“In order for nonviolence to work, your opponent must have a conscience. The United States has none.” ― Stokely Carmichael
- Negotiation does not work; this is proven by simple, accessible histories. Look at the endless efforts that non-profits, “leaders,” activists, and other organizations make in order to negotiate with the oppressive system and its agents. There have been endless city council meetings attended, petitions signed, calls made, and emails sent to try to get those in power to listen to the needs of the people. Few material gains have been made for such large efforts. Negotiation will only work when we can leverage MATERIAL power that originates from our own terms, instead of engaging on the field of their terms (i.e. demands, respectability, law, etc.).
- Shaming officials goes nowhere. Politicians, mayors, and other officials obey the logic of capitalism and white power; they have no other mandate than making sure these systems operate efficiently. Yelling “Shame!” at cops or guilt-tripping politicians does nothing because they have no conscience: they only go through the motions set in place by capital and white supremacy. Feelings belong to humans, not to agents of the state; they don’t care about us, the state only cares about itself. Systems of oppression are not dismantled by appeals to emotion, logic or ethics; they’re dismantled by material action.
- Accountability will never exist. Every large city or metropolitan area in this country has spent decades attempting to get officials to be accountable to their demands and needs. Accountability will only exist where authority is abolished: we can only hold others accountable when we share a reciprocal, horizontal relationship with them. By nature, state officials have authority and vertical power over us, and are only accountable to the needs of capitalism and white supremacy. If holding the state accountable was a reality in the first place, then it would have radically changed a long time ago. Obviously, the police prevent this from happening.
- Visibility is a trap. Many times, we think that “shedding light on this community” or “finally getting the representation that this group lacked” are forms of liberation. In fact, becoming palatable or assimilating into the power structure (and its forms of representation) is counter-productive. We end up being shunned, fetishized, and ostracized in the spaces where we see “Black and brown faces in high places.” In fact, the same people who “represent” us typically end up reproducing the same violent white supremacist structures that they vowed to undo (see, most recently: AOC voting in favor of a generous military budget). Visibility is a trap because it is all about appearances: the surface of the power structure changes but underneath, it runs just the same way it always has.
- Existence is not resistance. We have all heard this cliche before: to take up space and proclaim your position, usually in an environment where your presence is not welcomed. However, this falls into the same issue of visibility and appearances: your presence in a white, upper-class, or prestigious space is not a sign of radical change but is rather the recuperation and re-legitimization of the space itself. Instead of questioning the validity of such spaces in the first place, this position assumes that the presence of marginalized people in these spaces signifies freedom for all marginalized folks. This is not true because the space co-opts your unique existence, continues to take on a material life (i.e. individualism, capitalism, etc.), and does not care about our collective existence.
- You cannot speak truth to power. Similarly, your actions are not a “voice” for the “voiceless.” A lot of the time, we may think that well-thought-out and convincing arguments will cause a shift in power relations. But power operates mechanically and logistically, outside of the will of bureaucrats. Discourse works to help communities themselves to create meaning for each other and communicate needs, but attempting to use discourse to disrupt power is like screaming into an empty void. In fact, those in power like to parrot the same words and discourses that people in social movements create, such as Sanders or AOC who shout “Abolish the Police” only to vote in favor of its funding. To power, we must speak to only in the language it will ever understand: the language of action, of disruption, and destruction.
- My struggle isn’t your struggle (or “mi lucha es tu lucha”). We all have very different experiences and even if we share the same identities with others, this does not translate into the same kinds of politics or desires. Black experience in the US is a struggle of its own and non-Black people should not try to make it seem like your experiences are entirely relatable, even if you are a POC. This also extends to the lived experiences that vary across gender, skin color, ability, class, etc. We can find common ground not by homogenizing communities, but rather by identifying the common enemy and attacking it simultaneously. The different experiences that we live through all share the same, material source: let’s start there, because solidarity means attack, together.
- We do not need white allies. White accomplices are preferred, but white people should not be at the forefront of our movements or at actions. We are the only ones who can and should be liberating ourselves from white supremacy, fascism, and capitalism: this puts self-determination directly into the hands of the most oppressed. When we learn the methods to fight back against oppression, we do not need to rely on benevolent white people to stand up for us. In fact, we should never rely on them; instead, we should learn to have each other’s backs as non-white communities. We have talked about autonomous initiative before and want to expand on that by arguing that white folks should ideally direct their energies towards helping initiatives that are both by and for BIPOC. Typically, white-led formations tend to reproduce the white power relations that exist at large: autonomous white power is still just white power. White initiatives should therefore materially aid already existing or needed projects that support BIPOC communities.
- Peaceful protest is not effective. Peaceful actions DO NOT grant us any moral leverage or mainstream acceptability. For example, many people still think that the Civil Rights Movement was peaceful when it was, in fact, not. It only made partial gains because of the threat of Black militancy and armed self-defense. Actions must be about material effectiveness, not morality or an ethical “higher ground”. Explore the histories detailed in the following books: “This Nonviolent Stuff’ll Get You Killed: How Guns Made the Civil Rights Movement Possible” by Charles E. Cobb Jr. and also “We Will Shoot Back: Armed Resistance in the Mississippi Freedom Movement” by Akinyele Omowale Umoja.Abolition will not be peaceful.