Apoc voices clear new ground with Our Culture, Our Resistance
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| APOC voices clear new ground with Our Culture, Our Resistance
By Jenny Lee While anarchist people of color have been active throughout the history of revolutionary social movements, the term APOC and the APOC network, has emerged over the past year and a half since the first APOC conference was held in Detroit, MI in October 2003. Our Culture, Our Resistance, an online book recently published at illegalvoices.org, comes out of this newly cleared space for the voices of anarchist people of color. It is the first compilation of writings by people of color covering the concepts of anarchism, race, class and gender. The anti-authoritarian analysis it advances marks a sharp distinction from the Eurocentric and often class-privileged analysis of white anarchist writings. At the same time it also marks "a departure from the old-guard politics espoused by revolutionaries of color" (from the preface). With personal reflections, movement strategizing and radical story-telling the writers in Our Culture, Our Resistance chart new paths towards liberation. Thematically the book was left wide open, with minimal editorial authority over voice and structure. It moves from personal narratives of racism and exclusion in anarchist communities and the "white mainstream" to conversations about parenting, the role of art in revolution, self-defense and the history of influential organizations such as the Federation of Black Community Partisans and Copwatch. Other pieces are theoretical, examining how race, class and gender compound an anarchist analysis. Some put forth strategies and tactics based on openness and humility. They advocate new models of organizing that supports the ongoing work of community organizations, in contrast to the self-assured exclusivity of dogmatic anarchist organizations. The epilogue calls for spiritual revolution, honoring our warrior ancestors and being "exposed to the beauty and power of our ancient past." While many of the pieces express shared experiences and visions, the book does not represent a definitive APOC voice or ideology. The book's editor, Ernesto Aguilar, clearly resisted constructing an introduction and thematic framework that would overarch the book and run the risk of being reductive or authoritative. In the opening of his piece "The End of Idealism, honest conversations about race, class, self-determination and anarchist people of color" Aguilar describes fluidity and openness as the necessary approach to starting conversation that will be "compelling and motivate change" while not being overly academic. In remaining open and fluid, Our Culture, Our Resistance fulfils its stated purpose: "to contribute to the ongoing dialogue among people of color and others as we strive toward freedom." But the question remains, how will we use this book as a tool for building community and ultimately revolution? In considering what potential Our Culture, Our Resistance and its future volumes and editions hold, it is useful to compare it to another hugely formative anthology, This Bridge Called My Back, Writings by Radical Women of Color, which was first published by Kitchen Table Press in 1981. This Bridge has had an immeasurable impact upon the development of women of color feminism, both in theory and practice. The community of people and ideas birthed from This Bridge is a distinct space, but it is also diffused throughout movements for prison abolition, demilitarization, economic justice, reproductive rights, queer liberation and many others. It would be amazing if Our Culture, Our Resistance could do for the emerging APOC movement what This Bridge has done for women of color feminism. The movements of anarchist people of color and radical women of color feminists intersect in important ways and have much to offer each other. Similar to Our Culture, Our Resistance, the intent of This Bridge was not to articulate a new ideology or movement platform. Rather, it was to incite dialogue and reflection around the experiences of women of color that had been silenced and devalued in white feminist and men of color-dominated organizations. Like many of the authors in Our Culture Our Resistance, the women of This Bridge spoke from complex spaces of identity, being mestiza, poor and queer or black and middle class, biracial and working class or immigrant and many other formations of identity. Like Our Culture, Our Resistance, the structure of This Bridge was kept fluid and open so as to honor that complexity. The editors of This Bridge, Gloria Anzaldúa and Cherríe Moraga, wrote in their introduction "… our primary commitment was to retaining... each writer's especial voice and style. The book is intended to reflect our color loud and clear, not tone it down." Our Culture, Our Resistance states a similar commitment "to support people of color's efforts to speak in their own words as they wished."
This intimate editorial process allowed the work to emerge as a true conversation amongst radical women of color. It demonstrated how the process of editing an anthology can be a community building project in itself. In future volumes and editions of Our Culture, Our Resistance, This Bridge Called My Back should definitely be turned to as an inspiration. At the same time, Our Culture, Our Resistance has advanced a form of independent publishing that should serve as a model for future editions of This Bridge Called My Back and any other radical publication. By deciding to publish the book on the Internet, where anyone may download it for a nominal printing cost at the nearest public library, APOC has taken an important step outside capitalism's rules over the production and distribution of information. In contrast, This Bridge Called My Back has been in and out of print for the last twenty -four years. That and the fact that it costs roughly $30 makes it pretty hard to get a hold of. Having said that, publishing Our Culture, Our Resistance only on the Internet presents other challenges that APOC will have to meet. Because of the obvious limits of Internet access, a global network of activists is necessary to print off thousands of copies of the book and get them into the hands of people who will be transformed by reading it. APOC, as an identity, a community or a full-blown movement is clearly emerging in the tradition of radical women of color feminism. That is, out of a desire to carve new, borderless space between categories that have proved insufficient and histories that have failed to make liberation real. If each unique voice within a movement is, as Shawn McDougal writes in Our Culture, Our Resistance, "a single thread in a huge and unfolding tapestry of liberation," then the role of anthologies such as this one is the act of weaving. It is the bringing together of people and ideas in an artful, compelling way, to do, as Toni Cade Bambara said, "The work: to make revolution irresistible." Directory: 2006 2006 -> Kennan's Telegram (Excerpt) 2006 -> Virginia High School League Scholastic Bowl Match #5 2005-06 State Competition page 2006 -> The environment in the news 2006 -> The environment in the news 2006 -> Economic History of the U. S. Econ 1740, Class Time Line. Part 1: The Colonial Era; 1607 – 1776 2006 -> Disaster planning and recovery: post-katrina lessons for mixed media collections 2006 -> Atlantic hurricane summary 2006 -> The environment in the news tuesday, 25 April 2006 Download 12.05 Kb. Share with your friends:
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