Sign the Petition to Save Portland Street Response!

We are asking the Portland City Council to stick to their promise that they would champion and expand Portland Street Response

#CareNotCops
#PortlandStreetResponse
#PDX

https://friendsofpsr.com/

How do we make better mistakes each time?

I’ve been thinking about that a lot the past three weeks, having thrown myself, side by side with so many hundreds of others, into solidarity efforts for the now-codefendants in Atlanta—people caught up in the fascistic state repression against @defendATLforest and #StopCopCity.

For many who have dropped everything to voluntarily, tirelessly, and exhaustedly throw themselves in various jail, court, legal, logistical, and other support roles to #FreeThemAll, this isn’t their first time at doing antirepression work. They’ve gone through the hell—as defendants and/or supporters, inside and outside courtrooms, jails, and prisons—in other brutal crackdowns on our beautiful resistance, from the Green scare and RNC Welcoming Committee, to J20 and Standing Rock, to more recently, the George Floyd uprising and Line 3.

There’s so much collective wisdom, collective strength, and collective defense in our toolbox to fight the charges, with the aim, always, of #DropTheCharges while sustaining our movements. Yet the dynamics that can tear us apart from the inside our circles—whipped up, manipulated, and cruelly exacerbated by the state—are sometimes the hardest, way too predictable and familiar; often our tools are rusty or underutilized, or get lost in the mess of all else we have to do.

This time, maybe due the wealth of solidarity experience and multigenerational co-learning, or usually invisible longtime work of feministic+queer care-focused anarchists, or many big hearts converging, the mistakes are better. Or rather, we are doing better at “early intervention” and “harm reduction” to grapple with past mistakes in order to lessen them.

For example, having volunteer “on call” therapists to hold space for processing trauma and grief, rather than letting it build up, boil over, and burn us. Setting up care clinics, supporters for support crews, weeks of resilience, and umpteenth other acts of compassion that try harder to leave no one behind, and stave off the ways that stress and fear can divide us.

There’s a long road ahead, but we’re starting on better footing, better mistakes and all.

#CareNotCops
#SolidarityNotStates
#TryAnarchismForLove

(photo: anarchism is love, as noted in black-and-purple-painted “circle A” = “heart” symbols by some anonymous tagger on a brick wall on the stolen, colonized, unanarchistic lands of Tio’tia:ke/Montreal in March 2023)

It never ceases to amaze that despite all that the state and its thuggish bedfellows throw at us, we’ve got each other covered. We blanket each other with solidarity. Even from afar, across borders, we supply comfort.

That’s not a simple task, even under the best of conditions—and fascism is making for the worst. Moreover, given the weight of the collective and individual as well as historical and present-day trauma that’s layered on top of us because of the violence of states and their allies, sticking unflinchingly and lovingly (even when we don’t know and/or don’t always like each other) by each other’s side can sometimes be a challenge. Our pain, our grief, can spill out onto each other in messy ways.

Yet time and again, what the state and its cronies can’t reckon with are the deeply worn threads of our solidarity, notwithstanding our frayed edges.

Overall, we show up. Whether in front of a jail to make tender noise for those inside or at court to offer support, whether by raising tens of thousands for bail or organizing an in-person care clinic, whether by helping keep our movements going strong or holding space for rituals of resistance and communal mourning. Indeed, there’s no way to contain the innumerable acts of solidarity on any sort of laundry list.

Solidarity is being there for each other as if our social relations really matter. Meaning solidarity is acting as if the social relations we desire are already embodied in each and every one of us. Meaning solidarity is our best weapon against the state and its coconspirators.

So on a snowy day on the stolen lands of Tio’tia:ke/Montreal, it shouldn’t surprise—but it should amaze—to see a big sheet-turned-into-banner voicing solidarity and empathy beyond borders for @stopcopcity and the dynamic struggle many hundreds of miles away to @defendatlantaforest.

#ForestsNotFascism
#CareNotCops
#SolidarityNotStates
#DefendWeelauneeForest
#MayTortuguitasMemoryBeABlessing

(photo: banner hanging off a railway overpass with graffiti in the background; the banner reads, “Cop city is a threat to everyone / Solidarity w/Weelaunee forest defenders / Revenge 4 Tort”)

Donations are greatly need for the Atlanta Solidarity Fund, particularly as the detainers, facing the full wrath of the state, go to their second bond hearing on March 23:

https://atlsolidarity.org

Two more “Forest Defender Tu Bishvat” (the birthday of the trees!) fundraisers that you can participate in from your home, or among your favorite trees!

Both are queer, healing, beautiful offerings to raise spirits and much-needed funds to aid @stopcopcity and @defendatlantaforest as well as @atlsolfund.

The first is a seder put on by the good folks with @anarchofeygele69, and you can join in person in Bushwick, NYC, or via zoom. As they note, their seder will include “sensual meditations with fauna, knowledge sharing on environmental direct action, and engaging in the multitude of conversations revolving around Judaism, trees/ecology, and trans/queer anarchism,” plus “creating space to mourn the loss of our dear comrade Tortuguita, a forest defender and friend who was murdered in a tree sit by police.” Suggested donation: $5-50.

The second, crafted by @ayelet___hashachar, is “a Jewish Tree Potion & blessing—for resilience, steadfastness & continued thriving of the Weelaunee forest.” As she further explains, the potion is “tree medicine,” made lovingly from what “frequently grace[s] the forest floors & canopies of that bioregion, [and] some more in the occupied Lenapehoking/Canarsie/nyc landscape, all with Jewish &/or ancestral significance.” Sliding scale per potion & blessing combo: $18-36 (or more!) plus shipping.

You don’t have to be a rad Jewish, trans+queer, and/or anarchist (though all are sacred and lovely) to partake of these fundraisers. You just need to love trees and hate cops!

You can find out lots more juicy and tender details about both of these solidarity fundraisers on the two Instagram accounts mentioned above.

More “Forest Defender Tu Bishvat” offerings to come soon, by or before the new year of the trees on this Sunday.

#TzedekForTrees
#TzedekForTort
#CareNotCops
#ForestsNotFascism

🖤💖🌿🪬

We don’t need videos.

As the Ayotzinapa 43 families have been saying since 2014, after 43 beloveds in Iguala, Guerrero, were disappeared and likely murdered, including by police, “We want them back alive.”

Meaning: they never should have been killed.

We shouldn’t need videos to somehow prove that we want every single person murdered-by-cop to be alive. That their names should still be spoken to them, here in this world. That each and every person assassinated by police was loved and lovable, and never deserved that kind of death.

We shouldn’t need videos as evidence that there are no good cops.

The proof is in the grieving people left behind, the uprisings fueled by rage and sorrow, the abolitionist and stop cop cities/academies organizing and direct action, the myriad forms of solidarity, the murals and tags on urban walls, the DIY altars.

“We want them back alive.”

For that to have full meaning, we want and need and fight for a world without police.

#AllCopsAreBad #ACAB
#NoMoreStolenLives
#CareNotCops
#AllComradesAreBeautiful
#TowardAWorldWithoutPolice
#SolidarityIsOurBestWeapon

(photo: downtown storefront boarded up with plywood and then tagged with graffiti asserting #NoGoodCops and #Fuck12 as seen on stolen Ho-Chunk lands in so-called Madison, WI, after the windows were smashed during the George Floyd uprising in 2020)

RT @interruptcrim@twitter.com

Agreeing on #CareNotCops is one thing but implementation details are another—check out our guide, which features examples & highlights key considerations for meaningful shifts away from cops & towards community-based responses to unmet mental health needs: http://bit.ly/NonPoliceResponse https://twitter.com/NewBlackMan/status/1604139417802665986

🐦🔗: https://twitter.com/interruptcrim/status/1604979820697636864

Check out this ACLU study of cops in California schools.
#CarenotCops

https://www.aclusocal.org/no-police-in-schools

Check out this ACLU study of cops in California schools.
#CarenotCops

https://www.aclusocal.org/no-police-in-schools

#CareNotCops ❤️‍🔥
#AutodefenseSanitaire
---
RT @G_Ricordeau
Avec @SecoursRougeT , on a discute d'#AbolirLaPolice en ce jour d'#ACABDay autour du livre a paraitre "1312 raisons d'abolir la police" https://twitter.com/SecoursRougeT/status/1602742427449696257
https://twitter.com/G_Ricordeau/status/1602743228712701952

Très heureuse d'annoncer la parution le 6 janvier de: 1312 raisons d’abolir la police (chez Lux).
En s’appuyant sur les mobilisations contemporaines pour l’abolition de la police en Amérique du Nord, il explore les propositions stratégiques de l’abolitionnisme, ses expériences et les débats qui les traversent. Pour penser, au-delà de la critique ordinaire de la police, son abolition.
Il réunit une quinzaine de contributions, dont beaucoup de traductions inédites en français, avec une longue intro et conclusion par moi-même.
Le livre commence par ces (mes) mots :
« Je déteste la police. Pourtant, mes griefs personnels contre les policiers sont très mesu­rés : s’ils ne m’ont jamais été d’aucune utilité, ceux à qui j’ai eu affaire se sont généralement montrés plus fainéants que zélés et s’ils étaient pour la plu­part de vraies têtes de cons, ils n’en étaient sou­vent pas moins attachés à la République. Mais, au regard de l’ampleur des nuisances que cause la police, mes désagréments ont été somme toute assez modestes, pour des raisons tenant à la fois aux circonstances et aux privilèges que me confèrent notamment mon sexe, la couleur de ma peau et ma classe sociale.
Qu’on ait ou non des griefs personnels contre elle, détester la police est une position politique. Dans une société capitaliste, raciste et patriarcale, choisir le camp des opprimé.e.s, des exploité.e.s et des tyrannisé.e.s, c’est compter la police parmi ses ennemis. »
Les contributeurs/contributrices : Philippe Néméh-Nombré, Robyn Maynard, Kristian Williams, Free Lands Free Peoples, Yannick Marhsall, Rémy-Paulin Twahirwa, Mad Resistance, Adore Goldman & Melina May du Cats, Alex S. Vitale, Cameron Rasmussen, Kirk « Jae » James, Dylan Rodriguez, George S. Rigakos, Mark Neocleous, Brendan McQuade, Kevin Walby et Tasasha Henderson.
Une présentation plus complète et la table des matières sur le site de l’éditeur. https://luxediteur.com/catalogue/1312-raisons-dabolir-la-police/
Des présentations/rencontres auront notamment lieu à Toulouse, Paris, Lyon, Caen Genève et Bruxelles en janvier (le calendrier est en cours d’organisation ; plus d’infos seront postées ici) ; en mars à Tiohti:áke/Montréal (Canada)
Pour info, je n’interviens pas dans les lieux qui ne sont pas accessibles aux personnes handicapées et qui ne pratiquent pas l’#AutodéfenseSanitaire – ce qui est le minimum quand on présente un livre sur l’abolitionnisme qui s’appuie sur une critique du validisme (#CareNotCops)
#AbolitionDeLaPolice
#1312RaisonsDAbolirLaPolice

Hello Bonjour, 👋 je suis prof de criminologie à l’université d’état de Californie, Chico (En californie du Nord, là où il y’a des incendies, pas Hollywood). Auparavant j’ai enseigné la sociologie à l’université de Lille 1. Je suis abolitionniste depuis une vingtaine d’années, c’est-à-dire que je milite pour l’#AbolitionDeLaPrison et plus largement du système pénal (cela inclut l’#AbolitionDeLaPolice. Mon engagement est lié à mon expérience d’avoir eu des proches incarcérés et c’est à la question dont la prison affecte aussi les proches des personnes détenues que j’ai consacré mon premier livre, Les détenus et leurs proches. Sentiments et solidarité à l’ombre des murs (le livre est devenu introuvable à part en ligne https://www.cairn.info/les-detenus-et-leurs-proches--9782746711280.htm). En 2019, j’ai publié Pour elles toutes. Femmes contre la prison (chez Lux https://luxediteur.com/catalogue/pour-elles-toutes/) qui propose une analyse des manières dont les femmes sont affectées par l’existence du système pénal (qu’elles soient victimes, criminalisées ou proches de prisonniers) et dans lequel je plaide pour l’#AbolitionnismePenal d’un point de vue féministe. En 2021, j’ai publié Crimes et Peines. Penser l’#AbolitionnismePenal (chez Grevis https://editionsgrevis.bigcartel.com/product/gwenola-ricordeau-crimes-peines) qui présente des traductions inédites en français d’auteur-es abolitionnistes : #NilsChristie, #LoukHulsman et #RuthMorris. Par ailleurs, mes travaux académiques portent sur la patrimonialisation des lieux d enfermement, les résistances des prisonniers (j’ai notamment travaillé avec Joël Charbit sur les syndicats de prisonniers) - mais aussi la sexualité et le genre en prison. Cette dernière année j’ai essentiellement travaillé sur la question de la police dans les mouvements et théories abolitionnistes - et je participe à un collectif d’écriture sur l’histoire des idées et mouvements abolitionnistes. Je suis ici pour partager des ressources/infos des mouvements abolitionnistes et des luttes anti carcérales & pour râler en prenant mon café le matin. Je parle souvent des incendies en Californie et de l’#Autodefensesanitaire. Mettez vos masques 😷, prenez soin les uns des autres #LeCapitalismeCEstLaMort. #CareNotCops #Introduction #introductionfr

Documenting the #movement safely: an infographic from @frontlinemedics on Instagram
#photojournalism #directaction #protest #communitycare #safety #organizing #activism #journalism #news #rally #BlackLivesMatter #Fuck12 #CareNotCops #AbolishThePolice #AbolishICE #StopLine3

RT @BLMChi@twitter.com

CPD held a mental health training at the same time as they were killing 22 yr old Myles Frazier who was in psychiatric crisis.

If nothing else, this should disabuse anyone of the notion that the answer is more training.

#DefundCPD #DisarmCPD #CareNotCops

🐦🔗: https://twitter.com/BLMChi/status/1131346067654619136