RADICAL SELF-DEFENSE: REPORTBACK FROM DURHAM ASSEMBLY – 12.18

From Workers Assemble

We organized the room into a circle, so that every member of the Assembly could see and hear one another. What started as a group of four people grew to well over a dozen comrades as we began the meeting, taking turns around the circle to introduce ourselves: name, preferred pronouns (if you have them), where you rolled in from, and why you came out to the Assembly tonight. Answers varied around the room – to take action, to discover and clarify individual politics, to experiment with and prioritize forms of organization, to learn, to smash the State into tiny fucking pieces. A few attendees were even from out of town; hopefully they saw the beginnings of a model to implement back home with their people.

After introductions, a statement was issued as a brief summation of #WorkersAssemble, our goals, method, and Points of Unity – we are an anarchist movement for the full abolition of capitalism and the State, our method is federation through action based on affinity, and the Point of Unity which we prioritized within the Assembly was diversity of tactics in terms of militancy – a mutual respect and support for nonviolence, self-defense, and liberatory violence (as counter to dominating violence) as a spectrum of resistance.

Our agenda for the night developed into four main categories: community self-defense, community sustainability, combatting racism and patriarchy, and neighborhood organization.

COMMUNITY SELF-DEFENSE

To jump-start the night, it was immediately recognized that we need to begin mapping hostile organizations/individuals throughout Durham, and throughout all of North Carolina and neighboring states. At first, these was narrowed to the scope of fascist/white-supremacist organizations, such as the Pelham Loyal Whites Knights of the KKK or the Virginia Flaggers. The goal is to establish awareness of the enemies in our spaces, and assess their size, their militancy, their patterns of action and their outreach, etc. The scope of this mapping eventually broadened to include politicians and actors within the State, openly-reactionary corporate entities, and members of the Durham slave-patrol (“police department”).

A discussion was raised on attitudes of hostility towards the freshly woken/disenchanted citizen in anarchist/antifascist spaces: how do we welcome new comrades who are in the process of shaking off delusions of liberalism, and continue to radicalize them successfully? Through the mutual respect of personal limitations, through a recognition for the need of a diversity of tactics, through radicalization by action, and through actively acknowledging the immediate necessity of self-defense and liberatory violence for those who use them as a means to liberation. For those who maintain a posture of personal non-violence, where does this tactic intersect with radicalism and antifascism? Most immediately through education – particularly for newcomers – and we asked what an antifascist community education working-group would focus on:

• Anarchism/Antifascism 101 Workshops
• Starting an Antifa Affinity-Group Workshop
• Black Blocs 101 Workshops and Zines
• Developing a zine explaining radical/revolutionary language for newcomers into our spaces
• A communique on “What White Anti-racist Action Looks Like”
• Radical Street Resistance Workshops
• A zine on the various forms of organizing: affinity-groups, crews, collectives, working-groups, etc.

The conversation then moved forward to active community self-defense. One antifa affinity-group mentioned the need to begin designating Durham as an antifascist zone. This involves tagging as many spaces in Durham as possible – particularly those in high-risk areas for para-military fascist violence – with as many stickers, fliers, and wheatpastings as possible.

We likewise brought up the need for weapons and martial arts trainings in the community. As #WorkersAssemble – and with help from comrades at Piedmont Redneck Revolt, we’re organizing weekly Weapons Training Workshops, in which we’ll teach the fundamentals of firearm safety, their history, their variety, and where we’ll practice live fire drills with handguns, shotguns, and rifles. This will be done in small groups of four, and a priority in scheduling will be placed for PoC, LGBTQ+, immigrants, and women – they are at a significantly higher risk of immediate State and para-military violence. It was mentioned that United Thai Boxing & MMA had already organized a free martial arts community workshop, and it was requested that we follow up on their calendar to see if others are already scheduled. One comrade mentioned their personal work addressing the need for a dedicated network of armed, trained comrades capable of (1) mobilizing to the defense of targeted/threatened communities, and (2) providing these communities with tools for self-defense.

Delegates from the Triangle Industrial Workers of the World pointed out the intersection of this work with their efforts at forming a Durham General Defense Committee, and a discuss was raised whether this work fell within the domain of a single organization like a GDC. #WorkersAssemble envisions a different kind of revolutionary ecology for Durham: rather than a single monocultural organization that engages in antifa/anti-racist work, we believe the best approach is “multiplicity” – creating a biodiversity of several dedicated and effective antifa affinity-groups, crews, militias, and organizations which can federate with one another based on contextual and situational affinity. We believe this ecology of resistance is more dynamic, more resilient, and more effective.

It was also noted that affinity-groups should develop their own internal coded language for use during actions, as well as the need to discuss independent communications infrastructure at the next Assembly. One street medic urged the Assembly to remember proper protocol in the streets: medics need to be on the perimeter, keeping on an eye on the bloc; the bloc needs to maintain situational awareness, and to keep an eye on their medics – who are commonly the first to be snatched by the cops mid-action. It was asked that they should draft a “Proper Street Medic Support” communique for distribution throughout Durham and within blocs.

COMMUNITY SUSTAINABILITY

After a ten minute break, we re-assembled to begin discussing community sustainability; in particular, feeding the Commune. The Assembly raised three points of approach that could be built simultaneously: building affinity-groups for guerilla gardening (seizing unoccupied/uncultivated community spaces and gardening in them), setting up a distributed food collective organized through individual home garden-boxes, and establishing a Durham-chapter of Food Not Bombs.

This work will also include organizing Gardening Workshops and Knowing the Land Workshops, the latter to cultivate an renewed relationship with our local habitat and ecology.

From here we began to discuss other areas of community sustainability that comrades in the room were cultivating: a trans clothing share/donation center; a new-born clothing-rotation system for new mothers. One member mentioned the possibility of restarting Durham’s Really Really Free Market, where folks bring everything they no longer want, and freely take from what they need.

Another priority that surfaced was for community medical stores/caches, where people could access the medicines/medical supplies they needed. One comrade mentioned the ability to setup workshops for administering NARCAN, a life-saving drug that can be used during narcotic overdoses.

PATRIARCHY AND RACISM

While #WorkersAssemble does not root its theory or practice of struggle in identity politics, it was recognized that unique identities are characterized by specific experiences of oppression and domination. These identities need the spaces and support to develop their own assemblies/committees/working-groups/organizations to fight for their liberation. The development of Women’s Assemblies, LGBTQ+ Assemblies and Assemblies of Color were encouraged, along with their own corresponding Self-Defense Units.

A particular application for Women’s/LGBTQ+ Self-Defense Units was suggested: protection on UNC/Duke’s campuses against rape-culture, slut-shaming and queer-bashing. This opened up the Assembly for a conversation on gendered violence, and how we can begin to develop a model to successfully deal with it. One comrade described their experiences working with survivors and attempting to seek justice through the State, particularly through police departments – to put simply, it does not work. Survivors rarely receive any meaningful form of justice from the State, that justice is never on their terms, and often they are forced to relieve their traumas while defending their reputations simply to be believed. Likewise, restorative justice models and accountability processes (those which attempt to bring the offender face-to-face with their victim), while affective in dealing with crimes like theft that stem from unmet community needs, have proven to be ineffective in dealing with gendered violence like rape, which stems from dominating social relationships. One suggested alternative method was developing a model of radical, confrontational justice through liberatory violence – survivors of rape organizing with members of the community to kneecap their rapists.

Another comrade in the Assembly with an educational/working background in gendered violence noted that often this form of confrontation isn’t desired by survivors themselves. They pointed out that while liberatory violence is a form of justice that survivors should have access to (should they choose it), the true goal is to build a framework for survivor-based models of justice – a system in which survivors hold the power to determine what needs to be done to correct the crime. They described their work with Indigenous models of survivor-based justice, in which the elders of the community and the families in question collectively confront the offender.

It was decided that we should hold a Gendered Violence Workshop, to discuss how inter-personal relationships of violence develop, the stigmas we knowingly and unknowingly perpetuate against survivors that makes it more difficult for them to access support, etc.

In discussing racism, immediately we established the need for a community cop-watch. This tied into building a map of the Durham slave-patrol. After learning who the cops in Durham are, the principle is simple: you see a cop, you film a cop, and you share that video through social media. In any situation where you are having face-to-face interaction with the cops, the first order at hand is to learn your legal rights: #WorkersAssemble will be organizing a Know Your Rights Workshop as a preliminary course for those who want to be part of the cop-watch program.

We also discussed the need for a workshop on the History of Policing, to spread a wide understanding of the slave-patrols, their history, and their social function. Durham has had success with these workshops in the past through organizations like Durham Beyond Policing.

NEIGHBORHOOD ORGANIZING

With only fifteen minutes left of a three-hour Assembly, we were able to touch briefly on the idea of forming neighborhood assemblies in each of our respective zip-codes. This model would be similar to the Seattle Neighborhood Action Coalition that was just formed, in which each district of Seattle has a corresponding Neighborhood Action Council: in our model, there is at least one Neighborhood Assembly per zip-code, which would meet regularly to create a point of encounter for more federation. This work should start with comrades finding spaces in their immediate neighborhood that can be occupied as Assembly space, and outreach to their neighbors.

All this in three hours, with a room of less than twenty people. Imagine what we could do with a whole city? Durham is set for a ground-well of grassroots resistance, and is pregnant with revolutionary potential.

These are the informal working-groups that could be created out of the suggested actions/workshops (these are also potential direct actions/workshops you could organize yourself):

Antifa

• Mapping NC Fascism/White Supremacy
• Starting an Antifa Affinity-Group 101 Workshop
• Black-Bloc Tactics 101 Workshop
• Street Resistance Workshop
• Tagging Durham as an Antifa-Zone
• Weapons Training Workshops
• Martial Arts Workshops
• Building an Armed Response Network
• Know Your Rights Workshop -> Cop-watch

Education

• Primer Radical Language Zine
• Revolutionary Welcome Pack
• Communique on “What Does White Anti-Racist Action Look Like”
• Communique on “Proper Street Medic Support”

Sustainability

• Guerilla Gardening Affinity-Group
• Distributed Community Food Collective
• Durham-chapter of Food Not Bombs
• Knowing the Land Workshop
• Trans Clothing-Share Network
• New-born Clothing Rotation Network
• Durham Really Really Free Market
• NARCAN Administration Workshop

Racism & Patriarchy

• Childcare/Tutoring for Children of Immigrants in ICE Detention
• Gendered-Violence Survivors Support Workshop
• History of the Slave-Patrols Workshop