May Day is Our Day: A Decentralized Callout

A call for actions and activity on May Day 2021. Originally posted to Puget Sound Anarchists.

A year ago, when the Covid-19 pandemic first made itself felt, some anarchists on occupied Duwamish Territory (Seattle) put out calls for decentralized actions on May 1st, the fighting holiday of the working classes.

We return to that idea with new perspectives and experiences. Taking up the call: “This May Day we invite organizations, crews, and individuals to take the initiative and plan actions reflecting our diverse and interconnected struggles.”

Pandemic-life magnified and fully exposed the traumas of the settler-capitalist system. An insurrection showed us ways to fight it.

Well-off Karens raged over working from home or wearing a mask. Meanwhile, “Essential Workers,” whose vital jobs were often the subject of racist, patriarchal, or classist derision shortly before, were given a gold sticker. A pat on the back. Then they were sent off to face the pandemic at the same poverty wages.

Who was condemned to face Covid-19’s worst ravages? Incarcerated people already brutalized by America’s vast police and prison industrial complex, the plantation which never died.

Seattle is in a years-long, declared “Homelessness state of emergency.” Now mass-evictions are on the horizon. More and more people fall behind on rent. Moratoriums won’t last forever. Courts open. Sheriffs ready to evict, police to sweep.

“This #MayDay we invite organizations, crews, and individuals to take the initiative and plan actions reflecting our diverse and interconnected struggles.”https://t.co/ffk4Jw9UBg#SeattleProtests #LandBack #BlackLivesMatter #acab

— May Day Seattle (@MayDaySea2021) April 11, 2021

May Day is a day where we fight our interlocking struggles together. Contact your friends. Get with your fellow organizers. Speak up at meetings to plan actions and events for the holiday. Past May Days have seen pickets of abusive fast food restaurants, bloc parties outside Youth Jail contractors, car caravans, attacks on banks and political symbols, and mutual aid efforts. Learn from the past, learn from this last year.

Whether heavily publicized or a careful secret, make plans across time and space. Consider gathering outside the heavily-policed downtown core. What needs doing in your own neighborhood or suburb?

Does a nearby encampment need support? Be friendly, ask what they need. Help supply or feed them and begin building bridges with your neighbors. Get some friends together to help even more.

Organizing in your workplace? Many people have to work on the holiday, which makes it a great date for that workplace action they’ve been planning. Or perhaps the day to finally break the ice with some coworkers about making some changes.

The struggle to abolish the police has not been won. Many liberals are eager to reinstate their own vision of Law and Order. Take to the streets and fuck the police.

If safe to get together in person or securely, plan a small direct action at night. With a bit of forethought and awareness in the moment, you can accomplish a lot in even a couple minutes.

Create memes, art, music, writing, tags. Cover the city, flood the web.

May Day is our day!

1. Our actions are autonomous and will be undertaken in the broad spirit of tearing down racism, capitalism, colonialism and the cis-het patriarchy.
2. We suggest observing the St. Paul Principals in regard to other actions that happen this day
3. We will engage in direct action rather than merely symbolic action

We encourage folks in other communities to put out similar calls and plan actions that align with your local struggles!

Find us at @MayDaySea2021 on twitter