12 Comments
User's avatar
⭠ Return to thread
red_li0nz's avatar

I like this one Jack. I've known plenty of anarchists since I was a teenager and I know people who still identify that way. I went to NCOR. If you aren't familiar with NCOR, spotting an anarchist at NCOR is kind of like spotting weed at a Snoop Dog show. I could choose a number of words to describe 'anarchists' but violent would not be one of them. Though I did go to a 'Peace and Anarchism' talk at NCOR once where halfway through a dude got up and said it was all bullshit and he can't conceive of anarchism without violence, which was really rather bizarre, and I guess that's an example of a violent anarchist? There was probably 100 people in that room as confused as I was. Plus, I gotta give the anarchist infoshops some cred for putting on dope music shows. I've been to some super fun ones. But again, that entire scene felt closer to a big hug than anything else.

On white saviors, man this topic gives me complex feelings. I used to work at an int'l dev/humanitarian aid non-profit and then right after that I worked for a self described progressive organization. Didn't seem like many white saviors at the int'l dev place, one because there was a lot of diversity and it just wasn't terribly white in general, but also because people were just more concerned about leveling playing fields and such than saving anyone. At least that's the impression I always got. Going to the progressive organization after that was quite a change. It was mostly white, leadership entirely white, and the white savior thing was strong. Especially during an absolutely cringeworthy all day unconscious bias training. But the part that really bothered me is that people did not realize their workplace was not diverse. Their hearts were in the right place but the fucking point isn't to save people and pat yourself on the back (for me at least) it's to give people a fair shot at something. So in general that experience left me a mix of disappointed and jaded and I only worked there a year.

The burning question I really have though is why do white lawyers think they can solve every issue in this galaxy (possibly galaxies we don't yet know about) if they just put their white lawyer brain to it? That shit drove me up the wall. Has anyone seen Black AF? The end of that episode where they are at the table with the Greenpeace (i think) lawyer? Y'all, I have been at that table, and fuck is it embarrassing.

Expand full comment
Jack Crosbie's avatar

Yeah I did some work adjacent to white-led nonprofit/ "progressive" organizations early on in my career and I think it really changed how I saw things. And I hope gave me a bit of self-awareness when I'm in similar situations/ reporting on these issues

Expand full comment
sickduck's avatar

lol so many people think anarchists are plotting to blow up buildings when really they're collecting books to send to prisoners and gardening in vacant lots

Expand full comment
Ryan's avatar

It's what the end result will be. Humans gravitate towards hierarchical societies so Anarchists need to die in a hole

Expand full comment