handstandsonthecatastrophecurve:
Probably the saddest sign of our times is how many people respond with complete bewilderment if you mention direct action. Cutting border fences? punching nazis? sharing resources? blocking arms transports? building alternatives? They’re not even outraged, they’re just confused.
It’s like they’re so caught up in the spectacle of petitions, calling senators, ‘awareness’ and media visbility that they’ve completely forgotten that you can also just do shit without begging for permission.
Seriously, we’ve been so conditioned to seek permission for literally anything that the idea of just doing something yourself is seen as utterly unfeasible, pie in the sky, nonsense.
I for one am a huge believer in direct action and just making the changes we want to see instead of asking the powerful to implement them.
Want to house the homeless? Occupy some abandoned buildings. Want to replace your yard with a vegetable garden? Get you hands on some seeds and plant that shit. We can accomplish so much more by doing instead of begging.
Y’all are white aren’t you…
I am white, and yes, I’ll immediately admit that there are far far less consequences for me when I break the law than there are for people of color. That’s absolutely 100% true. But when I think of examples of effective direct action, most of the people that I most admire are people of color.
The Black Panthers are a famous example. Did it get them infiltrated, undermined, spied on and killed? Yes. Because direct action is effective which makes it dangerous. But on a smaller, local scale too, I generally see white people clinging to the illusion that the system cares about them and that voting and asking for change will make their lives better, while I see people of color rising to the challenge of actually doing shit about it.
In the Netherlands for example, white transgender activists have spend decades writing petitions and letters and protests to the big hospitals about the way hormones are kept inaccessible through waitinglists and gate keeping. Nothing worked. Until Dutch trans women of color (many of them sex workers) decided they had had enough and simply organized their own open clinic that provided access to hormones without waiting lists or gate keeping. They just went out and did what was needed without asking for permission.
And that is the pattern I see around me all the time. Most of the people breaking the law to help refugees are people of color, often with a refugee history of their own. Most of the people doing the most difficult work of building alternatives are people of color. So credit where credit’s due.
Until Dutch trans women of color (many of them sex workers) decided they
had had enough and simply organized their own open clinic that provided
access to hormones without waiting lists or gate keeping.I have literally never heard about this before. Does it like still exist or was it sadly short lived?
It still exists! They keep a bit if a low profile for the moment but you can distribute this info. PROUD Nederland and Trans United are organizing an open clinic almost every 3rd Sunday of the Month, 12-18 pm at PIC Amsterdam.
QueerAnarchism 