I really appreciate this-- I learned a lot from living in downtown ottawa during the trucker convoy, and i have been thinking a lot since then on how to be ready for similar stuff and be able to be useful to friends + neighbours every other time somewhere i live gets fashed up, knowing it's gonna happen again and again and again.
i definitely want/plan to write about it at more length sometime to organize my thoughts better! here are a few things that stood out to me about my experiences. they're mostly things i "knew" but that i hadn't experienced quite as vividly or intensely, that really put the knowledge into my body and life in a different way than before.
- i was living in an apartment building that was half market rental, half social housing, so it had a pretty big mix of people of different ages, abilities, backgrounds, resources, etc, and it also had a really strong culture of neighbourly chattiness, which was SUCH a huge deal, and made it so much easier to check in with people to see where people were at or who might need what kind of help. having existing relationships, even just on a "hi how's it going" basis makes it so much easier to work together in a crisis.
- my whiteness protects me a lot more than anything else about my body and how it gets read in the world puts me in danger, and my whiteness is something really useful to be able to "loan out" by accompanying racialized friends & neighbours through dangerous places.
- symbolic actions don't do much, actually blockading roads to physically prevent the people you don't want there from coming in is meaningful
- there is some opportunity to radicalize people who have assumed based on their own life experiences that police are there to protect them, when they experience that not being the case for them for the first time. i'm not sure how much it sticks.
- stuff will stay so fucked up after the initial crisis, probably, after everyone's attention has turned away. ottawa still has a hugely increased white supremacist presence from what it did before, although I don't know what combination it is of people coming to the city, people joining up with those groups, or people just understanding correctly that there will be no negative consequences for openly doing white supremacist organizing. a crisis has a long tail, and nazis are learning from their experiences so we should too.
I am really appreciating your assessment and it's a certain kind of relief to read because I feel like an endless bearer of damp moldy towels to the people around me in my life right now, and have been oriented toward readying / preserving energy / preparing for the distributed chaos and inviting people to join in. Fucking yay! Hope PA is treating you well.
Thanks!!! This has a lot of really useful stuff that I’m going to pass on. Because, even for those of us relatively safe (for now) up here in Canada, it feels like important information, including for helping us support and be in solidarity with y’all down there!!
On that note, and re what you were saying about having mutual aid/support networks, I’m asking the following for a recent friend. They’re Trans, Disabled (including mental health stuff I believe), IBPOC, and as you might imagine, terrified now that 45 has won again!!! And while they have some support, they’d like to connect with more. And they’ve also described a lot of isolation. So, I’m wondering if you or anyone here knows of some folks/groups in the Denver Colorado area they could connect with? They’re looking for emotional support, but probably also folks who’d be able to offer concrete logistical support especially if things get really gnarly. And I get the sense their family is a mixed bag on this, some members helpful, some very much not. Anyway, any suggestions folks can offer would be hugely appreciated!!!
I really appreciate this-- I learned a lot from living in downtown ottawa during the trucker convoy, and i have been thinking a lot since then on how to be ready for similar stuff and be able to be useful to friends + neighbours every other time somewhere i live gets fashed up, knowing it's gonna happen again and again and again.
i hope you can write or share about this, super helpful, if there's anything u wanna share here would love to hear it.
i definitely want/plan to write about it at more length sometime to organize my thoughts better! here are a few things that stood out to me about my experiences. they're mostly things i "knew" but that i hadn't experienced quite as vividly or intensely, that really put the knowledge into my body and life in a different way than before.
- i was living in an apartment building that was half market rental, half social housing, so it had a pretty big mix of people of different ages, abilities, backgrounds, resources, etc, and it also had a really strong culture of neighbourly chattiness, which was SUCH a huge deal, and made it so much easier to check in with people to see where people were at or who might need what kind of help. having existing relationships, even just on a "hi how's it going" basis makes it so much easier to work together in a crisis.
- my whiteness protects me a lot more than anything else about my body and how it gets read in the world puts me in danger, and my whiteness is something really useful to be able to "loan out" by accompanying racialized friends & neighbours through dangerous places.
- symbolic actions don't do much, actually blockading roads to physically prevent the people you don't want there from coming in is meaningful
- there is some opportunity to radicalize people who have assumed based on their own life experiences that police are there to protect them, when they experience that not being the case for them for the first time. i'm not sure how much it sticks.
- stuff will stay so fucked up after the initial crisis, probably, after everyone's attention has turned away. ottawa still has a hugely increased white supremacist presence from what it did before, although I don't know what combination it is of people coming to the city, people joining up with those groups, or people just understanding correctly that there will be no negative consequences for openly doing white supremacist organizing. a crisis has a long tail, and nazis are learning from their experiences so we should too.
I am really appreciating your assessment and it's a certain kind of relief to read because I feel like an endless bearer of damp moldy towels to the people around me in my life right now, and have been oriented toward readying / preserving energy / preparing for the distributed chaos and inviting people to join in. Fucking yay! Hope PA is treating you well.
Thanks!!! This has a lot of really useful stuff that I’m going to pass on. Because, even for those of us relatively safe (for now) up here in Canada, it feels like important information, including for helping us support and be in solidarity with y’all down there!!
On that note, and re what you were saying about having mutual aid/support networks, I’m asking the following for a recent friend. They’re Trans, Disabled (including mental health stuff I believe), IBPOC, and as you might imagine, terrified now that 45 has won again!!! And while they have some support, they’d like to connect with more. And they’ve also described a lot of isolation. So, I’m wondering if you or anyone here knows of some folks/groups in the Denver Colorado area they could connect with? They’re looking for emotional support, but probably also folks who’d be able to offer concrete logistical support especially if things get really gnarly. And I get the sense their family is a mixed bag on this, some members helpful, some very much not. Anyway, any suggestions folks can offer would be hugely appreciated!!!