Anon – Take Your Freedom – Black Autonomy & Abolition Is Our Birthright [2022]
Source: trueleappress.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/129.-take-your-freedom.pdf
Study Guide: This zine makes an argument for an insurrectionary approach to activism and organising, rejecting ‘formal’ organisation, on top of this, it presents a rather neat blueprint for types of actions a group can take and pointed criticisms of NGOs and your typical left-wing organisations. Following the first section, there is a graphic called “The Police/Prisons State Is…” is stylised in a whirl pattern here which due to formatting I cannot reproduce, please see the source for the actual image. June Jordan’s poem ‘Poem About My Rights’ has been omitted. Date taken from publishers 2022 catalogue. https://trueleappress.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/additions-to-the-catalog-booklet.pdf
If the abolition of slave-manacles began as a vision of hands without manacles, then this is the year; if the shutdown of extermination camps began as imagination of a land without barbed wire or the crematorium, then this is the year; if every rebellion begins with the idea that conquerors on horseback are not man-legged gods, that they too drown if plunged in the river, then this is the year. -Martin Espada
Why We Are Abolitionists
When they walked off the beach and into the ocean at Igbo landing, when they leapt from the decks of slave ships in the Middle Passage, when they ran from plantations knowing they could be killed for the crime of stealing back their own freedom, when they escaped and established marriages and kilombos: free communities of fugitives and indigenous people, our ancestors chose freedom and autonomy in the next world rather than enslavement in this one.
Abolition is our birthright and it is the debt we owe our ancestors. We know that police forces in the United States evolved directly out of slave patrols, and that laws, prisons and jails were established for the explicit purpose of preserving the institution of slavery: that’s why the 13th amendment includes the clause “except as punishment for a crime.” We will never be free, and our ancestors will never be at peace, until every cell is empty and every cop is strapped of badge and gun and every law is nothing but a scary story for teenagers to whisper around campfires.
Until we abolish the police, prisons, laws, and borders, no Black person is free.
We are the ones we’ve been waiting for – June Jordan
What Is Autonomy?
Autonomy is freedom. Autonomy is what the rebels and angelic troublemakers among our ancestors chose over life itself. Autonomy is the right of each and every living creature to do what we want with our bodies and our lives, and to live our lives on our own terms.
Autonomy is being free:
-To get what we need to survive, no matter what.
-To live wherever we want, however we want, with whoever we want
-To define our genders and sexualities for ourselves
-To connect to spirituality and tradition of and how we want to
-To create families if and however we want
-To address conflict and harm in the ways we want
-To have abortions, access hormones and/or surgery , to choose freely form the full range of options for all types of medicine, healthcare, mobility aids, etc that we need.
-From racism, misogynoir, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, capitalism, and every other system that gives anyone the power to steal anyone else’s freedom.
All About Autonomist Politics
Autonomist politics are based in the truth that the freedom and autonomy of every living creature is sacred. Anarchy, Anarcha-transfeminism, Anarkata, insurrectionism, and Anti-Authoritarianism are all different names for autonomous politics: but the books we read and the labels we use don’t really matter. What’s important is that we believe in abolition: abolishing police, prisons, borders, laws, and all forms of social control and domination. There are three essential parts to every type of autonomist political practice:
- Self-Determination & Decentralization
Self-Determination means that not only is every individual free to choose how they engage in the work of abolition and who they do it with, but every community is free to determine what their collective needs are, how they would like to work together to meet them, and what they want abolition to look like, based on their particular geography, history, culture, traditions and spiritual wisdom; and that every single member of every community participates directly in making those decisions. It means that there is no singular right way to do things, and that no organizational or bureaucratic structure is more important than the rights and autonomy of each individual or community, so we don’t operate in formal organization structures subject one another to social hierarchies. Self-Determination means that everyone is respected as a leader and no one can be forced to obey anyone else.
- Mutual Aid
Mutual aid projects are long-term commitments by communities to meet their own survival outside of of the systems of capitalism and the law. Mutual aid is also, necessarily, mutual: it’s people who are being harmed by the same systems working together to defend themselves from the violence of those systems. It recognizes that the reasons we all struggle to meet our survival needs is not because there’s anything wrong with us, but because of everything that is wrong with the society we live in. Mutual aid projects are co-stewared collectively, and there is no authority deciding who deserves support and who doesn’t. Mutual aid projects can be things like free food distros, jail and prison letter-writing projects, eviction defense, community distros, jail and prison letter-writing projects, eviction defense, community skill-shares and political education, even free house parties where folks can enjoy music and friendship without having to pay an expensive cover. There are as many opportunities for mutual aid as there are things we all need, deserve and enjoy!
- Direct Action
Direct action is when we act like we are already free, and directly change things about our environments and communities in ways that make us more free. Mutual Aid is a type of direct action. This can look like liberating the food and resources we need from stores owned by big corporations and distributing it for free in our neighborhoods. Direct action is both creative and destructive: we destroy the symbols and institutions of white supremacy, like police ars and jails and corporate businesses; and we build infrastructure to support autonomy by doing things like bailing our friends out of jail, creating public art without permission, taking over abandoned houses and buildings so people can live there for free, sharing in the raising of the kids in our community without following the rules of legal guardianship or involving CPS.
We need, in every community, a group of angelic troublemakers. – Bayard Austin
What Does Autonomous Action Look Like?
Autonomous Actions can be really big, like marches with thousands of people. Mass autonomous actions like this when communities take direct action as a collective, without being led by any singular person, nonprofit, or other type of organization. Autonomous action means everyone is looking out for each other’s safety, access, and needs while we’re in the streets together; and no one is “in charge” of policing people’s behavior or telling a crowd what to do. Anyone can call for an autonomous action: you don’t have to have any “organizing” experience, political connections, or clout to have the right to call on your community to take direct action. Sometimes autonomous actions are called for by individuals, sometimes they are called for by underground networks or collectives, and often they are called for anonymously.
They can also start out as actions that an organization or “leader” has called for and is trying to control. Any Black person who shows up in the streets has the right to be free and encourage others to exercise their autonomy as well. This means that even if the “organizers” of an action are trying to tell folks what they can and can’t do, we don’t have to listen. Sometimes folks who don’t want to be told how to act can even initiate marches that break away from actions that are being controlled by nonprofits or celebrity activists.
Autonomous Actions Can Also Be Small:
Something you do alone or with a small group of trusted friends, sometimes even in secret. Sometimes individuals and small group can agree to coordinate a specific date when everyone will take lots of different and separate actions. Mutual aid projects like court and jail support, food and grocery distros, eviction defense, and community gardens in abandoned lots are all autonomous actions. Graffiti, stealing of confederate flags, guerrilla theater, and puppet shows are also types of creative autonomous action. Autonomous action can be anything you can dream up!
Why Are Some Actions Called Anonymously?
- COINTELPRO showed us how easily state can target and destroy militant movements when “leaders” and organizations are highly visible and publicly identifiable. Anonymity is a counter-surveillance safety measure.
- Nonprofits and political organizations have betrayed and co-opted social movements in ways that deeply harm and endanger our communities, so many people are starting to move away from formal organization as a framework for taking direct action. Most autonomous actions are just called by small groups of friends with no formal association to each other, so there isn’t really any name that would make sense to put on flyers and social media graphics.
- Creating a culture where communities show up for direct actions even when they don’t personally know the people calling for them helps more people feel empowered to organize direct actions, and disrupts the culture of “activist celebrities.”
What Are The Demands Of An Autonomous Action?
Nonprofit organizations have warped our understanding of what direct action is. They define direct action as something people do to put pressure on political “targets” like elected officials, to meet “demands” by making policy changes. But that’s not what direct action really is: it’s about using our collective power as regular people to change the world around us DIRECTLY, instead of relying on “targets” to change things for us.
Autonomous actions don’t have any one person or organization dictating the “message.” People come to actions with lots of different ideas about how to get free, and autonomous actions leave space for us to make and meet many demands at once.
How Do I Know An Autonomous Action Is Safe?
You don’t. There is no safe way to fight back against police violence. As Black folks, we know we aren’t safe in public no matter what we are doing, wearing, or saying. Our abolitionist ancestors were courageous and bold because they knew we have never had anything to lose but our chains, that there has never been and will never be any safety for us in this world until we abolish the state. “Peaceful” and “nonviolent” protests are often extremely violent and unsafe, because police don’t care whether or not protesters are following the law and attack people for gathering to protest regardless of how they do it.
While there is no way to guarantee everyone’s safety, it is on all of us to look out for one another and do what we can to protect each, and there’s lots of stuff we can all do to keep ourselves and each other safe. Even though we are never safe, we can always be careful with each other and dangerous together. It’s important to think carefully and prepare for the risks associated with taking direct action, including the possibility of arrest and catching charges. If you can’t trust yourself to stay silent under questioning, or to reject plea deals that sell out other people and damage the movement, you shouldn’t be taking direct action with other people.
We are each other’s harvest: we are each other’s business: we are each other’s magnitude and bond.
– Gwendolyn Brooks
We Keep Us Safe
Anti-Repression Work is the work we do to build up the strength and knowledge of our communities to resist attacks from the state in the form of policing, surveillance, militarization, imprisonment and legislation.
Communities of color face repression and violence from the police and the state all the time in the form of ICE raids, and surveillance of Black and Brown neighborhoods, and surveillance of immigrant and muslim communities. Communities of color that take political action face even more repression in the form of political arrests, trumped-up charges, surveillance, incarceration, and infiltration.
Anti Repression work look like jail and court support, prisoner support; educating one another about our rights and about how to fight charges and practice non-cooperation with the state in court; and building our capacity for handling conflict.
Ways We Can Protect Each Other In The Streets
- Write down and share your local National Lawyers Guild Mass Defense Legal Support hotline number, which you can find here nlg.org/massdefenseprogram
- If a march is going too fast and people are getting left a behind, start a chant like, “Slow down, tighten up!” to encourange the crowd to find a pace that everyone can keep up with.
- Always roll with a buddy or a crew. If you see someone there alone who looks like they could use company and support, and you have some street experience, offer to be their buddy!
- NEVER record anything, not even speeches or “peaceful” actions where nobody is doing anything illegal. Police and the state target people they identify in footage from protests, with charges and sometimes even with killings in the cases of many Black activists who were disappeared after the Ferguson uprisings. If someone else is taking pictures of video, ask them to stop and if they refuse, hold up a sign , banner or umbrella to block the camera and /or hide people’s faces.
- If police are coming in to make arrests, help undocumented folks and others who can’t risk arrest get away from the scene however you can. Practice and skill up in de-arresting so you can help folks get away. Have conversations about de-arrest and ask your buddies if that’s an intervention they’d like you to make if they get grabbed.
- If you see someone get arrested, try to get the legal name and date of death, so it’s easier to find them and bail them out. If there are arrests at the action, show up to do jail support afterwards! Bring water, snacks, food, and/or cigarettes if you can.
- If you have the meansand are br protective supplies like water bottles, goggles, heat-resistant gloves, bandannas, etc., bring enough to share and offer them to others.
- NEVER talk to cops. If you are stopped and /or questioned, ask, “Am I free to go?” and if you’re being detained, say, “I choose to remain silent.”
- NEVER bring your phone to an action. Leave your phone at home, or at least in your car!
- NEVER help ANYONE identify another protester. Do not police anyone else’s behavior, or accuse people of being undercover cops unless you know for a FACT they are.
Street Actions:
- Start bail funds and jail and court support projects in your community: ones that serve everyone, not just protesters.
- Start a prisoner letter writing project, and talk to your community about how y’all can support the families of incarcerated people in your area.
- Cultivate strong, trusting relationships and build bridges between activist communities and other communities facing repression. Educate yourself and your community about different transformative justice practices; and use them to handle conflict without involving the state.
- Educate yourself and your community about digital security, anti-repression cultural practices, your legal rights, and how to resist surviellance and counterinsurgency programs like CVE (Countering Violent Extremism) in Black, immigrant, and Muslim communities..
- Start ICE watch and cop watch projects.
- Root out patriarchy, misogynoir, transphobia, classism, colorism and ableism is your community. Misogynists and others who use their privilege to dominate others and control spaces are the state’s best tools for destroying communities and movements.
- Reject respectability politics: don’t allow those who victim-blame to have a platform. Don’t entertain “good protester/bad protester” rhetoric or language that justifies the criminalization of any community.
- Create networks of community care, peer support, and mutual aid.
- Support your friends who get arrested, are facing charges, or are doing time, and call on your community to help support them. Remember that all prisoners are political prisoners!
- Have noise demos and/or sign outside prisons and jails to let those inside know they’re on folks minds.
All kinds of kids will die
Who don’t believe in lies, and bribes, and contentment
And a lousy peace.
Of course, the wise and the learned
Who pen editorials in the papers, and the gentelement with Dr. In front of their names
White and black,
Who make surveys and write books
Will live on weaving words to smother the kids who die
And the sleazy courts,
And the bribe-reaching police,
And the blood-loving generals,
And the money-loving preachers
Will all raise their hands against the kids who die,
Beating them with laws and clubs and bayonets and bullets
To fighting the people-
For the kids who die are like iron in the blood of the people-
And the old and rich don’t want the people
To taste the iron of the kids who die,
Don’t want the people to get wise to their own power,
-Langston Hughes