This is not just a political crisis. It’s a crisis of safety, of memory, of collective survival.

If we want our movements to last — if we want to resist not just loudly, but sustainably — we need more than courage. We need security culture.

🔐 1. What Is Security Culture?

Security culture is not just a checklist — it’s a political posture. It’s the quiet muscle of our movements, built from generations of resistance. It’s what we inherit when we study COINTELPRO and the names of those whose lives were unraveled by state surveillance, targeted not because they were doing something wrong — but because they were organizing something right.

At its core, security culture is a collective set of values, habits, and protocols that activists adopt to protect each other from infiltration, surveillance, criminalization, and burnout. It teaches us that discretion is not silence — it’s strategy. That caution is not fear — it’s care in action.

This culture isn’t about paranoia or elitism. It’s about recognizing the reality that who we are — Black, queer, undocumented, poor, trans — makes us more visible to the state. It’s about building the muscle to ask: What do we share? Who needs to know? How do we move smart, not scared? And most importantly: What does it take to keep each other safe while building the world we deserve?

Repression is inevitable, or avoiding it at all costs isn’t worthwhile. Regardless of the struggle, if it’s taken far enough it will become a struggle against the police, those defenders of the world as it is. If we take as a starting point that we will avoid repression at all costs, then we will only use forms of struggle approved of by the police, which makes it pretty much impossible to build collective power capable of transformative change. If we don’t accept these limitations, then we need to be prepared to face repression. [Anarchist Library]

This culture is not solely about secrecy but emphasizes informed caution, mutual trust, and proactive measures to prevent potential threats.

📚 2. Historical Context: Why Security Culture Matters

Security culture isn’t just about tech tools or avoiding surveillance — it’s a living practice grounded in generations of resistance to state repression. Throughout U.S. history, the state has deployed vast resources to infiltrate, surveil, and dismantle social movements — especially those led by Black, Indigenous, immigrant, and radical communities.

1950s–1970s: The Emergence of Security Culture Amidst State Repression

1956–1971: COINTELPRO (Counter-Intelligence Program)

The FBI initiated COINTELPRO to surveil, infiltrate, and disrupt domestic political organizations. Targets included civil rights groups, anti-war activists, and socialist organizations. Tactics involved wiretapping, spreading misinformation, and fostering internal divisions. The exposure of COINTELPRO in the 1970s highlighted the need for activist communities to develop protective measures against such infiltration.

1969–1977: Weather Underground Organization (WUO)

Originating from the Students for a Democratic Society, the WUO adopted clandestine operations, including bombings of government buildings, to protest U.S. policies. Their underground activities necessitated strict security protocols, such as compartmentalization and the use of aliases, setting precedents for future activist security practices.

1980s–1990s: Institutionalizing Security Practices

1980s: Earth First! and Environmental Activism

The 1980s saw the rise of Earth First!, a radical environmentalist group that challenged corporate destruction of the planet with bold direct action — tree sits, road blockades, and sabotage of logging equipment. As Earth First! gained momentum, it also drew the attention of the state. The FBI and local law enforcement increasingly surveilled, infiltrated, and disrupted the group’s activities using tactics honed during COINTELPRO.

The infiltration of Earth First! wasn’t theoretical — it was real, and it had consequences. One of the most well-known cases involved FBI informant Michael Fain, who penetrated Earth First! circles in Arizona and helped the FBI orchestrate a 1990 sting operation against activists Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney. The pair were injured in a car bombing for which they were wrongfully accused, despite later evidence suggesting state involvement and misconduct. Bari’s activism and later lawsuits revealed a chilling pattern of state repression against environmental activists.

1990s: Anarchist Movements and the Formalization of Security Culture

The 1990s marked a turning point in radical organizing. Across North America and Europe, anarchist movements surged in response to the growing reach of corporate globalization, state militarization, and environmental collapse. From the anti-WTO demonstrations in Seattle to squatter collectives in major cities, and from forest defense actions to animal liberation, activists were building bold, confrontational movements that directly challenged state and corporate power.

But that visibility came at a cost. These movements quickly became targets of state repression.

Agencies like the FBI, ATF, and local police ramped up infiltration, surveillance, and criminal prosecutions. The use of informants and provocateurs intensified, especially within the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) and Animal Liberation Front (ALF) — both labeled “eco-terrorist threats” by the FBI despite causing no physical harm to people. In cities, anarchist collectives operating housing squats or mutual aid kitchens were routinely harassed, evicted, or monitored. Activists found themselves charged under federal laws meant for organized crime or terrorism.

Key Practices That Emerged or Evolved:

• 🔇 No Discussion of Illegal Activities: Whether in person or online, organizers emphasized the importance of never talking about direct actions, sabotage, or any criminal activity — even after the fact. This was both a legal safeguard and a way to avoid provocateurs fishing for incriminating statements.
• 🔍 Skepticism Toward Newcomers: Rather than assuming everyone shared values, groups increasingly adopted vetting or vouching practices, only inviting people into more sensitive spaces after they’d been introduced by a trusted comrade and observed in action.
• 🤐 Compartmentalization of Information: Affinity groups often practiced need-to-know protocols, ensuring that only those directly involved in an action had access to specific logistical details.
• 🤝 Consensus on Collective Security: Workshops, zines, and anarchist gatherings began promoting the idea that security wasn’t just an individual responsibility — it was a collective one. Poor security habits by one member could endanger the entire group.

2000s–2010s: Adapting to Digital Surveillance

2000s: Rise of Digital Surveillance

As the internet became more integrated into everyday life, the state’s surveillance apparatus grew in sophistication and reach. Activist groups, already wary from COINTELPRO-era tactics, began to recognize that repression was entering a new frontier — one dominated by data, metadata, and algorithmic profiling.

In the early 2000s, the USA PATRIOT Act (2001) gave federal agencies broad powers to conduct electronic surveillance, access personal data without a warrant, and track online behavior under the banner of national security. As a result, digital surveillance became one of the most powerful tools in the state’s arsenal. Law enforcement and intelligence agencies began using spyware, stingray devices (to mimic cell towers), and open-source intelligence tools (OSINT) to monitor political dissent and protest organizing.

2011: Occupy Wall Street Movement

The Occupy Wall Street movement, which began in September 2011, represented a massive wave of decentralized, social-media-driven activism. Protesters gathered in Zuccotti Park in New York City and in public spaces across the globe to challenge economic inequality and the power of financial institutions. But the movement’s reliance on livestreaming, Facebook groups, Twitter hashtags, and mass texts made it uniquely vulnerable to state surveillance.

Federal agencies like the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) coordinated with local law enforcement and private security contractors to monitor Occupy protesters across dozens of cities. Fusion Centers — information-sharing hubs connecting federal and local agencies — played a key role in gathering intelligence from social media and coordinating crackdown efforts.

2020s: Contemporary Challenges and the Evolution of Security Culture

2020: George Floyd Protests and Increased Surveillance

In the summer of 2020, following the police murder of George Floyd, one of the largest protest movements in U.S. history erupted — spanning all 50 states and dozens of countries. While the scale and speed of organizing were unprecedented, so too was the visibility of state surveillance tactics.

Across the country, protesters were subjected to a wide array of both overt and covert surveillance:

• Facial recognition tools, such as Clearview AI, were used by police departments to identify and track demonstrators.
• Geofence warrants allowed authorities to demand location data from smartphones in specific areas during protest hours.
• Social media accounts were scraped by fusion centers and local police for posts, images, and live footage that could later be used in legal proceedings.
• Surveillance drones — such as those used by Customs and Border Protection — flew over Minneapolis and other cities to monitor crowd movements.
• Protesters were tracked via license plate readers, stingray devices, and surveillance helicopters.

2021–Present: Ongoing Adaptations

As protest waves gave way to legislative backlash, criminal charges, and political repression, activist communities began to deepen and institutionalize security practices:

• The Stop Cop City movement in Atlanta revealed just how aggressively the state could move — from installing unmarked surveillance cameras in activist neighborhoods to charging 61 protesters with RICO (racketeering) — a law traditionally used to target organized crime.
• Organizers fighting anti-trans laws, defending abortion access, or working with undocumented communities increasingly rely on intersectional threat modeling, acknowledging that identity (race, gender, immigration status) shapes both risk and state response.
• Digital repression — including doxxing, account bans, and shadowbanning — forced creators and educators to diversify platforms and backup their work.
• Security culture zines, digital toolkits, and peer trainings are now commonplace across community groups, mutual aid networks, and affinity spaces.

These histories remind us: the state doesn’t just react to violence — it reacts to liberation. Security culture is a defense strategy that protects organizers and helps movements survive.

🧭 3. Core Values of Security Culture

Security culture is grounded in several key principles that guide its implementation:

Collective Responsibility: Ensuring the safety of a movement is a shared duty. Every member must be vigilant and uphold security protocols to protect the group as a whole.

Informed Caution: Being aware of potential threats and taking proactive steps to mitigate them without succumbing to paranoia.

Trust and Verification: Building relationships based on trust, while also verifying information and sources to prevent infiltration or misinformation.

Respect for Privacy: Recognizing and upholding the privacy of individuals within the movement, understanding that personal information can be exploited if mishandled.

Another point is to privilege face-to-face meetings. Regardless of the platform or how secure or insecure it is, we build better trust, stronger relationships, and come to better decisions when we take the time to meet in person. When electronic means of communication replace the face-to-face, our conversations are easier to surveil, misunderstandings come up more often, and they can be disrupted by decisions or problems at far-away companies. For all the uses of electronic communication in your organizing, ask yourself if it’s replacing face-to-face meetings, and if it is, ask if it really needs to. Consider reducing your reliance on these things and begin trying to shift more conversations back to in person. (More on tech stuff in a bit… [Anarchist Library]

Adaptability: Being prepared to adjust strategies and practices in response to evolving threats or new information.

🛠️ 4. Implementing Security Culture: Everyday Practices That Protect Our Movements

Security culture is more than just using encrypted apps or hiding your identity — it’s a collective mindset that guides how we organize, communicate, and protect each other from repression. When movements are surveilled, infiltrated, or targeted by the state, adopting security practices becomes not just a precaution but a necessity. Implementing security culture means developing protocols tailored to your specific group's risks.

Here are the core areas to focus on according to What Is Security Culture? from Anarchist Library:

Don’t ask, don’t tell.

Don’t ask others to share confidential information you don’t need to know. Don’t brag about illegal things you or others have done, or mention things that are going to happen or might happen, or even refer to another person’s interest in being involved in such activities. Stay aware whenever you speak; don’t let chance allusions drop out thoughtlessly.

You can say no at any time to anyone about anything.

Don’t answer any questions you don’t want to — not just with police officers, but also with other activists and even close friends: if there’s something you don’t feel safe sharing, don’t. This also means being comfortable with others not answering questions: if there’s a conversation they want to keep to themselves, or they ask you not to be part of a meeting or project, you shouldn’t take this personally — it’s for everyone’s good that they’re free to do so. Likewise, don’t participate in any projects you don’t feel good about, or collaborate with anyone you feel ill at ease with, or ignore your gut feeling in any situation; if something goes wrong and you get into trouble, you don’t want to have any regrets. You’re responsible for not letting anyone talk you into taking risks you’re not ready for.

Don’t ever turn your friends over to your enemies.

If captured, never, ever give up any information that could endanger anyone else. Some recommend an explicit oath be sworn by all participants in a direct action group: that way, in a worst-case scenario, when pressure might make it hard to distinguish between giving up a few harmless details and totally selling out, everyone will know exactly what commitments they made to each other.

Don’t be too predictable in the methods you employ, or the targets you choose, or the times and places you meet to discuss things.

Don’t be too visible in the public aspects of the struggle in which you do your most serious direct action: keep your name off mailing lists and out of the media, perhaps avoid association with aboveground organizations and campaigns entirely. If you’re involved in really serious clandestine activities with a few comrades, you may want to limit your interactions in public, if not avoid each other altogether. Federal agents can easily get access to the phone numbers dialed from your phone, and will use such lists to establish connections between individuals; the same goes for your email, and the books you check out from libraries, and especially social networking sites like Myspace.

Don’t leave a trail: credit card use, gas cards, cell phone calls all leave a record of your motions, purchases, and contacts.

Have a cover story, supported by verifiable facts, if you might need one. Be careful about what your trash could reveal about you — dropouts aren’t the only ones who go dumpstering! Keep track of every written document and incriminating photocopy — keep them all in one place, so you can’t accidentally forget one — and destroy them as soon as you don’t need them. The fewer there are in the first place, the better; get used to using your memory. Make sure there aren’t any ghosts of such writing left behind in impressions on the surfaces you were writing on, whether these be wooden desks or pads of paper. Assume that every use of computers leaves a trail, too.

Don’t throw any direct action ideas around in public that you think you might want to try at some point.

Wait to propose an idea until you can gather a group of individuals that you expect will all be interested in trying it; the exception is the bosom companion with whom you brainstorm and hash out details in advance — safely outside your home and away from mixed company, of course. Don’t propose your idea until you think the time is right for it to be tried. Invite only those you are pretty certain will want to join in — everyone you invite who doesn’t end up participating is a needless security risk, and this can be doubly problematic if it turns out they feel your proposed activity is laughably dumb or morally wrong. Only invite people who can keep secrets — this is critical whether or not they decide to participate.

Develop a private shorthand for communicating with your comrades in public.

It’s important to work out a way to communicate surreptitiously with your trusted friends about security issues and comfort levels while in public situations, such as at a meeting called to discuss possible direct action. Knowing how to gauge each other’s feelings without others being able to tell that you are sending messages back and forth will save you the headache of trying to guess each other’s thoughts about a situation or individual, and help you avoid acting strangely when you can’t take your friend aside in the middle of things to compare notes. By the time you have convened a larger group to propose an action plan, you and your friends should be clear on what each other’s intentions, willingness to run risks, levels of commitment, and opinions of others are, to save time and avoid unnecessary ambiguity. If you haven’t been part of a direct action planning circle before, you’ll be surprised how complicated and convoluted things can get even when everyone does arrive prepared.

Resources on Security Culture…

📘 Security Culture: A Handbook for Activists: https://mutualaiddisasterreliefsite.files.wordpress.com/2017/04/security-culture-a-handbook-for-activists.pdf

🔍 Threat Modeling for Activists — Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) Understand how to assess your risks and build digital security practices that match your reality. https://ssd.eff.org/

🕵🏽 CrimethInc’s Security Culture Primer https://crimethinc.com/2004/11/01/what-is-security-culture

🛡️ Riseup: Digital Tools & Privacy for Organizers: https://riseup.net/en/security

📘 A Bridge Too Far: An article on how federal agents infiltrate and entrap radicals: https://clevelandmagazine.com/in-the-cle/the-read/articles/a-bridge-too-far

EFF — Threat Modeling 101: https://ssd.eff.org/module/your-security-plan

📽️ Case Studies & Historical Context

COINTELPRO 101 (Free Documentary) | Overview of the FBI’s covert campaign to infiltrate and destroy liberation movements.

🔗 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0_DqtKVWIs

Rolling Stone — The Cleveland 5 Case | Analyzes FBI tactics of coercion and entrapment and their long history of targeting leftists.

🔗 https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/the-plot-against-occupy-187832/

Some worried that these allegations of bisexuality would somehow discredit, Malcolm X’s legacy or that they existed to immaculate him. Others can’t conceive of Malcolm X being queer in any sense at all or fail to engage with the possibility of his sex work as a youth in Harlem for both genders. Many queer folks find these allegations interesting and worthy of discussion, instead of shutting down the conversation altogether due to stigma and homophobia.

Whatever the reason, these allegations are out in the world, so let’s explore where they came from and the validity of the research behind them.

Who alleged that Malcolm X was bisexual?

In 1991, the first complete biography of Malcolm X was published by white writer, Bruce Perry. Perry, at one point, gained access to various prison records that show various details of Malcolm X’s time while incarcerated. The book, Malcolm: The Life of a Man Who Changed Black America explores Malcolm X’s life on various levels and Perry noted that he interviewed hundreds of people to write this book.

In a handful of parts of the book, Perry alleges (via interviews) that Malcolm X once worked as a worker for a rich white man from Boston who sometimes requested sexual favors as a part of the job. And that Malcolm X, while living in Harlem in his younger years, often hung out in bars and establishments where sex workers frequented.

Upon further digging, there are many critiques of Perry’s book, whether it be the quality of his interviews of Perry’s angle. One reviewer noted of the biography in The Great Plains Quarterly:

The work, however, falls short on several levels. The book is dense and episodic, and the author’s analysis is often tentative, with speculative conclusions couched in psycho-babble. Perry’s assertions about Malcolm’s sexuality and homophobia are just plain nonsense

Another take on Malcolm X’s sexuality by Manning Marable

In 2011, Manning Marable published Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention, a book that alleges that Malcolm X may have engaged in queer sex work. According to one of Malcolm X’s daughters, Ms. Shabbaz, this book took close to 20 years to write and involved some interviews with Malcolm X’s children.

In the piece, Ms. Shabazz disputes numerous points of discussion in the book; ranging from the fact that Marable never explicitly asked to interview Malcolm X’s children and that Ms. Shabazz believes that the FBI would have known if her father was queer or bisexual due to their COINTELPRO surveillance.

In one of the most interesting parts of the interview, Ms. Shabazz is asked if there’s a change she would have simply not known or been told if her father engaged in queer sex work in his younger years:

Ms. SHABAZZ: Right. I think the things that I take issue with are the fact that he said my father engaged in a bisexual relationship, a homo — you know, he had a gay lover who was an elder white businessman, I think, in his late 50s when my father was in his teens. And, you know, my father was an open book. And we actually have four of the missing chapters from the autobiography. And, you know, he is very clear in his activities, which nothing included being gay.

And certainly he didn’t have anything against gay — he was for human rights, human justice, you know. So if he had a gay encounter, he likely would’ve talked about it. And what he did talk about was someone else’s encounter.

Do these allegations matter?

On many levels, I agree with assertions that research in historical figures should be based in thorough research and rigor, like Ta-Nehesi Coates notes in his own musings on the Marable book, “For my part, I found Perry’s book, which is big on telepathy and small on skepticism, to be pretty worthless. I take any claim leveled in that book with a grain of salt.”

Although, on some level, as a queer, Black person, I’d like to trust that more Black people are ready to engage in the complexities of masculinity. sexuality, and sex work, some of the responses to musings on these allegations on social media feeds suggest otherwise. To consider and question whether or not Malcolm X was bisexual or a bisexual sex worker is akin to disrespecting his legacy. But even this assertion begs the question… What is Malcolm X’s legacy? And why would non-heteronormative behavior jeopardize it? If Malcolm X were queer, what would be so bad?

The deeper and more legible answer that comes to mind is the fact that queerness, to some, seems to be a threat to the rugged, revolutionary Malcolm X that they knew while ignoring the fact that queer and LGBTQIA erasure is ripe throughout Black history. This stigma may be a factor in the rampant aversion to the possibility of Malcolm X being LGBTQIA.

Ultimately, the question of Malcolm X’s legacy transcends simplistic notions of identity and sexuality. Instead, it prompts us to interrogate the narratives we construct around historical figures and the biases that inform them. Embracing the complexities of identity, including queerness, enriches our understanding of individuals like Malcolm X and acknowledges the diversity of experiences within marginalized communities. It is through this nuanced exploration that we honor and truly appreciate the multifaceted legacies of those who have shaped our history.

What do you make of the claims that Malcolm X was bisexual?

To learn more on this topic…

In this video, I plan to tap into an aspect of James Baldwin’s life that’s often unexplored by Black men. The question of James Baldwin and the Erasure of Black Women.

Have you seen this conversation between Nikki Giovanni and James Baldwin before?

In those years of the Civil Rights Movement, many blacks were wary of sacrifice involved in the non-violent direct action movement, largely led by Martin Luther King Jr. Baldwin’s place in the Black political world was interrogated on so many sides, whether it be Eldridge Cleaver berating him in Soul on Ice or the white moderate aiming to control Baldwin’s ferocity.

Among the many men of the movement, Baldwin spoke of Malcolm X (who some have rumored to be bisexual) with a particular kind of fondness; naming him as a potential “soulmate”. But how close were they actually? And was there some aspect of their dynamic that Baldwin fabricated?

To learn more, check out my video.

What do you think of the connection between James Baldwin and Malcolm X?

The lack of previous Baldwin biopics could be attributed to many things; the protectiveness of the Baldwin, family, and estate, whether or not the public, is ready for a nuance to the portrayal of James Baldwin, and how Baldwin’s sexual politics would be represented when past projects on his life, and work have skirted over his queerness. With these histories in mind and the recent rise of bad biopics, what would a James Baldwin biopic mean today? And what mistakes could be made?

During his time, Baldwin was notably in opposition to Zionism and the subjugation of Palestinians, notably stating once that he chose not to move to Israel. In Billy Porter’s recent interview with The Guardian, when asked about how he plans to portray the critiques of Israel and Zionism by famed writer, James Baldwin, in his forthcoming biopic on the writer born in the 1920s, Porter responded,

There’s nothing to navigate — I’m not James Baldwin, he’s a character, so I have to be true to the character. I don’t know what he was talking about in the 40s, 50s, 60s — it’s 2024 now. I don’t have the history to even know what the version of the Israel-Palestine conflict was when he was around. It’s not a part of the script — his civil rights work in America is what we’re focused on, more than what he thought about the crisis in the Middle East. What’s going on over there is horrific — the choices that we, in America, have made, are wrong. Please don’t make me a poster child for that. I don’t want to be in the conversation, because I don’t know enough about it!

To date, almost 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in the ongoing genocide since October 7, 2023, amounting to countless human rights violations and international calls for a ceasefire. In the past, I have written and spoken extensively about the Black connection to Palestinian liberation, highlighting the importance of our collective histories and struggles against colonialism. Much like Baldwin, I understand how media and entertainment are battlegrounds for historical representation, truth, and a chance to challenge the status quo or dissuade the masses.

James Baldwin, Billy Porter, Zionism, and the artist’s struggle for integrity?

Queer capitalism examines how LGBTQ+ identity and culture are co-opted for profit, often while erasing the historical struggles and marginalized experiences. The erasure of history and the co-optation of identity are intertwined within the framework of queer capitalism. Baldwin’s work often explored themes of identity, race, sexuality, and capitalism, and he frequently critiqued how dominant cultural narratives marginalize and silence marginalized voices.

In his acclaimed essay collection, Notes of a Native Son, Baldwin is critical of the racial wrongs committed by the American project and later on in his collection, No Name In The Street, Baldwin unravels the impacts of media and Hollywood in framing the American and colonial imagination. All of these considerations are built into Baldwin’s logic that the artist must have integrity in an unjust society:

I really don’t like words like “artist” or “integrity” or “courage” or “nobility.” I have a kind of distrust of all those words because I don’t really know what they mean, any more than I really know what such words as “democracy” or “peace” or “peace-loving” or “warlike” or “integration” mean. And yet one is compelled to recognize that all these imprecise words are attempts made by us all to get to something which is real and which lives behind the words. Whether I like it or not, for example, and no matter what I call myself, I suppose the only word for me, when the chips are down, is that I am an artist. There is such a thing. There is such a thing as integrity. Some people are noble. There is such a thing as courage. The terrible thing is that the reality behind these words depends ultimately on what the human being (meaning every single one of us) believes to be real. The terrible thing is that the reality behind all these words depends on choices one has got to make, for ever and ever and ever, every day. (The Artist’s Struggle Integrity)

This struggle or demand for integrity lays bare the contradiction of Billy Porter attempting to create a biopic today while having no deeper sense of allegiance to Baldwin’s desire for a more conscious and humanizing form of media. Porter, instead, wishes to make this biopic and follow where the green is, seemingly at all moral costs. Of his responsibility to tell Baldwin’s story, Billy Porter says to The Guardian:

If not me, who? I’ve been sitting around waiting for people to tell the Langston Hughes story, the James Baldwin story — anyone Black and queer, as far as I’m concerned. I’m done waiting — I’ll do it myself. The audacity, right? Who’s going to tell it better than the Black gay man who embodies that in today’s age? It’s such an important story to tell, and I feel so blessed to be in this time where it will get told.

Why should a person so dedicated to capitalism and personal benefit be tasked with writing and helming a James Baldwin biopic? According to Porter, being Black and gay and keen on pleasing gatekeepers is key. To Baldwin, however, this is the death of artistic integrity, and bending to the whims of the powerful of his time, like vehement anti-Communist Senator Joseph McCarthy, was a sign of a burgeoning era of censorship and propaganda that has led to many of our present realities today. For this reason and more, the question of the artist’s integrity is more important than ever.

SIGN… THE PETITION TO CALL FOR END TO BILLY PORTER’S JAMES BALDWIN BIOPIC

To learn more about Billy Porter’s forthcoming biopic on James Baldwin and how Hollywood Zionism may ruin it…

More Resources on Black History and Palestinian Liberation

• Black for Palestine | RESOURCE PAGE
• ‘We Know Occupation’: The Long History of Black Americans’ Solidarity with Palestinians [READING]
• The long, complicated history of Black solidarity with Palestinians and Jews [READING]
• From Ferguson to Gaza: How African Americans Bonded With Palestinian Activists [READING]
• How Palestinian And Black Liberation Is Connected [READING]
• Zines on Palestinian Liberation: Resource #1 | Resource #2 |
• The Ethnic Cleanings of Palestine [BOOK]

When we look at both battlegrounds for liberation, whether it be Palestinian or Black, there is an undeniable need to name the various enemies towards autonomy — militarism, racism, xenophobia, Manifest Destiny, and so much more. More than this, it is important to go deeper and pen language that makes tangible connections to how colonialism is the most foundational thread. Colonization is the process of taking another group’s land resources or labor for one’s benefit through social, political, and militaristic manipulations.

To comprehend contemporary struggles, we must view colonization as the common antagonist. By recognizing this shared enemy, we can construct frameworks illuminating the contradiction and commonalities at play. To name something is to begin to have the capacity to change it.

Just this past week, South Africa made a compelling and well-articulated case to condemn Israel for its genocide and systematic humanization of and against Palestinians. During the hearing senior lawyer Adila Hassim stated…

Genocides are never declared in advance, but this court has the benefit of the past 13 weeks of evidence that shows incontrovertibly a pattern of conduct and related intention that justifies as a plausible claim of genocidal acts.

On Colonization Against Black Americans

The essay and book NECROPOLITICS by Achille Mbeme opens…

This essay assumes that the ultimate expression of sovereignty resides, to a large degree, in the power and the capacity to dictate who may live and who must die.Hence, to kill or to allow to live constitute the limits of sovereignty, its fundamental attributes. To exercise sovereignty is to exercise control over mortality and to define life as the deployment and manifestation of power. One could summarize in the above terms what Michel Foucault meant by biopower: that domain of life over which power has taken control.

As a queer, Jamaican-American anarchist that runs a podcast (The Dugout) where I talk about politics and autonomy, I am endlessly interested in how death is both a framing for life and a tool of state and political powers. Within the context of American Blackness and the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, the colonizer handed out death like candy, leading to a way of life for enslaved folks, where living essentially meant a lack of autonomy or a willingness to turn away from death by any means, even if this meant one’s torture or the torture of our loved ones.

This point on lack of autonomy and willingness to survive from a Black standpoint has resonated with me deeply since a 2018 visit to Tulsa, Oklahoma for a press trip. Tulsa has a long and sordid history to the Black community following white-led race riots that leveled this thriving economic community through brutal bombings, vigilantism, and rape in 1921. Over 800 were admitted to hospital and an estimated 300 were killed. Making it one of the most egregious displays of biopower.

But the question can be asked, how does a massacre like what happened in Tulsa in 1921 connect to foundational understandings of colonialism? To start, the ongoing degradation of Black Americans is a continuation of the harms set up by British colonization and American structural racism, which both crafted and recrafted white supremacy to serve its goals.

The United States of America is a direct byproduct of a British colony, forged by the killing of Native Americans in a show of settler colonialism and then funded by the enslavement of Blacks; both backed by Manifest Destiny, eugenicist medical policies, discriminatory laws, cultural imperialism, and structural inequality. This cocktail of degradation has placed Black Americans in what many Black revolutionaries would describe as an “open-air prison”, a language that harkens to South African apartheid and the current apartheid policies applied against Palestinians.

Many American ghettos have been described as effective military zones that are overpoliced and used as testing sites for advancements in weaponry, surveillance, and predictive policing, which I wrote about notably in 2020 when I covered the use of Shotspotter for CodaStory. In this piece, I wrote…

For communities in Ohio and beyond that have installed ShotSpotter, procedural justice is an important concern — especially when police departments have a history of poor training, using excessive force or racial profiling.

Many times under colonialism and racial tyranny, what is procedural, like policing or carcerality, is embedded with countless forms of violence. Moving towards Black liberation requires that we disentangle ourselves from the ways that these oppressive systems rule our lives and the lives of others, to find ways to move the needle to improve our material conditions. To demand that Black people exist in this world as more than pawns of white supremacy, that we are not only alive to show the world that we can die.

This part of liberation is murky, tangled, and real. As real as our need to confront death to live, as both necropolitics and Huey P. Newton’s logic of revolutionary suicide explore. One of Martin Luther King’s last speeches in 1968 offers a chilling reminder…

Well, I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn’t matter with me now. Because I’ve been to the mountaintop. And I don’t mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. And I’m happy, tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.

On Colonization Against Palestinians

Since the establishment of Israel in 1948, the subjugation of Palestinians has only continued, which many Black revolutionaries and organizers have noted in the past. Similar to the ontological nature of Blackness as synonymous with death, today’s political climate does similar work to equate Palestinians with terrorists or with Hamas; which combines various stages of genocide (classification, dehumanization, and polarization). In the words of Edward Said, a Palestinian-American artist and activist,

Every empire, however, tells itself and the world that it is unlike all other empires, that its mission is not to plunder and control but to educate and liberate.

One of the clearest, recent examples of this is Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu’s post on Twitter following the heavily criticized Israeli bombing of a Palestinian hospital…

What is chilling about extreme Zionism today is that it replicates many of the stages of genocide utilized by the Nazis against Jews, to also commit genocide against the Palestinians — forced displacement, restriction of movement, imposing ghettos, military occupation, propaganda, unlawful arrest, collective punishments, and much more. What does it mean that these two areas of thought have utilized many of the strategies deployed by colonizers and supremacists? Furthermore, these tools of colonization and degradation by the Nazis were importantly borrowed from American ideals of racism.

This notion is explored throughout The Other Side: The Secret Relationship Between Nazism and Zionism, a 1984 book by Palestinian Mahmoud Abbas, the head of Fatah, the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO), and the Palestinian Authority (PA). This topic was also recently explored in an Aljazeera piece, Zionism, anti-Semitism and Colonialism by Joseph Massad…

That Arthur Balfour was a well-known Protestant anti-Semite who in 1905 sponsored a bill (The Aliens Act) to prevent East European Jews fleeing pogroms from immigrating to England was not incidental to the fact that the Zionists rushed to court him, let alone to his own support of the Zionist project through the “Balfour Declaration”, which would reroute Jews away from England… This transformation placed Zionism in a quandary. Zionism could only proceed with more colonisation of Palestinian land, yet, recognising the increasing hostility to colonialism, it began to present its colonial project as anti-colonial struggle. As its British sponsors had to retreat and limit their support for the Zionist project since the beginning of World War II, right-wing Zionists turned against them.

The piece is an engaging read about the shifting interpretations of anti-semitism and Zionism before, during, and after the establishment of Israel, all of which are thoughts that relate to the ongoing atrocities today.

Similar to how we must understand the specifics of colonization to expose and overcome it, we must also understand how the definitions of these terms have shifted over time to meet the political goals of those in power. Just as Black Americans can oscillate from slave to criminal to caretaker to entertainer on a socio-political level deemed by the oppressor with resources, weaponry, and propaganda, Palestinians can be synonymous with Hamas, anti-semitism, savages, and brutes.

When these associations with groups of people endure for decades or centuries, the work to free ourselves is messy, complicated, and necessary. The malleability of definitions, whether applied to Black Americans or Palestinians, underscores the weaponization of language in perpetuating oppression. As Black people the ongoing forms of carcerality and anti-Blackness, Palestinians grapple with how a Zionist state continues to survey, arrest, carpet bomb, and steal from them. The echoes of these narratives persist over decades and centuries, complicating the liberation struggle. Just as the specificity of colonization must be comprehended to dismantle its grip, evolving definitions of identity and subjugation lay the groundwork for a profound understanding of the shared struggle against a common enemy.

A Shared Understanding of a Way Forward

In a stirring op-ed late Palestinian activist, Bassem Masri, expressed similar sentiments, “When Mike Brown was murdered in Ferguson my people in Gaza were being slaughtered by Israel in Operation Protective Edge. The timing of the two events woke up a lot of people. When Mike was killed, much of the media started demonizing him and the protestors, often the same sources that blamed Palestinians for their own deaths in Gaza. People naturally saw the connections.”

In 2018, Masri passed away, added to the list of Ferguson activists who have passed since the 2014 uprising out of Ferguson, Missouri.

What is sinister and communalizing for the conditions facing Palestinians and Black people today is how colonization relegates us to death and makes the possibility of death something that we must confront from birth. Unlike how supremacy and colonization demand legacy, surviving the terror of colonialism demands that we live now, learn now, and resist now. This is not to romanticize death or mass suffering but rather to acknowledge that it compels us to act with righteousness and say what must be said.

To learn more on Black and Palestinian liberation, here are some more resources…

• Black-Palestine Solidarity Tool Kit by ColoredGirlsBikeToo
• Resources for Teaching Palestine
• Free Palestine: A Verso Reading List
• Let’s Talk Palestine (podcast)

2024 is here and that means readers have a whole twelve months to change the trajectory of their writing or career, whether it be finishing that book or setting time aside to apply to things. To help in this path, MWL has a great list of things to apply for in Q1 of 2024.

What is an artist residency?

Artist residencies are chunks of time. run by art organizations (that usually include lodging, food, and transportation) for artists to have time away from their “normal” life to work on their art. They can be a few days to a few weeks

Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts Residency

“Saltonstall offers free residencies to artists and writers who are year-round residents of New York State and/or one of the Indian Nations located therein. Our residencies are designed for those looking for a quiet, supportive environment in which to focus on their craft… Each residency session includes the same combination of five artists and writers: one poet, one fiction or creative nonfiction writer, one photographer or filmmaker, and two visual artists. These residencies are designed for individual artists and writers; we cannot accommodate collaborations or partners working together.

Ithaca, NY | Deadline: January 7, 2024

Joshua Tree Highlands Artist Residency (JTHAR)

“Artists selected for this program are at all stages of their careers and work in all media, including drawing, painting, photography, sculpture, film, video, new media, installation, fiction and non-fiction writing, interdisciplinary, social practice and architecture…. The residency provides studio space and living accommodations. Each artist will be assigned their own house in which to live and work for the length of the residency. Artists may choose to work in the JTHAR dedicated studio, a large studio space, divided by movable walls, depending on the artist’s needs. Housing Accommodations are located the Highlands near the West Entrance of the Joshua Tree National Park.”

Joshua Tree, California | Deadline: January 10, 2024

Helene Wurlitzer Foundation Artist Residency Program

“The HWF grants rent-free and utility-paid housing on the foundation campus, providing artists with their own fully furnished home (casita) and a peaceful setting in which to pursue their creative endeavors. The HWF places no expectations or requirements on the artists in residence; It is the gift of time and space. In addition to the artist casitas, the HWF campus includes the Commons House w/ WiFi*, Library, The Main House, and laundry facilities. Residents are responsible for their own food and transportation, although the Foundation does provide bicycles for artists in residence.”
Taos, New Mexico | Deadline: January 18, 2024

MacDowell Fellowship

“A Fellowship consists of exclusive use of a private studio, accommodations, and three prepared meals a day for two to six weeks. MacDowell does not provide instruction or supplies for artists-in-residence; the intention is that artists practice their work independently without assistance… Studios are assigned according to each artists’ project description and date availability and cannot be changed after arrival.”

Peterborough, New Hampshire | Deadline: February 10, 2024

What is a fellowship?

A fellowship is a program offered by an organization that helps an artist develop a project or general skills related to their craft/career.

Folger Institute Artistic Research Fellowships

“Folger Institute Artistic Research Fellowships are open to all artists whose work would benefit from significant primary research related to the histories, concepts, art, and objects of the early modern world (ca. 1400–1800) and its legacies. Artistic applicants are not required to hold a formal degree, but should describe their training and level of industry-specific experience in their CV.

Artistic applicants may apply for one, two, or three months of research support, with a stipend of $4,000 per month, taken any time between July 1, 2024, and June 30, 2025. For the 2024–25 fellowship year, artistic fellows will have the option to take fellowships fully onsite at the Folger, fully virtual, or a combination of the two. Applicants may propose the research schedule that best fits their project’s needs.”

Washington DC or virtual | Deadline: January 15, 2024

Forge Fellowship

“ Our process offers accomplices for accountability, actionable tools to create a solid foundation for the work, expertise from our combined 25 years of experience, and plenty of wisdom from inspiring changemakers around the world. We pair bi-monthly touchpoints (like consultations and skill-building opportunities) with access to daily support systems (like a dedicated online hub and FORGE’s extensive suite of templates) to create a space for curiosity, commiseration, and celebration. Check out the working calendar below for more detail:”

Remote fellowship; Deadline: January 17, 2024

If you’re looking for other ways to learn about artist opportunities, check out my Youtube channel.

Originally published at https://princeshakur.substack.com.

Amid the turbulence of the 1960s and 1970s, both the PLO and the BPP found common ground in their battles against injustice. Their shared struggle was a testament to the universal yearning for self-determination and freedom. The BPP, emblematic of Black American resistance to systemic racism and discrimination, and the PLO, fighting for Palestinian self-determination in the face of occupation, recognized in each other a kindred spirit in the quest for human rights and liberation.

As we delve into their shared history and examine the evolution of Black activist thought regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, we find that their story is not just one of the past; it is a guidepost for the future. The lessons of their solidarity are a source of inspiration and wisdom for the ongoing battles for justice and self-determination, reminding us that in unity, there is strength.

The PLO and BPP in the 1960s-70s

The PLO was founded in 1964 to represent the interests of the Palestinian people and their quest for self-determination. This was a period of intense turmoil in the Middle East, marked by the Israeli-Arab conflict, the Six-Day War in 1967, and the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem. The Palestinian territories were under Israeli control, and the PLO emerged as a central force in the fight against occupation and for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.

A decade before in 1956, Moshe Dayan, then chief of the Israeli Defense Force, said…

“Why should we deplore their burning hatred for us? For eight years they have been sitting in the refugee camps in Gaza, and before their eyes we have been transforming the lands and the villages, where they and their fathers dwelt, into our estate.”

Dayan’s statement can be seen as a reflection of colonialist attitudes and practices in the region. The transformation of Palestinian lands into “our estate” alludes to the colonial mindset that fueled the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories. This colonial context is fundamental to understanding the broader dynamics of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The Civil Rights Movement’s reliance on nonviolent resistance was seen by some as insufficient in the face of continued violence and oppression. This frustration led to the emergence of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense in 1966, founded by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale. The BPP aimed to address racial injustice with a more assertive and proactive approach.

The BPP was grounded in the belief that Black communities had the right to defend themselves against violence and police brutality. They believed that self-defense, both in terms of physical protection and the safeguarding of civil rights, was crucial in a climate where Black individuals faced disproportionate violence at the hands of law enforcement. On the topic of Black power, Kwame Ture said in 1966, “The only way we gonna stop them white men from whuppin’ us is to take over. What we gonna start sayin’ now is Black Power! We want Black Power!”

From Non-violence to Something More Serious

Black Americans, inspired by leaders like Martin Luther King Jr., practiced non-violent resistance through sit-ins, boycotts, and peaceful protests. The Montgomery Bus Boycott, the March on Washington, and the Selma-to-Montgomery marches exemplify these efforts. The objective was to challenge segregation, gain voting rights, and combat systemic racism.

In the paper, “The Palestinian Intifada: An Effective Strategy?”, by James F. Miskel writes…

Nonviolent demonstrations, school closures, labor strikes, boycotts of Israeli merchants, and the occasional stone-throwing by Palestinian youths at Israeli soldiers constituted the principal tactics of the first intifada. Israel's heavy-handed response to these protests was widely reported and se- verely criticized abroad. As diplomatic and political pressures on Israel began to build, however, Palestinian extremists instigated acts of violence against Israeli security forces and civilians that changed the character of the intifada. It has been suggested that the extremists, afraid that they would lose out to the proponents of nonviolence, took this path in order to regain political control.

The First Intifada commenced in December 1987 and played a pivotal role in the creation and strengthening of Hamas. Born in the context of widespread Palestinian protests and civil disobedience against Israeli occupation, Hamas, the Islamic Resistance Movement, emerged in 1987 as a response to perceived leadership gaps within the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). By 1987, almost half of Palestinians worked in Israel, leading to further surveillance and discrimination.

The emergence of the Black Panther Party in 1966 was a response to this frustration. The BPP adopted a more assertive stance, advocating for self-defense against police brutality and demanding community empowerment. While they promoted armed patrols, community programs, and education, their confrontational tactics and public display of firearms drew attention to the ongoing violence and oppression faced by Black Americans. The shift to a more confrontational approach represented the belief that self-determination and Black liberation required a more proactive and, at times, armed response.

Similarly, in the context of the First Intifada, Palestinian activists also turned to non-violent civil disobedience and grassroots mobilization in their struggle against Israeli occupation, a parallel to the shift from non-violent civil rights tactics to more assertive approaches in the United States.

In this evolving landscape, the emergence of Hamas as an Islamist organization during the First Intifada reflects the complexity of resistance movements and the diverse strategies employed to challenge occupation and assert self-determination. Hamas, with its fusion of religious and nationalist elements, highlighted the multifaceted nature of the Palestinian struggle, mirroring the shifts within the Black liberation movement from non-violence to more assertive forms of activism. These movements’ histories underscore the dynamic nature of resistance, where strategies evolve in response to changing circumstances and experiences of oppression.

One of the co-founders of the Black Panther Party once wrote, “Israel was created by Western imperialism and is maintained by Western firepower.”

Angela Davis, a lifelong ally of Palestine

On January 4, 2019, under the influence of influential members of the Birmingham community who held pro-Zionist views, the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute (BCRI) reversed its earlier decision to award Angela Davis, a distinguished Black scholar and activist, with its most prestigious accolade, the Fred Shuttlesworth Human Rights Award. Dr. Davis joined a lineage of Black internationalist voices who have faced backlash for their unwavering support for the Palestinian cause.

Davis, a longtime abolitionist and former political prisoner, has been a staunch supporter of Palestinian liberation since the 1960s, making her first visit there in 1983. In her book, Freedom is a Constant Struggle, Davis wrote of how the apartheid state of Palestine is still apparent today…

When I traveled to Palestine two years ago with a delegation of indigenous and women-of-color scholar/activists, it was the first time the members of the delegation had actually visited Palestine. Most of us had been involved for many years in Palestine solidarity work, but we were all thoroughly shocked to discover that the repression associated with Israeli settler colonialism was so evident and so blatant. The Israeli military made no attempt to conceal or even mitigate the character of the violence they inflicted on the Palestinian people. Gun carrying military men and women — many extremely young — were everywhere. The wall, the concrete, the razor wire everywhere conveyed the impression that we were in prison. Before Palestinians are even arrested, they are already in prison. One misstep and one can be arrested and hauled off to prison; one can be transferred from an openair prison to a closed prison.

Just as Angela Davis has stood alongside Palestinian activists in their fight for justice, her legacy reminds us that in the face of oppression and colonialism, the bonds of solidarity among Black and Palestinian communities can be a formidable force, propelling the shared pursuit of a more equitable and just world. In her tireless advocacy, Angela Davis demonstrates the profound impact individuals can have in bridging the divides between struggles for liberation, emphasizing that collective solidarity is the key to dismantling the chains of colonialism and achieving self-determination for all.

In studying the history of Black and Palestinian resistance and liberation, one crucial lesson becomes abundantly clear: the complexities of these struggles transcend the specific tactics employed. These movements have evolved over time, adapting to shifting circumstances and experiences of oppression. Studying this history reminds us that solidarity is a powerful force that transcends borders and ideologies.