Racist Vigilantes Gather to Defend Columbus Statue

  • June 14, 2020 12:50 am

From Twitter

Racist vigilantes gathering with bats and guns at the statue of Christopher Columbus at Columbus Square in South Philadelphia, some of them just assaulted our reporter
 
Several guns, bats and sticks carried by white vigilantes here at Columbus square in South Philly to “protect” the Columbus statue. Police have been visibly quite friendly with this group

 
This man in first photo is who initiated the group assault on our reporter – he noticed he was being filmed and instantly bee-lined for us to demand we stop filming him. As he left, police passively watched him strike our reporter’s bike with a metal bat.
 

About 100 almost exclusively white vigilantes our by Columbus Statue at Marconi Plaza in Sourh Philly. When police arrived after we were assaulted, one cop accused us of instigating the crowd.

 

This man by the Columbus statue at Marconi Plaza is armed with some kind of rifle

The crowd of aggravated South Philly Italian Columbus statue defenders applaud and cheers for the police as some officers leave the area
 
More agitated white men with bats and sticks are continuing to arrive at Marconi Plaza outside the Columbus statue. Philly Police faced some backlash recently after they appeared to tolerate and endorse similar activity in Fishtown on the north end of the city recently.
 
South Philly Columbus statue enthusiasts got very upset once again when police told them they aren’t allowed to physically stop us from filming them
 
Most of the all-white crowd at Marconi Plaza now seems mostly interested in confronting our lone reporter on the scene. Many invitations have been given to engage in hand-to-hand combat. As journalists we are obliged to decline!
 
We are no longer able to document the ongoing, escalating Marconi Plaza South Philadelphia vigilante incident after @PhillyPolice ordered us to leave or be arrested. We were told we no longer had the right to document this event.
 
Before incidents shown in this thread, we spoke w some ‘statue defenders’ about why they were there. Many said the statue represented Italian heritage. Some justified Columbus’ rape and slavery etc by saying “the natives were savages”. Others denied these atrocities took place.
 
Many people present at the statue who confronted our reporter accused him of being from out of town/not from South Philly and of being racist against Italian people. Ironically, our Philly reporter Chris Schiano lives in South Philadelphia and comes from an Italian family.
 
Shortly before @PhillyPolice ordered us to cease our on-site reporting under threat of arrest, the crowd was cheering as a man with a Trump 2020 flag arrived. Police were also shaking hands with some of the white vigilantes as this was happening.
 
Going back over our footage and stills of this incident – we observed at least 2-3 open carried long rifles, and overheard that many present were concealed carrying. Some showed up with improvised weapons, like this man who was standing alone with a golf club.
 

Flatten The Curves

  • April 25, 2020 12:28 am

Submission

Did you know that school is mandatory in the United States of America? wtf right? School here has a really nasty history if you think colonialism totally sucks. That’s why two school police cars got their tires slashed and their windows scratched. Also an under construction condo had its windows scratched up and a doorbell camera was scratched up too. If you don’t have super sharp claws you can use a drill bit, compass, piece of flint, tungsten pen, or sandpaper to scratch glass and plastic. It’s more quiet than rocks and hammers.

Bingo Bandits

Anarchic Black Radicalism w/ RAM Philly & Afrofuturists Abolitionists of the Americas

  • April 19, 2020 1:16 am

from Solecast

[Listen Here]

In today’s episode of the Solecast we have an in-depth discussion of anarchic black radicalism with comrades from Ram Philly & Afrofuturist Abolitionists of the Americas. Anarchic Black Radicalism draws on the history of Black Panthers, early abolitionists, Black Nationalism/Liberation Movements and more to synthesize a distinct form of black anarchism. We talk about how recent social movements have radicalized a new generation of black youth and how anarchist ideas have gained traction in their wake. We talk about the importance of centering trans and disabled people and what steps people of color can take to build their own spaces for organizing that aren’t centered around white activists. We go over about some of the theoretical bases that form their analysis and some of the writers and texts that have informed this direction.

For more information follow Afrofuturist Abolitionists of the Americas  or Ram Philly .

Music “Pass Dat” by Sima Lee

Some texts discussed:

Combahe River Collective 

Anarchy of Colored Girls Assembled a Riotous Manner

Between Infoshops and Insurrection 

The Writings of Lorenzo Kom’boa Ervin

Solecast w/ Zoe Samudzi As Black As Resistance

Rail Sabotage in Solidarity with Wet’suwet’en and Land Defenders

  • February 24, 2020 10:59 pm

Submission

This week we used copper wire to disrupt rail traffic on two different tracks here in occupied Lenapehoking. Solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en nation, and all those blockading and sabotaging the economy and the state.

They are trying to extinguish our spirits. Keep a strong heart. Keep your heart burning bright. Reconciliation is dead, insurgency is alive!

Anarchy Afternoons: Unistʼotʼen Camp

  • February 18, 2020 6:13 pm

from Facebook

During this week’s open hours, we are going to be watching short films about the Unistʼotʼen Camp.

To our north, this month has witnessed an explosion of actions intended to “shut down Canada” with blockades of rail lines cancelling passenger service trains across the country and paralyzing freight shipment. In the cities, protests have blocked streets, highways, and bridges. The present wave of resistance can be traced to the Unistʼotʼen camp’s decade-long battle against proposed pipelines in unceded Wetʼsuwetʼen territory. We will watch films and discuss this history to get a clearer picture of what has been happening.

For more information on recent events: https://itsgoingdown.org/from-sea-to-sea-train-blockades-colonialism-and-canadian-rail-history/

3:00 open hours
4:00 films

[February 21 3-6pm at A-Space 4722 Baltimore Ave]

Second RAM-Philly Reading Group

  • February 7, 2020 2:33 pm

from Twitter

RAM-Philly will be hosting our second reading group on Sday, March 1st at 6pm! We will be reading chapter 7 “Liberation” of “Our History is Our Future” by Nick Estes. Please email us for information!
[email: ramphilly@protonmail.com]un

Tagging spree

  • November 30, 2019 5:14 pm

Submission

We went on a hella tagging spree tonight in preparation for Black Friday. Started at broad and walnut and got all the way up to broad and diamond with 2 cans of paint and a white paint marker. Hit the armed forces recruiting center, a Bank of America, some construction equipment, properties currently being developed, 24 indiego bike tires slashed, and a lot learned and there was much joy taken in simple acts of rebellion. Fuck this colonial holiday, super fuck Black Friday, fuck those who would have us feel shame around mental illness and lack of perceived productivity under this coercive capitalist structure, when the real people who deserve to feel shame are those bulldozing and developing land that used to be wild and beautiful, banks that collaborate with ICE, and fucking army recruiters!
Signed, with all the love in our hearts-

Prison abolitionist queers who will never stop disrupting. Stay sexy, Stay violent, Stay unpredictable

A Discussion on the Growth of Black & Anti-Colonial Anarchist Formations

  • November 6, 2019 12:17 am

from It’s Going Down

[Listen here]

In this episode we were lucky enough to speak with two people on the growth of Black, New Afrikan, and anti-colonial anarchist formations. One of the people joining us in the discussion is a part of the Philadelphia chapter of the Revolutionary Abolitionist Movement and the other person is from the Afrofuturist Abolitionists of the Americas.

Our discussion covers a lot of ground, but we speak heavily on a workshop that the comrades are presenting across the so-called US on black anarchism, the recent theoretical Anarkata statement, as well as everything from anti-police and prison abolition organizing, to the impact of the Ferguson rebellion, survival programs, and much more.

One of the themes that came up several times, is finding “little a” anarchism or simply anarchy, in the day to day self-organization and revolt of everyday people in the face of the American plantation and finding ways to build solidarity and action with these organic forms. Our guests also stress the need for the anarchist movement to stop looking just to European groups, history, and movements for inspiration, and instead draw from the rich history of resistance to settler colonialism, slavery, and industrial capitalism in the so-called Americans, in order to better inform our organizing.

Music: Sima Lee and Black Star

For Info: Set up a workshop by getting in touch with Philly RAM here or via email (ramphilly@protonmail.com), read Anarkata statement, Black Rose reader on Black Anarchism here, and Burning Down the American Plantation from the Revolutionary Abolitionist Movement here.

Reading Recommendations: 

As Black As Resistance by William C. Anderson and Zoé Samudzi

The Progressive Plantation by Lorenzo Kom’boa Ervin

Anarchism and the Black Revolution by Lorenzo Kom’boa Ervin

A Soldier’s Story: Revolutionary Writings by a New Afrikan Anarchist by Kuwasi Balagoon

Burn Down the American Plantation by the Revolutionary Abolitionist Movement

Black Fighting Formations by Russell Maroon Shoatz

The Dragon and the Hydra by Russell Maroon Shoatz

Columbus Day Graffiti

  • October 16, 2019 11:57 pm

Submission


On some random Mural Arts mural in South Philly, after so-called ‘Columbus Day’

anti-columbus graffiti

  • October 16, 2019 11:56 pm

Submission

spotted near dickinson square in south philly

Trouble screening: Land and Freedom

  • August 26, 2019 9:53 pm

from Facebook

Trouble 21 looks at anti-colonial struggles in Turtle Island and Palestine

From the genocidal aftermath of Columbus’ accidental “discovery” of the New World, to the ever-deeper encroachments of Israeli settlements into the West Bank — five hundred years of European colonialism has cast a long shadow over this world. Colonization, in its supreme arrogance, carved up the globe according to the imperial logic of accumulation, imposing artificial borders on foreign lands and seeking to subjugate restive native populations through religious indoctrination and force of arms. But despite their military superiority, ideological warfare and constant recourse to savage brutality, colonial regimes have consistently failed to crush the will of colonized people to fight back. And the reason for this is simple. Occupation breeds resistance.

Anarchists, especially those of us who have never experienced the sharp edge of colonization, have much to learn from those waging this resistance. We also have a principled imperative to align ourselves with those facing acute forms of state violence and dispossession. To this end, this episode of Trouble draws on two examples of contemporary anti-colonial struggle – those waged by the Palestinians and the Mohawks of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy against their respective oppressors, the Israeli and Canadian settler-colonial states, in hopes of drawing out lessons and increasing our capacity for producing meaningful solidarity.

[August 28 from 7:00 PM – 8:30 PM at Wooden Shoe Books and Records 704 South St]

Columbus Monument Vandalized in Solidarity with National Day of Mourning

  • November 24, 2018 1:38 pm

Submission

The monument to celebrated colonizer, murderer, and initiator of indigenous genocide, Christopher Columbus, was covered in blood red paint during the late hours of Thursday, November 22nd. This act was taken in solidarity with the national day of mourning. Why should we celebrate a holiday where the theme is so baseless that the affects of its deceit can still be seen today in the suffering, deep poverty, alcoholism, and lack of health care on indigenous reservations… thanks to European settlers like Columbus!
Stop teaching your children to worship monsters. We are tired of your lies. We are coming after your monuments, and it won’t just be the confederate ones in the South! We will continue to paint, topple and toss into rivers all statues that glorify oppressors. Frank Rizzo’s granite head will roll past city hall soon enough.

Love and rage, some anarchists

Anti-Colonial Graffiti on Passyunk Square

  • October 8, 2018 3:57 pm

from Instagram

Happy Indigenous Peoples Day from occupied Lenape land #nobordersnonations

Viking statue turned ‘flashpoint’ between skinheads and Antifa toppled into Schuylkill River

  • October 3, 2018 3:49 pm

from Mainstream Media

A 12,000-pound, century-old statue of a Viking explorer along the Schuylkill River that some white supremacists group treat as a totem of their ideology is under repair after it was knocked down overnight. The 7-foot-4-inch tall bronze statue depicting Thorfinn Karlsefni is located next to the lighthouse at the end of Boathouse Row, beside Kelly Drive.

Around 2:30 a.m. Tuesday, police were called to the scene based on reports that the statue was missing. They found it in the river nearby.

“This statue was essentially toppled,” said Margot Berg, Public Art Director for Philadelphia’s Office of Arts, Culture and the Creative Economy (OACCE).”It was an act of vandalism. There aren’t really any cameras around there that we can see, so we’re hoping if anybody driving by saw anything, that they can help and share it with the police.”

The Schuylkill is not too shallow at that location, so the statue was clearly visible submerged in the water nearby. The pedestal was partly broken into two pieces. On Tuesday evening, it was lifted from the river and sent to a conservators. Workers found the statue decapitated in the river after being knocked over, but were also able to recover the head.

Police have not made any arrests or speculated on a motive for the statue being knocked down. Some have noticed that with an Eagles-Vikings game scheduled for Oct. 7, maybe a passionate football fan wanted to make a statement against the rival team.

But it’s not hard to connect the dots for those who know the statue’s history.

Viking statue appropriated by skinheads

The 98-year-old sculpture by artist Einar Jónsson memorializes the millennia-old journey to North America of Icelandic sailor Thorfinn Karlsefni, made around the year 1010 A.D.. But in recent years, the statue’s story has been perverted by white supremacists who have made it their rendezvous point for annual gatherings.

Specifically, the Keystone State Skinheads (KSS), now sometimes called Keystone United, have held annual meetings in Philadelphia on “Leif Erikson Day” by the statue for years, purportedly because they see the Vikings who visited North America as vindicating their white-supremacist ideology. The official date for that holiday is Oct. 9 – next week.

“If this was due to somebody on the left, on our side, it was based on the frustration people have about the non-actions against KSS every year when this happens, not talking about this, not talking about stopping it,” Daryle Lamont Jenkins, the activist who tracks white supremacist activities and founder of OnePeoplesProject.org, said of the statue’s toppling. “Let’s be fair. It’s just a statue of a Viking explorer. There really wasn’t any white supremacist connotation to it until KSS came along. … There should be a response. They should condemn it. Just say they [KSS] have no place in Philly. That’s all anybody really wants folks to do.”

Berg declined to comment on possible ideological or political motivations of the vandals who knocked down the Viking, which she called a beloved landmark for rowers and other Schuylkill River Trail users.

“The sculpture has been a flashpoint between different groups in the past, but I certainly can’t surmise why they did this last night,” Berg said. “It is a sculpture that has stood there for 100 years, and it is one of the parts of our collection which belongs to everyone. I’m just always really disappointed when people do these unnecessary and costly acts of vandalism.”

Antifa and skinheads face off by the viking statue in 2017.

Antifa and skinheads face off by the statue on Leif Erikson Day 2017. Credit: phillyantifa.org

How a Viking statue became a neo-Nazi meeting place

Jenkins said he doesn’t know who took the statue down, but has heard others speculate it was vandals aligned with left-wing, anarchist or Antifa movements. One year ago, just ahead of last year’s Leif Erikson Day, the Viking statue was covered with paint and tagged with anti-Nazi slogans and an Anarchy symbol. Intentional or no, Jenkins said, it’s become a magnet for white supremacists, and should be removed.

“One Peoples Project or Antifa, in general, should not be the only ones getting angry about the fact that for the past decade, neo-Nazis have been coming to this statue … What neo-Nazis do, what fascists do impacts everyone,” he said. “Move it somewhere else, so A. It’s not a gathering spot for Nazis and B. You can keep it clean.”

KSS rallies at the statue peaked in numbers in 2013, which also drew the largest crowd of anti-fascist protesters, estimated at around 200. In 2017 small groups of Antifa and skinheads faced off under the statue. (KSS could not be reached for comment).

“Ever since 2013, they’ve been trying to come up with ways to avoid us,” Jenkins said. “They would not announce the rallies publicly. Unfortunately, every year since then, the statue has been getting vandalized, and now it’s in the river.”

The Philly Antifa group earlier this year began a campaign of publicly outing KSS members online, ahead of the planned rally, but none of their online postings reference attacking the statue. (Philly Antifa could not be reached for comment). Both Philly Antifa and Jenkins says KSS members have faced charges in the past for crimes like assaults and even murder, some of which they say were racially motivated. 

Monday, October 1st: Letter-writing to Commute the Sentences of the Virgin Island 3

  • September 24, 2018 12:46 pm

from Philly ABC

It’s time for our monthly letter-writing event again, but this time with a twist as the campaign to free the Virgin Island 3 kicks into high gear. Join us at LAVA at 6:30 pm for snacks and drafting letters to Governor Mapp and the Virgin Island 3, who have been locked up for 46 years. Like many aging prisoners, they are experiencing increasing health problems and pose NO RISK to the society they’ve been locked away from for nearly half a century. Because Governor Mapp’s term is ending and he is up for re-election this November, *now* is the time to contact him to urge for commutation of their sentences. This is it; all hands on deck!

 

How you can help:

1) Write a letter [ideally mail it the first week of October]

Please start by writing a letter to the Governor. This is also a good time to urge folks you know who care about social justice to get on board with this campaign!

Suggested letter format:

Governor Kenneth Mapp
Government House
21-22 Kongens Gade
Charlotte Amalie
St. Thomas, VI 00802

Re: Warren Ballantine, Meral Smith, and Beaumont Gereau

Introduce yourself. This could include comments about your job, family or work in the community.

Explain how you know their cases and/or how you may know them personally.

Explain why you are concerned (if you are from the VI, explain how this affects your vote and if you are from elsewhere explain how commuting their sentences would positively influence society or your view of the VI).

Some Issues are:
1. Length of time in prison
2. Their deteriorating medical conditions
3. Aging and getting old
4. No community threat (example: while they were housed in the St. Croix, they were actually allowed to go out in the community to religious services, sometimes unsupervised, with no issues)

Implore the Governor to commute their sentences. Explain that you understand that he eluded to this before he was elected and at the beginning of his term.

Respectfully end your letter.

2) Fax your letter [ideally the second week of October]:

Fax the letter you wrote to the Governor’s office at:
(340) 693-4374

If you do not have a fax machine, you can send a free online fax using faxzero.com.

 

3) Email your letter [ideally the third week of October]:

https://www.vi.gov/contact.html

 

4) Call the Governor’s office [as much and as often as possible until further notice] to ask if they received your letter/fax/email:

Phone: (340) 774-0001

Leave messages urging Governor Mapp to make good on his promise to free the Virgin Island 3 – Warren Ballantine, Meral Smith and Beaumont Gereau (these are the names the state recognizes them under)- by commuting their sentences and releasing them with time served.

A few talking points if desired, but feel free to keep it short and sweet:
• After 46 years of incarceration, they are of seriously ailing health and are extremely unlikely to re-offend… Warren alone is on 6 different types of medication after a massive heart attack a year ago.
• It is costing the state a TON of money to continue to house them and pay for medical care.

Keep up the pressure throughout November or until their sentences are commuted! When you can, drop one or all of the Virgin Island 3 a note telling them about the actions you took on their behalf. You can also read about the campaign in Malik’s own words.

Warren Ballentine #16-047
Tallahatchie Correctional Facility
415 US Highway 49N
Tutwiler, MS 38963

Beaumont Gereau #16-001
Tallahatchie Correctional Facility
415 US Highway 49N
Tutwiler, MS 38963

Meral Smith #16-024
Tallahatchie Correctional Facility
415 US Highway 49N
Tutwiler, MS 38963

—

At this event, we will also send birthday cards to political prisoners with birthdays in October: Skelly Stafford (the 3rd), Jamil Al-Amin (the 4th), Mike Africa & David Gilbert (both on the 6th), Malik Bey (the 8th), Jalil Muntaqim (the 18th), and Eddie Africa (the 31st).