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Repost: Panthers at Peralta

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My friend Aaron recommended this piece to me (a historical essay written by local Laney College Student Unity & Power folks) as an encouraging example of demands done well.

Boy, is it good.

I’ll quote from the conclusion, but really — read the whole thing (and check the other re-post, with commentary, at Advance the Struggle).

We are often confronted by a legacy of the Panthers as either a detoothed community service organization or all claws. But the BPP experience at Peralta shows the work of a multifaceted organic expression of a specific section of Oakland’s working class to overturn institutions that claim to serve them and remake them into bases for struggle. When the Panthers spoke of occupying a building, it wasn’t (only) to appeal for more funds from the state, but to keep the state away from self-organized community programs. This meant not simply a negation of racist, authoritarian educational institutions, but their redefinition and reuse. As the editorial of the first issue of The Grapevine wrote,

To the continuing students and student-workers, right-on to the work you have done and the work you have inspired your communities to do, right-on to your moves to secure your community institution, to moving for freedom from oppression, to moving to make this a real community college – in practice. We still have work to do, but we have reached a higher level of organizing and our work will be even more effective in the future. We will win our fight to keep our community college and control it.

This is a message to today’s student movement. Beyond “demand[ing] affordable, accessible and quality education” or “keep[ing] California’s original promise of higher education” lies the seizure and re-invention of these institutions around fundamental principles of self-determination, self-management and freedom from oppression.

Confronting Capitalism through Feminist Fat Acceptance

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Despite being a longtime denizen of the feminist blogosphere, it wasn’t til last year that I learned about the Fat Acceptance (FA) movement. (Also called Health At Every Size (HAES) or Fat Liberation. Fat Fu, The Fat Nutritionist, Fatshionista, and Shapely Prose are good places to start if you’re unfamiliar.)

The connection clicked immediately.  In our society, fat people get discriminated against (and dehumanized) in ways that intersect with gender and other dimensions of body politics.  Duh.  Bonus: the fatosphere bloggers I’ve come across are funny and really good writers.

And today, thanks to a post by wickedday, a guest blogger at Feministe, I made another big thinky-type connection: this time between fat-shaming and capitalism.

Basically, what the fat-shaming helps to do is obscure the bald hypocrisy of a capitalist society that claims to care about people’s dietary health (e.g. fighting “the obesity epidemic” on the level of ‘education’ and personal lifestyle choices), while generating enormous profits from food industries that are fundamentally health-hazardous, environmentally devastating, and/or horribly inhumane (processed and genetically modified foods; hormone-filled factory meats; subsidized corn for corn syrup, etc. etc. etc.).  And using super-exploited immigrant labor to do a lot of it.

Now, this isn’t a new argument among FA feminists, but my perspective extends wickedday’s outline of the parallels between slut-shaming and fat-shaming, placing a greater emphasis on the historical and material basis for both.  By most FA accounts I’ve read, fatphobia comes from some combination of hatred, thin privilege, and jealousy: as wickedday puts it, the idea that “it is agonising to look at someone ignoring the rules that you punish yourself with, and still being happy.”

At the moment I’m more curious about bigger-picture causes.  The macro-relationships.  Because, as I say in my comment (copied below), as much as we might argue that our bodies are none of their business, as long as we live under capitalism, their business is precisely what our bodies are.

kloncke 9.7.2010 at 5:31 pm

Loving this post, and wondering if anyone else is interested in bringing the analysis toward the realm of political economy? I’m trying to figure out plausible, material reasons *why* the hegemonic discourse is so concerned with fat-shaming and slut-shaming.

Because on one hand, from an ethical perspective, “my body” (in terms of its size and sexual activity) is none of “your business.”

But from a point of view of class struggle in a capitalist context, “my body” as a vehicle for the commodity of labor-power (and/or the reproduction of labor-power; i.e. childbearing and domestic work) is *precisely* “your business” (“you,” the capitalist class) — in the sense that it is the source of the surplus value that capitalists (who are almost entirely men) extract as profit. No wonder the state (largely synonymous with the capitalist class) monitors the bodies of its labor force a.k.a. profit machine.

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Dear Author Of fuckyeahdukkha:

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This is just a note to say that I have a big ol’ internet crush on you and your incredibly awesome treasure trove of a tumblr. And I hope to be able to organize with you someday.

I wanted to write and tell you that directly but I can’t find any contact info. So if you are reading this, please know that I am sending you all kinds of mental hugs and mental bows and mental incense and mental plantains (yum!), and thanking you so very deeply for your work and inspiration.

love,

katie

Radical Sangha and Disarming the BART Police

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Sorry I didn’t get a post up today, folks!  Wednesday is my one day off from work at the Faithful Fools, and this one I spent in an especially uplifting way: having one-on-one meetings about Oscar Grant organizing, disarming the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) police, and organizing spiritual communities against Prop L: the sit/lie measure on San Francisco’s November ballot that would make it a crime to “sit or lie down on any sidewalk or on top of any object (blanket, lawn chair, milk crate, etc.) on any sidewalk in San Francisco between 7 a.m. and 11 p.m.”

Plus, inspired by the response to the Dangers of Compassion post, I’m tryna make moves to get a little radical sangha started here in the Bay Area: a group of dhamma practitioners (mostly of-color and gender-oppressed, hopefully) with structural critiques of oppression and empire.  It wouldn’t be the first or the only, I’m sure, but hey — if folks are interested, why not start another?*

So anyway, my apologies for not having a real post offering for today.  Luckily, however, I can call on my good friend, fellow compassionate actor, and future-famous-writer, Mary Catherine Curley, to fill in.  Here is a snippet from her blog The Over-Cher, which I crawled out from underneath my rock just long enough to discover this week.

Treehugging

Some time ago, while taking pictures in Central Park with some co-conspirators, I became criminally excited about the idea of taking a picture in which we were all standing behind a tree, but leaning out so you could see our heads. In my mind, this was an established genre of photograph that I wanted to be a part of. My “co-conspirators” told me this was the stupidest idea ever. I think you know what I thought then:

Take MC’s wisdom to heart, compassionate militants!  No, really.  The next time you feel tempted to give in to beefing and sectarian infighting, or if you feel silenced by a movement patriarch, remember our friend in the sleeping bag suit, and keep your head up.

See you Friday, friends!

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*If you are in the Bay Area and interested in joining up with this radical sangha business, write me at katie (dot) loncke (at) gmail (dot) com,  and let’s get acquainted!  I’m pretty serious about the people of color and gender representation, but that doesn’t mean that if you are a middle-class white dude you can’t participate.  It probly just means that you will need to wait your turn.  So write me anyway!

Birthday Blogging Break

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Faithful Fools officewear

Tomorrow is my birthday, friends, and a historic birthday it will be.

Not only because of sea otters (more on that in a second), but because — and I’m fairly certain on this — it will be the first cold-weather birthday of my entire life.

August in Sacramento, Barcelona, Agra (India), New Orleans, Boston…see a theme here?  HEAT.

I love heat!  Ungodly, crazy heat!  The kind of unmitigated heat that gives everyone an excuse to be sweaty and dirty all day long.  Where is this heat???  What happened to summer?

As evidenced by the above photo, in San Francisco we have no excuse to get all sticky and grimy.  We have sweater weather.  Sweater, scarf, wool sock and hat weather, plus a jacket for going outside.

Luckily, my record birthday low will be tempered somewhat by an overnight flight to Massachusetts.  (To volunteer at/attend the Zen Peacemakers’ symposium on Western Socially Engaged Buddhism — remember that?)  At least I will be traveling toward warmth!

Additionally, it will be an awesome birthday because before my 10pm flight there will be kayaking with sea otters and human friends at the Elkhorn Slough, a coastal wetland reserve near Monterey.

Why does any of this matter to you?  It doesn’t, really, except to say that I will be traveling a lot in August (to hot places, hooray!), and will take a break from blogging.  Those of you who’ve been following for a while know this is not an uncommon occurrence!  I often disappear for months at a time, with no warning.

Anyway, in my opinion, with a mindful blogging praxis it’s good to get out of the internet for a while. Stretch the legs.

I am so grateful to all of y’all for reading, commenting, sharing links, and supporting me (and each other) through this little project over the last couple of years.  It’s been an honor and a lot of fun to build and dialogue with you, and I hope some of the stuff you’ve found here has proven useful in your own life.

Big hugs, everybody, and take care!

Crunch on the Overturning of Prop 8

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An excerpt from today’s post on …or does it explode?

To make it clear I am against discrimination of any kind, but to oppose the oppression without analysis of the fight back is not scientific and not conducive to progressive results. A similar case can be found in the debate over “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.” (DADT) Of course I want equality but I also will not hold back in discussing that entering the army means entering an institution, bankrupt of morality, that serves as the state imperialist arm as it seeks to find capital through expansion, genocide, and exploitation. We must have open criticism to have a successful movement, because all oppression and exploitation is connected under the world capitalist system and we cannot afford to gain at the cost of others.

Does this now mean that I am against gay marriage and should join the West Borough  Baptist Church as the claim that god hates fags? No. That’s the same foolishness and dogma, which draws these “pro gay”/ “anti gay” binaries, that has kept the discussion and critical thought at a minimum. This entire posting merely means that I am against the state objectification of social relations for the strengthening of capital. If people choose to couple monogamously that is their choice as is the opposite. However, bourgeois society has conditioned us to think negatively of the latter and believe that the former is perfected in a union under the state. And since the battle for liberation is also a battle for transformative thought, it is a dis-service to the movement to remain silent.

Sadhu/ Amen/ Well said.

Otsu: Yes, It’s As Good As It Sounds

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ahhhhhhh bowl o' otsu

Time for another favorite recipe.  Courtesy of (surprise) Heidi Swanson’s 101cookbooks.com.

I made this the other night for a semi-potluck, and as usual,* it was a hit.  Sesame-ginger-honey-lemon-cayenne dressing over buckwheat soba noodles, diced cucumbers, and pan-fried tofu, finished with sesame seeds and with green onions and cilantro, if I’ve got ’em on hand.

Swanson actually got this recipe from a restaurant here in San Francisco called pomelo.  The in-store version is mighty tasty (their tofu is especially nice), but it’s simple enough to make at home — no outlandish ingredients or particularly finicky prep.  (A food processor does come in handy, though.)

My minor tweaks: more cayenne, more cucumber. (I’ll use 1.5 or 2 cucumbers instead of one-half.)

I could eat this every day for a week, people.

Well, that’s true about a lot of foods.  But this one especially.

Enjoy!

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*One fairly disastrous exception was the time I tried to make it for my wonderful CouchSurfing hosts in Barcelona.  The effort was doomed by my inability to find Japanese ingredients in Catalunyan grocery stores.  The result was a brownish, ginger-less spaghetti slop with rock-hard tofu nuggets.  Pretty humiliating.  But they were totally sweet about it, bless their hearts.  Maybe someday they’ll visit me in San Francisco and I can redeem myself with a proper version.

“To the lumpen mass…” From Deluche

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Just a comment I wrote on a cross-post thread over on Advance The Struggle.  Original post at …or does it explode?

It’s worth reading the entire A/S thread, but I thought I’d copy my piece here since it speaks to my 9-month experience at the Faithful Fools.  (Damn, that long already?)  A truly wonderful, radically humanist group, rare among non-profits in terms of the depth of its sustained connection to individuals in a community.

Ever since I started living and working here, I’ve wondered what kind of political organizing might take shape in the TL.  In San Francisco lately there’s been some solid direct action around occupying empty buildings on behalf of eviction victims and homeless folks.  At the same time, most people I see here are basically just struggling to survive and heal.  Which, as I say in the comment below, deserves respect and recognition.

Thanks for posting this here — and thanks to Deluche for writing it.

I’m appreciating all the analysis from Icarus and a comrade. Much to think about.

Apart from the political-economic analysis, another current I was seeing in the original post is some attention to the lived experience of tremendous suffering that is happening in “surplus populations” within US urban ghettos, and their overlap with the working class.

Like Deluche says, without blaming or taking out anger on individuals within surplus populations, we can see the ways that being forced to live outside of a formal, legal economy — chronically unemployed, corralled, imprisoned — would (a) foster desperation and (b) support self-medicating addictions, both of which extend a chain of violence.

I don’t know enough about proper definitions of “lumpenproletariat” or surplus populations to comment on Icarus’ objection to an overly narrow focus on drug dealers and sex workers. But to speak just on my own experience living and working in the Tenderloin neighborhood of SF with a homeless community: criminalized addiction, exploitative sex work (amplified by transphobia), and stigmatized mental illness are definitely major factors dominating the scene around here.

At the same time, along with this enormous suffering and harm is the potential for astonishing healing. I haven’t even been working here that long (9 months), and already I’ve seen some incredible, long-time-coming shifts. Folks choosing to move forward in addiction recovery, dealing with depression and PTSD, making beautiful art, showing great generosity to others, and getting their feet on the ground — largely because a group of people stood by them and for years showed committed care, love, and faith in the face of an entire society that tells them they’re worthless and, yes, “parasitic.”

This kind of healing, even on an individual or small community level, is quite inspiring. Can we allow it to inform revolutionary organizing? Can we allow it to illuminate the healing work already taking place (often un-compensated and un-heralded) within the working-class itself, buttressing its power for economic and social transformation?

Seems to me that it’s easier for folks to dis those with no labor-power leverage when we take revolution of capitalism as the sole redemptive struggle in life. In truth, revolutionaries interested in building a better society for humans, animals, and the earth might benefit from learning about the inter-related struggles and healing among the ‘lumpen.’

Oscar Grant, Audre Lorde, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche and the question of loving our enemies.

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Cross-posted at Feministe. As the verdict approaches, I find myself thinking more and more about the relationships between state violence and intimate violence. In what ways our focus on state violence, and mechanisms for resisting it, jive and don’t jive with methods for dealing with intimate violence. Aaron Tanaka made a wonderful comment on the original post — as always, Aaron, I’m truly grateful for your insights and questions, and their organic connection to the great work you do.

Just yesterday, only 20 minutes after a conversation about police alternatives, as my friend Noa was dropping me off at home, we found ourselves in an impromptu cop watch. Four officers were arresting three men on my block — two of whom I recognized as regulars on the corner, and one with whom I’ve tossed a football across Hyde Street traffic. When I saw the cops lining the men up against the fence, I just stepped out of Noa’s car onto the sidewalk and inserted myself. After one of the officers attempted to intimidate Noa by calling in her plate number (we’d been stopped and talking in the car inside a red parking zone), she drove around the block, parked, came back and joined me for the next half hour as we watched these three men get yelled at, cuffed, and loaded into a police van.

I’ll maybe write up a full summary tomorrow, because the effect of our intervention on the cops’ behavior was pretty interesting, as well as the conversation we struck up with two male officers. For now, here’s my Feministe piece from Sunday.

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