How do we Build Liberatory Capacity?: Solidarity Economy Assembly #2

  • July 21, 2023 1:54 am

from Making Worlds Books

As we work to build a solidarity economy, where we truly take care of each other and have our collective well-being at the heart of our everyday, the summit can sometimes be a steep climb in a world currently created to keep us separate and in competition with one another. A question organizers must ask themselves, and each other, again and again is: how do we build capacity for this work while also knowing and respecting our own individual and communal capacities?In collaboration with PACA member co-ops: Obvious Agency and Making Worlds, PACA continues its solidarity economy assemblies on Thursday, June 29th, 2023, from 6:30-8pm.

This second assembly will be facilitated by Obvious Agency and it will be a communal discussion of how we can build, investigate, honor, and take care of our collective capacities.Together we will investigate what drains and robs our capacities (bullshit jobs and isolated realities, for starters), as well as how we take our time and energy back. We will discuss how we’ve been conditioned to show up to “work”, how we decondition from that which does not serve us and only moves us towards the problems of burnout or accumulating social capital instead of dollars, as well as how we reframe showing up to efforts which matter to us. We will discuss how do we actually create capacity for this work (*cough* – more people – *cough*). Also, what is the world we’re actually trying to forge so that our practices of self- and collective-care aren’t just maintenance to shove us back into the grind, but instead we have spaciousness and possibility to allow us to have elements of being with those we love, being in regenerative solitude, showing up to the work which matters to us, immersing ourselves in other activities which gives us joy and meaning, and so much more.

We hope you’ll join us for this critical conversation around our collective capacity.

The good folks of Obvious Agency are, “Makers of games and interactive performances.” They are a “Worker-owned cooperative.” And they are, “Developing Space Opera – a game engine for building community”. https://www.instagram.com/obviousagencycoop

  • Thursday, July 27, 2023
  • 6:30 PM 8:00 PM
  • Making Worlds Bookstore & Social Center 210 South 45th Street Philadelphia, PA, 19104 United States (map)

Love In The Time Of Fentanyl

  • June 13, 2023 1:38 am

from Instagram

As deaths in Vancouver, Canada, reach an all-time high, the Overdose Prevention Society—a renegade supervised drug consumption site that employs active and former drug users—opens its doors. This intimate documentary looks beyond the stigma of drug use to show how the organization’s staff and volunteers do whatever it takes to save lives while giving hope to a marginalized community.”Join us for our next screening on Sunday, June 18th, where we’ll be watching Love in the Time of Fentanyl. We’ll be at @makingworldsbooks on 210 S 45th St.Naloxone training at 6, movie at 7, followed by a discussion. Suggested donation $10-20, proceeds go to @the_sol_stories and @south.philly.punkswithlunch

Revolution On and Off the Streets: A discussion of Practical Anarchism

  • April 28, 2023 1:01 am

from Making Worlds Books

Advanced Registration is strongly encouraged for this event. Please CLICK HERE to register.

Facing off against the violent forces of the state during street protests, we form bonds and clear space for a vision of a new world. But what happens after? How can we perpetuate social revolution in our daily lives? Ingrained state logic erases ways of organizing our lives with ease and limits our horizons of resistance. It doesn’t matter if we smash the state but can’t take care of ourselves or one another. We will discuss how to prepare ourselves for liberation with references from Scott Branson’s recently published book, Practical Anarchism: A Daily Guide.

About the Speakers:
Scott Branson is a writer, teacher, organizer, and artist, author of Practical Anarchism: A Daily Guide (Pluto Press), editor of Surviving the Future: Abolitionist Queer Strategies (PM Press), translator of Guy Hocquenghem’s Gay Liberation After May 68 (Duke), and co-host on The Final Straw Radio.
Vicky Osterweil is a writer and worker based in so-called Philadelphia. Her book In Defense of Looting was released in 2020, and she’s working on a new book called The Extended Universe, 2024 from Haymarket.

About the Book, Practical Anarchism: A Daily Guide:
You may not realize it, but you are probably already practicing anarchism in your daily life. From relationships to school, work, art, and even the way you organize your time, anarchism can help you find fulfillment, empathy, and liberation in the everyday.
From the small questions such as ‘Why should I steal?’ to the big ones like ‘How do I love?’, Scott Branson shows that anarchism isn’t only something we do when we react to the news, protest, or even riot. With practical examples enriched by history and theory, these tips will empower you to break free from the consumerist trappings of our world.
Anarchism is not just for white men, but for everyone. In reading this book, you can detach from patriarchal masculinity, norms of family, gender, sexuality, racialization, individual responsibility, and the destruction of our planet, and replace them with ideas of sustainable living, with ties of mutual aid, and the horizon of collective liberation.

Riotsville, USA: A Benefit Film Screening & Discussion to #StopCopCity

  • March 25, 2023 1:31 am

from Making Worlds Books

Join us on 3/30 for a benefit film screening and discussion of Riotsville, USA.

Advance registration is encouraged, please RSVP here.

The fight in Atlanta against “Cop City” is heating up. The Autonomous South Philly Cinema Association is hosting a benefit screening of Riotsville, USA (2022, 91 mins) to raise funds for mounting legal expenses. Riotsville, USA takes its name from the mock cities built by the U.S. government in the late 1960s to train police and military in repressive techniques to throttle uprisings, much as Cop City hopes to do — unless the struggle against it is victorious.

  • Thursday, March 30, 2023
  • 6:00 PM 8:00 PM
  • Making Worlds Bookstore & Social Center 210 South 45th Street Philadelphia, PA, 19104 United States (map)

Building the Solidarity Economy: First city-wide Solidarity Economy Assembly

  • March 19, 2023 1:15 am

from Making World Books

Join us for the first Philly-wide Solidarity Economy Assembly, a hybrid event, hosted by and in collaboration with Making Worlds Bookstore Cooperative Bookstore & Social Center.

Click here to register for this event.

The Solidarity Economy Principles Project defines SE as, “an organizing framework for those who wish to create a systemic commitment to and practice of interdependence and collective liberation in the economic activities that meet our material needs.  Solidarity economy rests on our shared values: cooperation, democracy, social and racial justice, environmental sustainability, and mutualism… Solidarity economies emerge from movements and integrate the three common strategies for social change: personal transformation, building alternative institutions, and challenging dominant institutions. Building solidarity economy movements requires building networks, federations, and coalitions that align with SE principles and practices. This is where we become truly powerful.”

This assembly aims to intentionally begin forging these “networks, federation, and coalitions” across all those in the Philly region working to build a just world. Invitation extended to groups doing work spanning mutual aid, land and food justice, housing, cooperative/democratic/and alternative economies, climate justice struggle, and how we “tell the story of our freedom”: artists, media, and technology workers. You’re all already doing incredible organizing. Our hope is to strengthen our networks so we can move forward together with intention and… solidarity.

Event is hybrid. It will be facilitated by Esteban Kelly, Executive Director of USFWC. Jamila Medley, former Executive Director of PACA and one of the original writers of the SE Principles, will ground us in discussing the frameworks and hopes for the Solidarity Economy. We hope to see you there.

  • Thursday, March 23, 2023
  • 5:00 PM 7:30 PM
  • Making Worlds Bookstore & Social Center 210 South 45th Street Philadelphia, PA, 19104 United States (map)

The George Floyd Uprising Book Launch and Discussion

  • March 12, 2023 1:21 am

from Making Worlds Books

Join us for an editor-led discussion of the recently published book, The George Floyd Uprising.

Written during the riots, The George Floyd Uprising is a compendium of the most radical writing to come out of that long, hot summer. These incendiary dispatches—from those on the front lines of the struggle—examine the new horizons opened by the revolt, as well as the social, tactical, and strategic obstacles it confronted. This practical, inspiring collection offers a toolbox for all those actively seeking to expand and intensify revolts in the future, and it is essential reading for everyone interested in toppling the state, racism, and capitalism.

Advanced registration encouraged. Click here to register.

More about the book:

In the summer of 2020, America experienced one of the biggest uprisings in half a century. After George Floyd’s murder at the hands of Minneapolis police, angry crowds took to the street night after night, fighting the police, looting, and eventually burning down the Third Precinct. The revolt soon spread to cities large and small across the country, where rioters set police cars on fire, sacked luxury shopping districts, and forced the president into hiding in a bunker beneath the White House. Throughout the summer and into the fall, localized rebellions continued to erupt in Atlanta, Chicago, Kenosha, Louisville, Philadelphia, and elsewhere.

Written during the riots, The George Floyd Uprising is a compendium of the most radical writing to come out of that long, hot summer. These incendiary dispatches—from those on the front lines of the struggle—examine the new horizons opened by the revolt, as well as the social, tactical, and strategic obstacles it confronted. This practical, inspiring collection offers a toolbox for all those actively seeking to expand and intensify revolts in the future, and it is essential reading for everyone interested in toppling the state, racism, and capitalism.

About the Editors:

Vortex Group is an anonymous collective of writers who desire an end to this world and the beginning of a new one.

  • Sunday, March 19, 2023
  • 4:00 PM 5:30 PM
  • Making Worlds Bookstore & Social Center 210 South 45th Street Philadelphia, PA, 19104 United States (map)

If A Tree Falls: Screening and Discussion

  • February 2, 2023 1:07 am

from Making Worlds Books

IF A TREE FALLS is a documentary looking at the Earth Liberation Front, the radical environmental group that the FBI calls America’s ‘number one domestic terrorist threat.’ The documentary tells the story of Daniel McGowan, an ELF member who faced life in prison for two multi-million dollar arsons against Oregon timber companies. The film examines larger questions about environmentalism, activism, and terrorism.

The police killing of Manuel Teranat / Tortuguita and repression of forest defenders in Atlanta / Cop City this month adds dire weight to our ability to understand ecological defense struggles on their own terms, to understand the elements of repression and state power that seek to discredit, disrupt, and disempower ecodefense movements and separate them from wider bases of popular support. In the process, state violence intensifies and the need for unified support and solidarity is crucial.

This event is fundraising effort in support of ATL Solidarity Fund to help support frontliners in this moment.

Advance registration suggested (free and by donation) to help us host public events safely in a time of ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and other public health stresses on our communities. Click here to register.

  • Thursday, February 9, 2023
  • 5:00 PM 7:00 PM
  • Making Worlds Bookstore & Social Center 210 South 45th Street Philadelphia, PA, 19104 United States (map)

Abolish the Family: Book Launch and Discussion with Sophie Lewis

  • January 6, 2023 1:35 am

from Making Worlds Books

RESCHEDULED – Stay Tuned!

Making Worlds Cooperative Bookstore & Social Center: Book Launch and Discussion: Abolish the Family: A Manifesto for Care and Liberation

What if we could do better than the family?

Families can be filled with love and care, but for many they are sites of pain: nobody is more likely to harm you than your family. Even in so-called happy families, the unpaid, unacknowledged work that it takes to raise children and care for each other is endless and exhausting.

Abolish the Family traces the history of family abolitionist demands, beginning with nineteenth century utopian socialist and sex radical Charles Fourier, the Communist Manifesto and early-twentieth century Russian family abolitionist Alexandra Kollontai. Turning her attention to the 1960s, Lewis reminds us of the anti-family politics of radical feminists like Shulamith Firestone and the gay liberationists, a tradition she traces to the queer marxists bringing family abolition to the twenty-first century. This exhilarating essay looks at historic rightwing panic about Black families and the violent imposition of the family on indigenous communities, and insists: only by thinking beyond the family can we begin to imagine what might come after.

Registration required. Please RSVP here.

Sophie Lewis is a freelance writer living in Philadelphia, teaching courses for the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research. Her first book was Full Surrogacy Now: Feminism Against Family, and her essays have appeared in the New York Times, Harper’s, Boston Review, n+1, the London Review of Books and Salvage. Sophie studied English, Politics, Environment and Geography at Oxford, the New School, and Manchester University, and is now an unpaid visiting scholar at the Feminist, Queer and Transgender Studies Center at the University of Pennsylvania.

  • Friday, January 13, 2023
  • 6:00 PM 7:30 PM
  • Making Worlds Bookstore & Social Center 210 South 45th Street Philadelphia, PA, 19104 United States (map)

For Antifascist Futures: Against the Violence of Imperial Crisis

  • September 23, 2022 1:24 am

from Making World Books

Making Worlds Book Film Screening, Book Launch, and Discussion: For Antifascist Futures: Against the Violence of Imperial Crisis [Philadelphia launch]

We must take antifascism as a major imperative of movements for social change. For Antifascist Futures takes seriously what is new in this moment of politics, exploring what the analytic of fascism offers for understanding the twenty-first century authoritarian convergence by centering the material and speculative labor of antifascist and antiracist social movement coalitions. By focusing on the long history of Black and Brown antifascist resistance that has been overlooked in both recent conversations about racial justice as well as antifascist resistance, the essays, interviews, and documents included here make clear how racialized and colonized peoples have been at the forefront of theorizing and dismantling fascism, white supremacy, and other modes of authoritarian rule.

Linking a deep engagement, both scholarly and practical, of racial justice movements with an antifascist frame, and a global analysis of capitalism, the editors and contributors of For Antifascist Futures assemble a powerful toolbox for our struggles.

Registration required, click here.

The evening starts with a screening of Mangrove School (34 mins, 2022), directed by Filipa César and Sónia Vaz Borges.

5pm: Film screening

Mangrove School film (34 min, créole guinéen, coul, 2022) Dir. Filipa César and Sónia Vaz Borges

6pm: For Antifascist Futures book discussion & panel

  • Friday, September 30, 2022
  • 5:00 PM 7:30 PM
  • Making Worlds Bookstore & Social Center 210 South 45th Street Philadelphia, PA, 19104 United States (map)

 

Everything for Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune, 2052–2072

  • August 6, 2022 1:54 am

from Making Worlds Books

Making Worlds Book Reading and Discussion: Everything for Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune, 2052–2072 [Philadelphia launch]

By the middle of the twenty-first century, war, famine, economic collapse, and climate catastrophe had toppled the world’s governments. In the 2050s, the insurrections reached the nerve center of global capitalism—New York City. This book, a collection of interviews with the people who made the revolution, was published to mark the twentieth anniversary of the New York Commune, a radically new social order forged in the ashes of capitalist collapse.

Here is the insurrection in the words of the people who made it, a cast as diverse as the city itself. Nurses, sex workers, antifascist militants, and survivors of all stripes recall the collapse of life as they knew it and the emergence of a collective alternative. Their stories, delivered in deeply human fashion, together outline how ordinary people’s efforts to survive in the face of crisis contain the seeds of a new world.

Registration required, click here.

About the Author

M. E. O’Brien writes and speaks on gender freedom and capitalism. She coedits two magazines, Pinko, on gay communism, and Parapraxis, on psychoanalytic theory and politics. Her work on family abolition has been translated into Chinese, German, Greek, French, Spanish, and Turkish. Previously, she coordinated the New York City Trans Oral History Project, and worked in HIV and AIDS activism and services. She completed a PhD at NYU, where she wrote on how capitalism shaped New York City LGBTQ social movements. You can support her writing through patreon.com/meobrien, and find her on twitter @genderhorizon. Everything for Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune, 2052–2072 is her first book.

[Saturday, August 13, 2022 6:00 PM 7:30 PM Making Worlds Bookstore & Social Center 210 South 45th Street Philadelphia, PA, 19104 United States (map)]

Elite Capture, Identity Politics, and Solidarity with Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò

  • June 10, 2022 1:36 am

from Making Worlds Books

A book launch and discussion on Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò’s Elite Capture: How the Powerful Took Over Identity Politics (And Everything Else)

Cosponsored by the Paul Robeson House & Museum

“Identity politics” is everywhere, polarizing discourse from the campaign trail to the classroom and amplifying antagonisms in the media, both online and off. But the compulsively referenced phrase bears little resemblance to the concept as first introduced by the radical Black feminist Combahee River Collective. While the Collective articulated a political viewpoint grounded in their own position as Black lesbians with the explicit aim of building solidarity across lines of difference, identity politics is now frequently weaponized as a means of closing ranks around ever-narrower conceptions of group interests.

But the trouble, Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò deftly argues, is not with identity politics itself. Through a substantive engagement with the global Black radical tradition and a critical understanding of racial capitalism, Táíwò identifies the process by which a radical concept can be stripped of its political substance and liberatory potential by becoming the victim of elite capture—deployed by political, social, and economic elites in the service of their own interests.

Táíwò’s crucial intervention both elucidates this complex process and helps us move beyond a binary of “class” vs. “race.” By rejecting elitist identity politics in favor of a constructive politics of radical solidarity, he advances the possibility of organizing across our differences in the urgent struggle for a better world.

Advanced registration required, click here.

Friday, June 17, 2022
4:00 PM 5:30 PM
Making Worlds Bookstore & Social Center 210 South 45th Street Philadelphia, PA, 19104 United States (map)

What it means to dismantle and abolish the War on Terror: A dialogue

  • May 6, 2022 1:33 am

from Making Worlds Books

It’s been two decades since the 9/11 attacks and the onset of the War on Terror. Addressing its catastrophic impact, Dr. Maha Hilal will share her insights on the last twenty years of the War on Terror including the role of official narrative in justifying the creation of a sprawling apparatus of state violence rooted in Islamophobia and in addition to outlining just how vast the War on Terror’s apparatus is and has become. Centering the War on Terror’s impact on Muslims and Muslim Americans, Dr. Hilal will also shed light on how some have internalized oppression, perpetuated collective responsibility, and how the lived experiences of Muslim Americans reflect what it means to live as part of a “suspect” community.

In dialogue together, Maha Hilal and Nazia Kazi will reflect on what it means to dismantle and abolish the War on Terror.

Dr. Maha Hilal is a researcher and writer on institutionalized Islamophobia and author of the book Innocent Until Proven Muslim: Islamophobia, the War on Terror, and the Muslim Experience Since 9/11. Her writings have appeared in Vox, Al Jazeera, Middle East Eye, Newsweek, Business Insider, Truthout, and Vox among others. She is Co-founder of Justice for Muslims Collective and was previously the inaugural Michael Ratner Middle East Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C. Dr. Hilal is also an organizer with Witness Against Torture and a Council member of the School of the Americas Watch. She earned her doctorate in May 2014 from the Department of Justice, Law and Society at American University in Washington, D.C. She received her Master’s Degree in Counseling and her Bachelor’s Degree in Sociology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Dr. Nazia Kazi is an anthropologist and author of Islamophobia, Race, and Global Politics, out now in an expanded second edition. The book is required reading in a number of undergraduate classes across the US. Her work considers the connections between American racism, Islamophobia, and the War on Terror. She is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Stockton University, where she is also an officer in the union, SFT2275. Her work has appeared on The Nib, Al Jazeera, and The Chronicle of Higher Education. She has also been a guest on Chris Hedges’ program On Contact and on The Socialist Program with Brian Becker.

Cosponsored by the Philly Muslim Bail Fund.

Advance registration is requested.

[May 12 6:00 PM 7:30 PM 210 South 45th Street]

Settler Memory: The Disavowal of Indigeneity and the Politics of Race

  • May 1, 2022 1:37 am

from Making World Books

Faint traces of Indigenous people and their histories abound in American media, memory, and myths. Indigeneity often remains absent or invisible, however, especially in contemporary political and intellectual discourse about white supremacy, anti-Blackness, and racism in general. In this ambitious new book, Kevin Bruyneel confronts the chronic displacement of Indigeneity in the politics and discourse around race in American political theory and culture, arguing that the ongoing influence of settler-colonialism has undermined efforts to understand Indigenous politics while also hindering conversation around race itself.

By reexamining major episodes, texts, writers, and memories of the political past from the seventeenth century to the present, Bruyneel reveals the power of settler memory at work in the persistent disavowal of Indigeneity. He also shows how Indigenous and Black intellectuals have understood ties between racism and white settler memory, even as the settler dimensions of whiteness are frequently erased in our discourse about race, whether in conflicts over Indian mascotry or the white nationalist underpinnings of Trumpism.

Envisioning a new political future, Bruyneel challenges readers to refuse settler memory and consider a third reconstruction that can meaningfully link antiracism and anticolonialism.

After a short lecture, Kevin Bruyneel will be in conversation with Chenjerai Kumanyika and Jaskiran Dhillon.

Advance registration is requested.

[May 7 5:00 PM – 6:30 PM 210 South 45th Street]

Diaries of a Terrorist: Poetry and Abolition with Christopher Soto and others

  • April 29, 2022 1:43 am

from Making World Books

A luminous poetry reading demanding the abolition of police & prisons—with Christopher Soto, Airea D Mathews, and Denice Frohman.

This debut poetry collection demands the abolition of policing and human caging. In Diaries of a Terrorist, Christopher Soto uses the “we” pronoun to emphasize that police violence happens not only to individuals, but to whole communities. His poetics open the imagination towards possibilities of existence beyond the status quo. Soto asks, “Who do we call terrorist—and why”? These political surrealist poems shift between gut-wrenching vulnerability, laugh-aloud humor, and unapologetic queer punk raunchiness. Diaries of a Terrorist is groundbreaking in its ability to speak—from a local to a global scale—about one of the most important issues of our time.

Christopher Soto will be joined for a reading by Airea D Matthews, and Denice Frohman for the launch of their debut poetry collection, which demands the abolition of policing and human caging.

Cohosted by our friends at Scalawag Magazine.

Advance registration is requested.

[May  5 6:00 PM 7:30 PM 210 South 45th Street]

Fight Like Hell with Kim Kelly

  • April 22, 2022 1:37 am

from Making Worlds Books

Join Kim Kelly in the launch of Fight Like Hell: The Untold History of American Labor

In FIGHT LIKE HELL, Kim Kelly tells a definitive history of the labor movement and the people who risked everything to win fair wages, better working conditions, disability protections, and an eight-hour workday. That history is a 1972 clothing company strike that saw 4,000 Chicana laborers start a boycott that swept the nation. It is Ida Mae Stull’s 1934 demand for the right to work in an Ohio coal mine alongside the men, and the enslaved Black women before her who weren’t given a choice. It’s Dorothy Lee Bolden’s 1960s rise from domestic workers’ union founder to White House anti-segregationist. It’s Mother Jones on the picket lines, and her militant battles against the ravages of capitalism. It’s the flight attendants’ that pushed to root out sexual assault in the skies. It’s the incarcerated workers organizing prison strikes for basic rights, and the sex workers building collective power outside the law. And it is Bayard Rustin, a queer civil rights pioneer who helped organize Dr. King’s March on Washington and help align the two movements.

Stops here include the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire (immigrant, women laborers); Mississippi’s first successful unionization effort, the Washerwomen of Jackson, MS (post-war freedwomen); Latinx and Asian-American victories like the Delano Grape Strike; the influence of the United Auto Workers’ Arab Workers Caucus in the 1970s, up through queer and trans rights protections earned through labor action. FIGHT LIKE HELL concludes in Bessemer, AL where Kelly has been stationed to report on the ongoing efforts to unionize an Amazon warehouse for the very first time.

As America grapples with the unfinished business of emancipation, the New Deal, and Johnson’s Great Society, FIGHT LIKE HELL offers a transportive look at the forgotten heroes who’ve sacrificed to make good on the nation’s promises. Kim Kelly’s publishing debut is both an inspiring read and a vital contribution to American history.

Advance registration required so we can gather safely amidst the ongoing COVID pandemic.

[April 29, 4:00 PM to 5:30 PM Making Worlds Bookstore & Social Center 210 South 45th Street]