the anti-oppression network

ANOTHER WORLD IS POSSIBLE                  **2014 Decolonize & Anti-Oppression tour** | terminologies of oppression

[lithiumdyke-deactivated20180912]

Police destruction of homeless camps is destruction of property. Police “clearing” homeless camps by taking the possessions of homeless people are committing theft. Police destroying shelters in homeless camps that lead to homeless people getting exposed to the elements are attempting murder. 

[skunkbear]

You may have seen the exuberant celebrations of David Katoatau, an Olympic weightlifter competing in the 105-kg weight class for the island nation of Kiribati.

NBC titled their video clip, “Weightlifting makes David Katoatau want to dance.”

But there’s another, solemn reason for his joyful performance. Katoatau told Reuters he wants to raise global awareness of the climate change that threatens to destroy his country. 

Video: NBC, Map: Wikimedia

[not-your-asian-fantasy]

Mongolia Nomadic Tribes Stand With Standing Rock Sioux And Water Protectors

source

[theantioppressionnetwork]

the original source is here: https://www.facebook.com/tengermongolgazar/photos/a.880977122003141.1073741870.124031284364399/880977392003114/?type=3&theater

we caution against using whitewolfpack.com as a source as they are a blog and perpetuated the false rumour about an anonymous $2.5 million donation to release all water protectors and protestors who had been arrested.

[theantioppressionnetwork]

The following four documents were prepared by members of the Solidariteam. The Oceti Sakowin Camp Protocols were written with camp elders.

If You’re Thinking About Going to Standing Rock

First of all, thank you! The whole world has been moved and inspired by the water protectors at Standing Rock and many people feel called to go there. It’s important to think through whether you will be able to contribute best by going in person or by doing support work from home.

Good reasons to go:

To commit civil disobedience blocking construction of the pipeline

To do needed physical labor

To deliver supplies

To bring a necessary skill

To bring messages of support from your national or tribal group and share your traditional ceremony and culture

To support the presence of young people or elders

To provide media coverage and documentation

Not good enough reasons:

To experience indigenous culture and wisdom

Because it seems cool

Curiosity

Do not go to Standing Rock “just to see.” Every person in camp needs to pull their weight and contribute in substantial ways.

READ MORE: http://www.standingrocksolidaritynetwork.org/uploads/4/2/9/2/4292077/if_you%E2%80%99re_thinking_about_going_to_standing_rock_final.pdf

Joining Standing Rock

WELCOME to Standing Rock. Thank you for coming to be part of this powerful moment in history. The fight to stop the pipeline is part of our global struggle for liberation, to protect our planet from extractive capitalism, and to heal the devastation of oppression on all our lives. We are winning, and we still have a long way to go. We need everybody. That includes you. This is an indigenous led struggle, on indigenous lands, rooted in centuries of resistance and the specific cultural strengths of the Native peoples gathered here. This means it will look and feel different from non-Native activism.

We understand this moment in the context of settler colonialism

Settler colonialism is a process of “destroying to replace.” A colonizing power exports resources and people, and seizes and settles on land, exercising violent control over the original inhabitants. Indigenous versions of governance, land management, cultural practices, etc. are destroyed through conquest, disease, land theft, and cultural genocide, and are replaced with the settler versions of those things. Settler colonialism is not an event that we can neatly box into the past, but rather a persistent form of violence that impacts every aspect of life in settler states. Settler colonialism is still happening.

Indigenous history in the Americas is one of uninterrupted resistance to colonization, from 1492 to today. You may be unaware of this history, or not recognize the forms it takes in indigenous cultures. Be curious.

We do this work as ourselves. We bring all of who we are and where we come from. This includes gender identity, race, class, sexual orientation, age, body/mind ability, culture and place of origin. We all have inherited historical relationships to sort out in order to become more powerful, effective and whole.

As white allies we must figure out how to shift out of European cultural modes, unlearn and interrupt settler colonial patterns and develop anti-racist awareness and skills.

As Non-Native People of Color we have many different historical relationships to settler colonialism and Indigenous struggles, and may have unconsciously internalized settler attitudes toward this land and indigenous people. Native leaders and scholars have asked us to recognize that although we are targeted by white supremacy, we also participate in settler colonization, and are settlers in relationship to Indigenous people.

READ MORE:  http://www.standingrocksolidaritynetwork.org/uploads/4/2/9/2/4292077/joining_camp_culture_final.pdf

[theantioppressionnetwork]

**NOTICE TO ALL INVOLVED IN COMMUNITY ORGANIZING/SOCIAL JUSTICE/RESISTANCE WORK**

TW & CW: trans antagonism, TERF, SWERF

TERF = trans exclusionary radical feminism/feminist SWERF = sex worker exclusionary radical feminism/feminist

hello there,

we are responding to the TERF/SWERF activity that transpired over the weekend at the 2016 Victoria Anarchist Bookfair for your information.

we are at a point in time where we are seeing a resurgence of TERFs/SWERFs networking and organizing particularly here on the West Coast (victoria/vancouver - though not exclusively.) local community organizers who identify as trans/transgender/gender nonconforming have been and continue to be targeted online by TERFs/SWERFs both local and not local to the region.

four months ago, May 2016, TERF(s) hiding behind an online handle from Victoria tweeted photos of Tami, misgendering her and accusing her of not being indigenous and also posted it on tumblr. when this was brought to our attention, we discovered the person had also been posting photos of a local community organizer in Victoria, who also identifies as trans, spreading lies and inciting hate. we have identified at least one of these people to be Zoe Blunt, who spearheads Wild Coast Caravan to Unis'tot'en camp and organizes with Deep Green Resistance, a well known eco-fascist group who have been publicly boycotted by a number of local community organizers. for details: https://www.facebook.com/buivanessa/media_set?set=a.10153701530308230.1073741833.503683229&type=3 * and our local call out regarding TERF/SWERF's in victoria area: https://www.facebook.com/TheAntiONetwork/photos/a.368631213212023.86686.214262228648923/918563874885418/

recently, in the summer, another online handle emerged on twitter and facebook in response to Thirdspace (formerly known as the University of Victoria's Women's Centre) for their inclusion of trans and gender nonconforming people at the centre. the individuals responsible for the twitter handle have been producing pamphlets filled with anti-trans, gender essentialist, biological determinist rhetoric and distributing them throughout the campus of the University of Victoria. one of them showed up to the collective meeting of Thirdspace and live-tweeted the meeting. this person has been identified as Alexis / Rad Lexi / Ana Hesse (fake facebook name).

weeks later, during the music shows leading up to the Victoria Anarchist Bookfair they also live-tweeted at an event and posted disparaging remarks about the trans artists and organized to show up at the Anarchist Bookfair on September 10th, 2016. Alexis has admitted to being responsible for at least one of the tweets. they continue to attack the aforementioned local community organizer via facebook, posting photos of her without her consent and spewing anti-trans women rhetoric.

this is about sharing information so the community knows what's happening and the sorted details. there are a lot of people with various levels of experience and social agency who either are on the front lines of this issue, are allies of various forms or are very complicit and silent.

- this is the Victoria Anarchist Bookfair's response: https://www.facebook.com/TheAntiONetwork/photos/a.368631213212023.86686.214262228648923/1181719461903190/

- this is Wulfgang Zapf's response to the events: https://www.facebook.com/beyonisbeyon/posts/1167738526619653

Please share Reflections on the Anarchist Bookfair

I want to acknowledge and hold up every queer, trans and non-binary person who held it down at the 2016 anarchist bookfair against the violence enacted by a transphobic hate group.

When violence was happening we spoke. When people in positions of power and responsibility refused to act or offer meaningful solidarity we shared with our friends who then rose their voices to fill the space and be visible and vulnerable as Trans in a space where before we were not seen.

We did the work to show up prepared the next day and held space for one another. We waded through the words of violence littering the internet and found out who the TERFS were, prepared and shared this information to keep ourselves safe. We did the work of talking to other tablers so to be transparent about this threat of violence against ourselves and our friends, lovers, and families.

We took control of the room when TERF organizers were identified and we did not back down from confrontation. We risked our safety for the safety of each other. We physically put our bodies between those who want us dead and our friends and family. Because we know what happens to the people we love when we are silent and inactive.

And then we did the emotional labour of education cis onlookers, who sat and watched us remove the TERFs. We did this while still physically vibrating with the fear and power of confronting the ones filled with hate.

We also lovingly did the emotional labour for each other. We watched each other’s tables, we checked in, and listened and held each other and brought our friends to the trees and sunshine when they needed it. We brought one another food and tea and coffee. We gave everything we had and there is much to be proud of in the ways we protected ourselves and confronted violence. And I am grateful. And I see each an every one of us queers, trans peeps and non-binary humans who are still doing this work right now and each day you are not invisible to me.

We did all of this while everyone around us submerged themselves in silence and inaction. We weathered the sympathetic looks from cis people afraid to act or even speak or even check in. We swallowed our anger as we did the work of holding space when no organizer would even speak to us or ask if we needed anything… if we were okay. We continue to support one another in the silence and fear and guilt of the cis people who still blanket the event. Do we need support from the book fair collective? No, we held it down without a single one of them doing a damn thing.

The erasure that continues by the bookfair collective’s statement through the theft of our words that we spoke in that room with our vulnerable spontaneity is disgusting and we can banish it from our hearts with the knowledge that their stolen words fell from the lips and out of the hearts of the trans and queer and non-binary people who filled the repulsive silence and hand wringing with their vibrant powerful voices. Because we were there and active and witnesses and know how shit played out.

So let all those cis anarchists continue in their futility and relieve their guilt through saying ‘the right things’ after the fact.

It is us who are powerful and I will love and protect the queer and trans loves of my heart with my own trans non-binary ferocity until the end.

Wulfgang Zapf

with the support and love and feedback of my fam as always

So in conclusion. We, the anti oppression network, are working to organize with the victoria/lekwungen/wsanec territories trans/queer and general community, along with other interested community members, a "community dialogue on TERFs/SWERFs and the need for intersectionality/anti oppression and decolonization".

This notice is an opportunity for community organizers and those doing resistance work to dismantle the oppressive status quo, dysfunction and oppressions within our own communities. This challenging and unfortunate set of circumstances are an opportunity for communities across so-called Canada and Turtle Island to grow and learn from (not just ignore because its convenient.) In a time where trans people are still facing various forms and degrees of violence and a rise in extremism, fundamentalism, and white supremacy, it is imperative that we come together to address the particular issues of TERFs and SWERFs in our organizing spaces and take on the responsibility that belongs to ALL. trans antagonism, trans misogyny, anti-sex work, and the colonial patriarchal understandings of gender, gender identity, and gender expression HAS NO PLACE IN SOCIAL JUSTICE WORK OR OUR COLLECTIVE LIBERATION.

information on TERFs: http://transadvocate.com/you-might-be-a-terf-if_n_10226.htm http://transadvocate.com/is-sadism-popular-with-terfs-a-chat-with-an-ex-gendercrit_n_18568.htm

contact info: https://theantioppressionnetwork.wordpress.com/contact-us/

[theantioppressionnetwork]

For centuries, community builders, social justice engineers and freedom fighters--most of whom are multiply marginalized--have been doing exhausting and traumatizing life-changing & life-saving work with and for no money; with no sleep, health or mental health care; and with no institutional support.

Excerpts:

“This said, I would like us to engage in an open and honest conversation about the relationships between oppression, violence, capitalism, “advocacy” and erasure.”

....

“By now, they have all but confirmed for me that there are plenty of people who are nice and racist, kind and ableist and sweet and classist. It is clear to me now more than ever before that we will not get free by prioritizing the hurt feelings of privileged people or by surrendering to their hushed respectability refrain: let’s discuss this another time; in another, you know, more appropriate, venue.

“Let this be a reminder to all who have bought into these age old strategies: our health, safety, life and movements are more important than millions of unaffected experts’ feelings and tears. Naming erasure and violence is a powerful act of revolution and love that will lead to our collective liberation.”

Read more here: http://www.talilalewis.com/blog/fighting-for-freedom-the-expense-of-erasure

[theantioppressionnetwork]

Decolonize & Anti-Oppression Workshop In Lekwungen & W̱SÁNEĆ territory (victoria, bc)

we will be holding a workshop at this years 11th annual Victoria Anarchist Bookfair and we hope to see you there!

FREE Friday, September 9th, 2016 University of Victoria Students' Society (UVSS), Student Union Building, Room B025, 3800 Finnerty Road, victoria, bc 2:00pm - 3:50pm

Accessibility: - ASL interpretation is currently being secured - the building entrance, workshop space, and washrooms are wheelchair accessible - the workshop space is a scent-free/scent-reduced space; please refrain from wearing perfumes, colognes and/or other scents - accessibility and safety guidelines for the bookfair can be found here: http://victoriaanarchistbookfair.ca/index.php/accessibility-and-safer-space-policy/ - if there are accessibility needs that must be met to ensure meaningful participation in this workshop please email bookfair organizers: [email protected] and workshop facilitators: [email protected]

The workshop will be a facilitated circle discussion about colonization from an Indigenous context within Canada and include an exploration of anti-oppression terminology. Will be focusing on grassroots community organizing, meaningful solidarity building, & horizontal group/community structures.

facebook event page for workshop: https://www.facebook.com/events/529915343879835/ facebook event page for bookfair: https://www.facebook.com/events/1611723889141685/ The Anti-Oppression Network on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheAntiONetwork/ Victoria Anarchist Bookfair: http://victoriaanarchistbookfair.ca

[carryustothestars-deactivated20]

Mentally ill people are not the problem. Inaccessible, unaffordable health care is the problem. Stigma is the problem. Lack of treatment is a problem. Lack of understanding is the problem. Lack of compassion is the problem. Not taking people seriously is the problem. Lack of honest conversation and open dialogue is a problem. Using jails as a housing facility for mentally ill persons is a problem. Do you understand me. Mentally ill people are not the problem.

[homoarigato]

how important/necessary/revolutionary is your space if disabled people can’t be there?????

[namrekeya-deactivated20161028]

Ever since I mentioned it, I’ve received a bunch of questions about what I mean by “NGO-ization.”

To answer them all at once: the term “NGO-ization” is used to describe the ways in which radical social movements, in the era of neoliberalism and its modernization projects, have been straitjacketed and hijacked by NGOs with very limiting rights-based and victim-centric legal frameworks (that are all too expedient for repressive security states and foreign meddling.) There’s a growing literature on this, but here are just a few titles that I find helpful and interesting (book reviews included for texts I couldn’t find for free online):

Watch:

1. The NGO-ization of Resistance by Arundhati Roy (2004) *

Read:

2. The NGO-isation of Arab Women’s Movements by Islah Jad *

3. Introduction: Reclaiming Feminism: Gender and Neoliberalism by Andrea Cornwall, Jasmine Gideon and Kalpana Wilson

Donor funding for non-governmental organisations (NGOs) on a massive scale has led to women’s movements and organisations in many countries undergoing a process of depoliticising ‘NGOisation’ (Alvarez 1998) – with damaging consequences for the mobilisation of women, as Islah Jad (this IDS Bulletin) shows. This has contributed to a lack of political muscle, as once-active feminist organisations become (or are displaced by) increasingly depoliticised service providers, reliant on contracts from the state or grants from the development industry. As the ‘invited spaces’ of neoliberal governmentality have come to displace and be used to delegitimise the ‘invented spaces’ (Miraftab 2004) of social mobilisation, ‘empowerment’ has come to be associated with individual self improvement and donor interventions rather than collective struggle (Sardenberg, this IDS Bulletin).

4. The Indian Women’s Movement: Within and Beyond NGOization by Srila Roy

5. A book review of Theorizing NGOs: States, Feminisms, and Neoliberalism by Victoria Bernal and Inderpal Grewal

6. Turning the Gendered Politics of the Security State Inside Out? *

Paul Amar offers a brilliant critique of how an “innovative mobilizing framework was confronted by the backlash of internationally-linked anti-harassment NGOs in Egypt who deployed a more standard middle-class, law enforcement-centered rescue–protection framework.”

7. A research paper summarizing Lila Abu-Lughod’s, “Dialects of Women’s Empowerment: The International Circuitry of the Arab Human Development Report 2005.” *

8. A book review of NGOization: Complicity, Contradictions and Prospects by Aziz Choudry and Dip Kapoor

Choudry and Kapoor, in the introductory chapter, seek to move beyond dominant “civil society” concepts of politics and action by critical analyses of NGOization to reconceptualize resistance against capitalism and colonialism. The editors show the limitations of building NGO typologies as well as of analyzing their relationship with governments and the private sector. Importantly, they demonstrate the widespread NGO commitment to economic and foreign policies strategies of democratization by building civil society by professionalization and depoliticization of community-based organizations. Those processes include, for example, displacing, destroying, or neutralizing social movements by NGOs, lobbying of governments or international institutions, and privatization of the notion of public interest. Choudry and Kapoor show that an important challenge is to move beyond the dichotomy between NGOs and social movements. The authors describe several critiques of NGOs: analyzing them as agents of capitalist colonization of material space, as the professionalization of dissent, and as knowledge colonization for capital. Those strategies are more or less reflected in further case study chapters.

9. Poverty Capital: Microfinance and the Making of Development by Ananya Roy (I haven’t read this in a few years but I remember enjoying it.)

10. Law and Disorder in the Postcolony by Jean and John Comaroff (on the broader limits of fetishizing legality in “modernization” projects in post-colonies.)

* = favorite

[mioxenoblade]

There is no “right” age to discover you’re trans. You can’t be too young, you can’t be too old. Everyone is different, we discover ourselves differently and at different rates. Teens, twenties, thirties, forties, it doesn’t matter. Any age to discover you’re trans is the right age to discover you’re trans.

Never think you’re too young to know. Never think you’re too old for it to be true. Never think it’s too early or too late.

You’re trans and you’re valid.

[riotrite-deactivated20171226]

There is just as much transmisogyny in the gay community as in the straight community. Gay people are just more likely to insist they’re not transmisogynist.

[autismandtourettes]

Autistic or person with autism?  SURVEY RESULTS.

Meant to do this yesterday but never got round to it.

Thanks to everyone who answered.

Here are the results to the survey. 

I’m more than happy if anyone wants to use these results and graphs as long as you credit this post.

It’d great if people could reblog this or post it elsewhere too if you want.

RESULTS:

321 people answered in total.

Question 1: 318 people answered, 3 people skipped.

Question 2: 320 people answered, 1 person skipped.

Question 3: 320 people answered, 1 person skipped.

Question 4: 320 people answered, 1 person skipped.

Question 1:

292 autistic people voted for autistic – 91.82%

26 autistic people voted for person with autism – 8.18%

Question 2:

101 autistic people did mind if people used person with autism – 31.56%.

219 autistic people didn’t mind if people used person with autism – 68.44%

Question 3:

7 autistic people liked it if people insist on person with autism – 2.19%

251 autistic people did not like it if people insisted on person with autism – 78.44%

62 autistic people didn’t care if people insisted on person with autism – 19.38%

Question 4:

52 autistic people agreed with functioning labels – 16.25%

212 autistic people did not agree with functioning labels – 66.25%

56 autistic people didn’t care about functioning labels – 17.50%

[black-australia]

'We're sinking here': climate change laps at front door of Torres Strait Islands

Rising sea levels, coastal erosion, extreme weather and destructive king tides have put the low-lying archipelago on the front line of climate change. As Australia negotiates with other countries at the Paris talks, some of its own people need practical help now, before it’s too late

“Climate change isn’t real” … yeah ok but look at all the evidence that strongly suggests otherwise.

[allthepiecesmatter451]

The FBI-CIA War on Tupac and Socially Conscious Artists

Originally Posted in RapRehab.Com By Lamont Lilly on November 12, 2015 John Potash is the author of The FBI War on Tupac Shakur and Black Leaders. Published in 2007, it is just now beginning to cir...

[image description: two photos stitched together. on the left is a colour photo of a black man, Tupac Shakur. he is standing in front of an MTV wallpaper looking upwards. on the right is a black and white photo of a black woman, Assata Shakur. she is smiling and looking directly at the viewer. end description.]

This is a MUST READ interview with the author of “The FBI-CIA War on Tupac and Socially Conscious Artists”.

“Another thing that Tupac was doing as an activist was appealing to the gangs to politicize them. This was a part of the plan to get the Bloods and Crips to call a peace truce between each other and become leftist activists. And it was working!

…….

Tupac was actually a very serious activist people just didn’t realize it. He was somewhat hiding it because he didn’t want U.S. intelligence to know about it. Nonetheless, that’s why he was being targeted, and censored.

…….

In the book, Manufacturing Consent by Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman, they outline how the Pentagon owns and publishes well over 1,300 magazines, and we don’t know what those magazines are. It’s all classified. We can guess that most of them are the magazines in your typical Barnes & Nobles. The Pentagon is by far the biggest magazine publisher in the world.“

[feminist77-deactivated20150228]

“Many white women have said to me, ‘We wanted black women and non-white women to join the movement,’ totally unaware of their perception that they somehow ‘own’ the movement, that they are the ‘hosts’ inviting us as ‘guests.’”

bell hooks, “Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center”

[riotrite-deactivated20171226]

I decided to make a cheat-sheet for why TERF ideology is just regular old misogyny as well as transmisogyny for those of you who might encounter one of these scumbags and have to shut them down quickly and efficiently.

1. Defining women by their genitalia and reproductive ability is exactly what patriarchy does for the benefit of men.

2. The idea of being “socialized female,” if it excludes trans women, completely excludes the individual’s experience and subjectivity, which is an incredibly paternalistic ideology that robs all women of any control over their identities and lives.

3. It is an indisputable scientific fact that genitalia, hormones, chromosomes, and physical traits coded as “female” all exist on a non-binary spectrum in the human population. TERFs’ fundamentally binaristic ideology ignores and excludes intersex women, in addition to all women who deviate from the physical norms established by patriarchy; norms which TERFs are against only nominally.

4. TERFs’ frequent willingness to welcome self-proclaimed CAFAB men into women’s spaces while excluding CAMAB women demonstrates their disregard for combating toxic masculinity and patriarchal behavior in favor of point #1, defining women by their genitalia.

5. TERFs’ total disavowal of trans identity specifically and consciously excludes all indigenous societies that historically welcomed and accepted (or continue to welcome and accept) trans people before European patriarchal gender ideology was forced on them by genocide and colonialism. This is not only racist and ethnocentric, but also a tacit promotion of the European gender norms feminists are supposed to be fighting.

6. Trans women and other CAMAB trans people are unquestionably one of the groups in our society most at risk for poverty and violence. TERFs’ insistence that trans women are statistically the perpetrators rather than victims of violence is demonstrably untrue and an obvious indication of a disregard for the actual facts about patriarchal violence. If TERFs are unwilling to confront the bare facts of misogynist violence, they can hardly be trusted to advance the feminist movement.

If anybody would like to keep the list going, please do.

[riotrite-deactivated20171226]

I thought of another one, which is actually just a modified but more insidious version of #1.

7. Defining women by having experienced a universal “girlhood” is not only an idea that only gained traction specifically as a tactic to exclude trans feminists, but is also a logically inconsistent and white-western-cis-straight-able supremacist practice. It’s logically inconsistent for a number of reasons- one is that the only way to define “girlhood” to exclude trans girls is to implicitly call on argument #1, so it still shamelessly excludes many intersex women. Another is that it centers girlhood but presupposes who can have one, making it circular. But the main fucked up thing about the “girlhood” argument is that it posits a universal experience for girls, or at least some hidden and conveniently self-serving connection between all girls. This only serves normative interests. How likely is it that the girlhood being considered universal is that of a young, wheelchair-using Khmer woman dealing with the emigration process to leave Cambodia for the EU? Or a black lesbian South African girl coping with rural life on a farm? Or a First Nations girl living in Toronto and growing up navigating trauma, white supremacy, and legalized ethnocide/genocide? I think it’s relatively obvious that any time a “universal” experience is postulated, dominant power structures push that universality towards the normative and privileged positions feminists are supposed to be challenging. That’s privilege 101. We can celebrate connections and commonalities without homogenizing women’s experiences in an illogical way that just happens to exclude one very particular set of women. Trans women have girlhoods too. Ours are just different in some ways than cis girls. Deal with it.