Author: kloncke

bfp at Feministe, Indigenous Land Defense at Home

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The owner of this business, which desecrated a 3,500-year-old Ohlone shellmound in order to construct its offices, now wants to build a vacation home on other sacred indigenous land: this time on Rattlesnake Island in Lake County, CA.

Don’t have much time to chat today, friends, but those of you who’ve been following Kloncke for a while will know just how jazzed I am that brownfemipower (a.k.a. bfp) is guest-blogging at Feministe.  She’s taking an in-depth material look at her home state of Michigan, or, in her words:

While I’m here, I’ll be working to contextualize all the big words: “post-industrialization,” “nationalism,” “white supremacist heteropatriarchy,” “decay porn,” “borders,” “distribution systems,” etc within a framework that centers Detroit, Michigan, and the US Midwest.

Or I may just wind up posting pretty pictures. Who knows. :D

In her first post offering background on the region, bfp begins with a brief overview of the indigenous peoples from whom the land was stolen.

It’s important to know about Michigan’s history of colonization because indigenous peoples in Michigan are still still struggling with the vestiges of colonization. They are also leaders in the fight against corporate violence against the land and the people. There is often a false idea that the violences of industrialization play out almost exclusively in urban areas. But those serene lakes and beautiful mountains we all like going to for our week vacation are the same places that keep the urban factories up and running.

Yep, primitive accumulation, and capitalists’ access to natural resources, has everything to do with imperialism, colonization, genocide, enslavement, and misogyny and heteropatriarchy.  Advance the Struggle had a good post a while back touching on this link between pro-communist struggle and indigenous land defense, using as an illustrative example the recently successful defense of Sogorea Te / Glen Cove, up in Vallejo (photos of the encampment at the end of that post) — in which Ryan, I, and other East Bay Solidarity friends played a very small supportive role.

Now it looks like we and EastBaySol may have another opportunity to support the defense of indigenous sacred land from bourgeois development.  (The aggressor’s business, Nady Electronics, has offices in Emeryville, about a mile away from Ryan’s and my apartment, located right on top of an Ohlone sacred shellmound.  The guy just won’t let up, apparently.)  I received this press release in my email today.  The money quote:

Supervisor Comstock, the Lake County Board Supervisor who cast the deciding vote, commented, “I’m a huge proponent of private property rights.” He added, “My family’s been living in Lake County for 150 years- you can’t get more native than that”.

Yet another example of institutional white supremacy and heteropatriarchy supporting the accumulation of capital & resources to the (historically white, patriarchal) ruling class.  Time to remind this dude, through direct action and defense, that yes, you can get more native than that.  Entire press release after the jump.

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Introducing Eloise (with video)

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Day 1: napping on my lap, arm bandage from blood test
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Continuing in the vein of plants, pets, and partnership — or the ways in which companions both reflect the quality of our treatment, and express their own nature independent of us — in the past 20 hours since we brought her home, our newly adopted kitten Eloise has proven both delightfully surprising and shockingly predictable.

At the city shelter where we adopted her, the staff warned us that Eloise would probably be extremely shy. She and two siblings were found in a car (not sure whether this makes them stray or semi-feral), terrified of the long human arms reaching down to nab them. Within the cat pound’s contained visiting space, surrounded by cages, she seemed calm enough on our betoweled laps, but didn’t purr or rub her head against us like some of the older cats did. One of the women on staff wore a foreboding face when she advised us to handle the kitten as much as possible once we got her home, so that hopefully she would grow comfortable with humans. Sobered but optimistic, we left her over the weekend to be spayed Monday morning. Following that surgical ordeal, we anticipated a drugged bundle of quasi-hostility retreating to the remotest corners of our bathroom for the first days or weeks.

Sure enough, the minute we lifted her from the vet-issued cardboard carrying case and set her on our bathroom tiles, she fled to the farthest (and dirtiest) corner (straight past the cat bed I so lovingly fashioned for her out of a cardboard box and an accidentally-shrunken cashmere sweater). There she remained, cowering behind the dusty toilet.

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Ten Year Anniversary of the War

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via Lydia Pelot-Hobbs.

On the morning ten years ago when we in Sacramento heard the news, I remember my dad driving me to school. Us listening to the radio. I didn’t really understand what was happening (then again, who did?), but I remember starting to cry when I realized that people in other parts of the world live in fear of bombings every day.

What does it mean to hope and pray for a better society, free from imperialist wars, patriarchy, racism, and class, without rejecting or wishing away the current reality?

To me, it means: now (the present) is the best and only time we have in which to try our hardest. To keep building toward the freedoms we wish for all beings.

We may not live to see it, but we can help create it.

New Plants, New Kitten, (Re)New(ed) Partnership

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I hear that in Narcotics Anonymous, they advise people starting or re-starting recovery to avoid taking a lover. Human relationships are complicated and fraught. First, start with a plant. If you can keep a plant alive and healthy, then you might be ready to adopt an animal. If you can care for the animal for a good while, then you might open to the possibility of a romantic partner.

In some ways, companions are mirrors for our own behavior. Can we water a plant faithfully? Can we walk a dog consistently, and clean out a cat litter box regularly? Can we respond reliably to the needs of another being?

And in other ways, companions remain true to their own nature. For instance, if a cactus plant needs to be constantly avalanched with sunlight, it might just go ahead and die in our small dark Seattle apartment. No matter how tender our plantly serenades, or how perfectly calibrated our soil-dampening schedule, this thing needs sun, and sun we ain’t got.

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Last week I brought home three Haworthia plants, of a genus native to Southern Africa. I’m not sure how well they’ll do in our house: one on the kitchen windowsill, one on the dining table, and one in our bedroom, brightening our meditation space (which I’ve temporarily surrendered to a small but persistent faction of the invasive Argentine ant supercolony that has overtaken the West Coast).

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On Thursday, Ryan and I went to the Berkeley city animal shelter with our friends Kate and Rane, and after hours of tough deliberation (so many cats to love = virtually impossible to select just one), signed the paperwork for a semi-feral black kitten, two months old. She’ll be spayed Monday morning and then come home with us, sequestered in the bathroom until she gets comfortable enough with us, her bed, litter box, etc., to finally roam the apartment. I hope she likes it here.

So yeah, co-adopting an animal. How adult-like. It’s nearly two years that Ryan and I have been together, including nine months in this apartment. He’s lived with a partner before. First time for me. I watch myself adjusting to coupledom.

[To be continued . . .]

Quick Snapshot of Today’s Action

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Polaroid by Anastasia. More than 20 people came out to flyer under hot Oakland sun.

In a crucial step for Mel’s fight to win back his job and improve conditions at the site where he had been working as a security guard, over 20 people from the still-fledgling East Bay Solidarity Network staged an all-day fact-finding and outreaching session at the entrance to the offices of ABC Security: Mel’s former (and hopefully future) employer. Today was payday, and workers were coming to get their checks. As they entered and exited the long driveway leading to the private-property offices, we distributed our flyers explaining Mel’s fight. In a few hurried words, we tried to agitate* ABC guards by asking them how they felt about their job (most: from so-so to shitty) and what ever happened to that raise they’d been promised (three years and no sign of it). Some of the guards were hella down for what we’re doing (quote: “Yeah, the company doesn’t care if people die”), and their ire toward ABC’s owner only increased when we showed them photos of her mansion in the Oakland hills.

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Most importantly, though, the workers aided us by providing names of sites that employ ABC guards. Now that we’ve collected this client list (ranging from apartment complexes to warehouses and a golf course), we can use it to apply economic pressure to the company, escalating the fight to serious levels.

One of the highlights of the day, for me, was seeing Mel stand up to the supervisor who got him fired, with ten of us standing there to support him. Bolsters my hope that our group is helping shift the balance of power further toward the lowest-paid workers, and away from managers and millionaire CEOs.

Waiting for workers to pass through the driveway afforded us time to connect with each other, too. These are some lovely, vibrant people with great visions of building solidarity in the East Bay and beyond. (Earlier morning conversations focused around movements in Mexico, Chile, and Argentina, and how we might ally with / extend them here in Oakland.)

Anyway, I’ll keep you posted if/when we post an official account on the EastBaySol blog, but just wanted to share some of the joy of the day! Hope you’re well, friends.

Not Gonna Lie: I’m Proud Of Our Banner

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Spent today shopping for an East Bay Solidarity Network sign-making party, agonizing for an embarrassingly long time over what color (and heft) of banner fabric to get, and what color felt for the letters, and later (with William) what font to use. But now it’s finished — grommets and all — and looks F%*@IN’ SICK, if I do say so myself. :)

Between printing the letters, cutting them out, tracing them onto the white felt, and then cutting out the felt and gluing the letters onto the banner, our core organizers also called all the people on our phone tree to mobilize for the next action, coming up on Wednesday. Cooperating on mini-projects over weeks and months is cultivating a beautiful ease among us. We crack each other up; we respect each others’ opinions. We brew each other tea. (Louise, if you’re reading this: we will miss you!)

Next week, after the action, I’ll share photos of the fight-specific signs we made. Right now it’s time to sleep the deep, delicious sleep of the DIY-satisfied.

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I Know It’s Science, But It Feels A Lot Like Magic

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our 10" pan, after stripping and de-rusting

Having finished and submitted a grad school paper today, I am rewarding myself with another round of re-seasoning our cast-iron skillet.

Did you know that it’s virtually impossible to find out how to properly season one of these puppies just by looking it up on the Internet? Oh, sure, you’ll find instructions and opinions, but they differ wildly from person to person, sharing only the barest of fundamentals: you need to put oil in the pan and heat it up; then the pan will be smooth and non-stick.

But how? Why? Really?

Sheryl’s Blog explains. Fantastically. Scientifically. Read and be amazed.

Civic Center Sunset

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Friends, I’m going through a down time, and I think it shows on the blog. Offline, I’m having various conversations, and even thoughts, which, for various reasons, I’m choosing not to share in this space — at least not yet.

Part of the issue, I think, is that I’m starting to develop a nagging sense of what I should be posting. More political writing, essays, analysis, etc. The sense of play I brought here, especially in the beginning when I was specifically trying to avoid political blogging, is evaporating.

So for a time, I’m gonna give myself a break and just post little things that make me smile.

Like this light in the sky, which literally stopped me in my tracks as my friend Sierra and I passed the SF main library at Civic Center, on our way to a show unknown to me at the time. (Sierra was surprising me for my birthday.)

Have a good weekend, everyone! See you Monday.

Chuckle of the Day

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Ok, Jamie Foxx sometimes seems like an arrogant, misogynist asshole (have you ever listened to his XM radio station???), but this had me crackin’ up this morning.

And speaking of musical improv . . . last night Ryan and I went with a friend and our neighbor Ineva to Monday Night Karaoke at a little neighborhood bar down the street from our apartment.  None of us sang, but Good Lord some of those folks were talented, and talent or not, everyone was havin themselves a good time.  Mostly middle-aged Black folks.  Mostly Motown/R&B/soul, with Erykah and Jill Scott and the Temptations and Marvin all making appearances.  If you know me and my outdated musical tastes, you’ll appreciate the extent of my enthrallment.

Ableism and East Bay Solidarity Network

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Love this image from Mingus' site, labeled "watercolor painting of an octopus done in greens, yellows, oranges and pinks."

To me, femme must include ending ableism, white supremacy, heterosexism, the gender binary, economic exploitation, sexual violence, population control, male supremacy, war and militarization, and ownership of children and land.

—from Mia Mingus’ keynote, “Moving Toward the Ugly: A Politic Beyond Desirability” at the Femmes of Color Symposium this weekend in Oakland

Yesterday: downtown Oakland is in full Art-And-Soul festival mode, and a small squad of us from East Bay Solidarity Network gather outside its gated entrance to do our own jovial yet serious work. Once we finally locate one another in the crowd (who has whose cell numbers?), it’s on to the business of distributing xeroxed posters and tape (did we bring enough tape? it sucks to run out), and divvying out areas to flyer. Some of us are slow and others are impatient.  Caught in between as an unofficially appointed problem solver, I feel my face edge toward a scowl. Luckily, though, our little gang laughs together more and more as months pass. And laughter is nature’s aspirin for the headache of logistics.  Besides: no one’s getting paid here, and there are no managers or fears of getting fired and losing that paycheck, so we’re more free to move at our own pace.

Have I told you about our current fight? Mel Hill was a security guard working for ABC Security. After working at a number of different locations, he was stationed way, way out at a bus yard, miles from any public transport. The way Mel puts it: “I had leg muscles big as Popeye from walking to and from work.” He posted up in a little World War II tin shack (“hot when it’s hot; cold when it’s cold”) with no heat, electricity, water — nothing. Leaks in the roof let the rain in. Misery. After months of enduring this, with no administrative response to his complaints, he began bringing a yellow blanket along on his shifts, to keep himself warm. This, he was told by management, is “unprofessional” and unacceptable.  Eventually Mel was fired, and brought his case to us, the East Bay Solidarity Network.  We explained that in order for us to take on his fight to win his job back and improve site conditions, he would have to join the network and agree to be there for other people’s fights, as well.

There’s more than enough fights to go around.

Economic need compels people who don’t own the means of production (a.k.a. the vast majority of us) to work in conditions that are often terrible for our bodies. Job conditions are set up that way in order to save time and production costs (including wages). If we object, as Mel did, we get the message (implicitly or explicitly) that (a) we’re lazy, or (b) our bodies are the problem; our bodies are defective. Look: other people can do it. Why can’t you?  Stop bringing the blanket.  It’s unprofessional.

What can we do about this core of ableism within the exploitative, competitive, profit-driven system?

Master of not-fitting: Chican@ queer & disability scholar Gloria Anzaldúa

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