Philadelphia.” The stores she is referring to are corner stores in poor neighborhoods in Philadelphia. These are redlined neighborhoods (Philadelphia is such a good example of redlining that a map of our extensive racial segregation is used for the Wikipedia picture describing redlining). In short, these are neighborhoods where there are none or fewer of the Wawas and Acmes and stores of similar reputation as are available in places like the Far Northeast, Chestnut Hill, or Center City. That’s because opening them in Strawberry Mansion, East Germantown, Kensington, and similar neighborhoods is considered a bad investment due to the high poverty and the crime that comes with that poverty. The owners of Acme and Wawa can afford higher rent in wealthier neighborhoods, or can place their stores strategically on the edges of poor areas.
