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New zine: Collecting some of the writing that has been useful or meaningful to me over the past months. I’ve already shared some of my own thoughts; this zine is about signal-boosting voices that I think we should all be listening to in this moment, as well as being a concrete thing people can share as a doorway into taking action.
NOTE: I shared this zine in January 2024, and have since updated/revised it. The text/links later in this post share the quotes and articles from *both* versions.
PRINT YOUR OWN: Here is a link to the PDF, in case anyone out there wants to share (just make sure to print on 11×17 paper; here is my favorite “foldy zine” tutorial for how to cut and fold them).
Below, you can view the page-by-page version (click on it to move to the next page), and below that, you can find the full text, including links to sources.
A few highlights from 2023, for people who are interested in my work but may have missed something here or there. It was a bit of a “between-projects” year for me (though I did mark the one-year anniversary of my book by making a section available to read online here), on top of the fact that self-promo has been the furthest thing from my mind over the last three months, but here are some links.
Part of that piece is affirming that it’s less about sharing our own hot-takes and opinions, and more about lifting up the calls-to-action of organizations. For example, here is the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights’ “call your reps” tool, and here is Jewish Voice for Peace’s “take action” page. Both are good starting points.
Here is the MN Artists 4 Ceasefire website, with over 2,000 names, a form to sign it yourself if you’re a MN artist, and a very useful, MN-focused, action toolkit. Here’s a short video of me talking about why I chose to sign on:
And here’s an update (2/8/24): a video version of the Racket piece:
Just wanted to share a few good links and a specific thought about how they’re all connected. For more background (especially if you’re looking for more foundational info/context about Gaza), you can also check out the bundle of links I’ve shared on my “recommended reading” page.
The focus of this post is solidarity statements. Check out this guide from Building Movement Project that talks about what they are, why they matter, and questions/variables to consider when writing one.
That being said, it’s always important to first acknowledge and center statements (and specific calls to action) from groups representing, and/or connected to, the people most directly affected by an issue. In this case, that might mean looking to orgs like US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, Students for Justice in Palestine, American Muslims for Palestine, Palestinian Youth Movement, Palestinian Feminist Collective, etc.—not necessarily as absolute authorities, since no one group speaks for all of the Palestinian people, but as crucial starting points. What news are they sharing? What are their calls to action?
As of this writing, those calls to action might include contacting elected reps to support a ceasefire and the opening of humanitarian aid corridors, attending a local march or protest to show solidarity and gain media attention, and doing more in-depth political education and narrative-shifting work in your community. Another call to action, especially for those of us connected to organizations, might be to write a solidarity statement. A few examples:
Over the last decade that I’ve been traveling and performing, a big pet project of mine has been finding ways to invite people into activist work. Even when I’m brought in to facilitate conversations specifically about masculinity, or consent, or whiteness or whatever, I try to help those conversations “land” in a space of agency and possibility—yes, the problems we face are big and intimidating, but they’re not inevitable or insurmountable.
That’s a simple idea, but in this historical moment, it’s easy to lose sight of. I think more people than ever are fired up and want to do something, but there are also more “off-ramps” for that energy than ever before. Our outrage can get channeled into performative social media posting, into passively ingesting hyper-online leftist podcaster/youtuber content, into voting and nothing beyond voting, into cool-kid doomer cynicism, into anxiety around being the most politically-tuned-in individual we can be, and on and on.
So many of the young people I work with today have incredible politics, light-years ahead of where I was at their age, but not a lot of experience with, or exposure to, perspectives on organizing. And to be clear, I’m not any kind of expert, or even a full-time organizer. I’ve just had the privilege of having some great mentors and being plugged into powerful movement spaces, so I’m trying to use what platform I have to pass along some of what I’ve learned.
This zine (what’s a zine?) is the synthesis of a bunch of conversations related to all that. It mixes some foundational perspectives with some really recent ones. Something that should be obvious, but I’ll say it anyway because we’re on the internet: it’s not comprehensive. It’s not “everything you’ll ever need to know about activism.” It’s just a 12-page zine. The idea is that it’s a sampling, a small collection of potential starting points, doorways into movement work.
Because crisis often happens (or feels like it happens) all at once; preventing crisis is longer-term, all-the-time work. This is about how we might step into that work.
Multiple ways to view/read:
The carousel below is the page-by-page version (click it to move to the next page)
Below that, you’ll find the full text, including bonus content that didn’t fit into the 12-page version, plus links to sources.
Here is an Instagram carousel version for sharing there.
I have physical copies that I give away for free at my events/performances.
Finally, here is a link to a shorter, 8-page version for people who want to print/fold/share their own copies (directions here).
SisterSong defines Reproductive Justice as the human right to maintain personal bodily autonomy, have children, not have children, and parent the children we have in safe and sustainable communities. We believe that Reproductive Justice is…
A human right. RJ is based on the United Nations’ internationally-accepted Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a comprehensive body of law that details the rights of individuals and the responsibilities of government to protect those rights.
About access, not choice. Mainstream movements have focused on keeping abortion legal as an individual choice. That is necessary, but not enough. Even when abortion is legal, many women of color cannot afford it, or cannot travel hundreds of miles to the nearest clinic. There is no choice where there is no access.
Not just about abortion. Abortion access is critical, and women of color and other marginalized women also often have difficulty accessing: contraception, comprehensive sex education, STI prevention and care, alternative birth options, adequate prenatal and pregnancy care, domestic violence assistance, adequate wages to support our families, safe homes, and so much more.
Note: This post is from 2022, but has been UPDATED FOR 2024. A few specific, time-sensitive links:
Solidarity Beyond the Elections: 11/14/24 w/ the Building Movement Project’s Adaku Utah moderating a conversation with Rachel Cheek of the National Network of Abortion Funds; Margaret Faliano of Illuminative; and Mary Hooks of the Movement for Black Lives.
This post is just sharing a handful of links and resources for people who might be hearing stuff like “we need to show up beyond election day!” and “it’s the all-the-time work that really matters!” but may not have a ton of experience with activism and organizing. I hope they can be useful.
Note: This post was originally just set up to share my poem, but I expanded it to share other poems that explore abolition; I might still expand it even further into a separate post. For now, find that list below.
No, no cops. Neighbors. Family. Helpers. Experts. Medics. Shamans. Scrappers. Friends-of-friends. Preachers. Healers. Mechanics. Witches. In-laws. Volunteers. Whatever. We’ll figure it out. But no cops.
A little context, for anyone interested: In my book, “Not a Lot of Reasons To Sing, But Enough,” there is a series of “tall tales” about the exile folk hero Hen March. I don’t know if I’d call them “poems,” but it doesn’t really matter; like stories and songs in our own world, they communicate a set of values about the society in which they are told.
For some real-world context, this is one of the many pieces in the book about abolition. This one is definitely the most straightforward; aside from the sci-fi conceit of “a folktale being told by a travelling poet on a prison colony moon where the prisoners have had their memories erased,” it’s a relatively blunt story about prevention vs. punishment, about how a world without police or prisons doesn’t have to be some perfect utopia; it can just be not this. Being able to imagine not this is important.
In a 2019 interview, Mariame Kaba said this about the prison industrial complex:
You’re allowed to say ‘not this.’ Your critique in and of itself is valid. You’re allowed to say ‘not this,’ and keep it moving. Why? Because we didn’t get into this problem yesterday. We got into it over time. This is a collective problem that lots of people’s hands are involved in. This is bipartisan to the nth degree. So why then is a problem that was formulated by a lot of people over a long period of time expected to be resolved by one person giving the solution to the problem or having to shut up? Because what they’re selling you is not just like ‘you don’t get it,’ it’s ‘you come up with solution or you say nothing’ and I absolutely reject that. I reject that on its face. I think that is a way to silence people with radical critiques.
So that’s a starting point. For this piece, I wanted to use the “tall tale” format as an entry point into these ideas. There’s a lot of freedom in that approach—it isn’t my voice telling people what to think; it’s a character being referenced by another character, and the different layers of voice, hopefully, create room for readers/listeners to engage with the content as a story, as opposed to a powerpoint presentation of talking points.
A big goal/project/impulse in the book is that kind of “entry point” work. This poem, as well as poems like Good Apples, Wireless It Might Scream, Why Do You Write Poems When Death Is All Around Us, and others all engage with abolitionist ideas, although that specific word is never used. That relates to another theme in the book: the idea of how individual poems, songs, or other creative efforts can contribute to a larger story, without having to be the whole story. My book is absolutely not the book you read if you’re already interested in abolition and want to learn more; my hope is that it can plant a seed, especially for people new to the concept, whether they’re Button Poetry fans, sci-fi fans, or just people who randomly saw the book in a bookstore and thought the cover looked cool.
All that being said, if you ARE already interested in abolition and want to learn more, I have some fantastic resources to share:
One more MPD150 resource: The #AbolitionReadings series is a curated selection of some of the most powerful writing on abolition over the past few years. If you’re serious about learning more, it’s a really valuable collection.
Micah Herskind put together a big list of abolitionist books; my personal recommendations would be Mariame Kaba’s “We Do This ‘Til We Free Us” and Derecka Purnell’s “Becoming Abolitionists.”
Also, I may grow this into a separate post later, but for now, here are a few other abolitionist (or abolitionist-adjacent) poems:
Good Apples (there isn’t video of this one yet, but it’s in my book)
Not to mention songs like One Bad Cop, The Hero, Roguelike, and more that explore abolitionist themes (including a few from an as-yet-to-be-announced 2024 project)
…will keep adding to this; please feel free to share suggestions.
I wrote a version of this years ago, but here’s an update. Some framing:
1. This is a tool that’s been useful to me, and I’m sharing it in case it can be useful to others. I’m not interested in policing what other people post about, or “calling out” people with different social media practices. I’ve just had so many conversations with people who want to speak out, but don’t know what to say, and my hope is that this can be useful food for thought.
2. We already know that social media, by itself, is not the work. It’s not radical. All of the platforms are owned by awful people and built to be addictive. But it is a tool that a lot of organizations, collectives, and individuals still use, for better or worse, and it can do some good when used with intentionality.
3. The primary audience I have in mind for this piece is people like me: artists, minor celebrities (extremely minor, in my case), people with some kind of platform. These days, however, almost everyone has “some kind of platform.” Whether it’s 100k, 10k, or just a few dozen followers- we all have access to our own specific micro-audiences, so we might as well do something with it.
![Cream background, three art panels in the bottom 3rd of the image with a tree, a mountain, and sun reflecting on water. Text from top to bottom reads: Pick up your zine copy! / Come to the Women's Center lounge in Appleby Hall Room 65 during one of the following times to pick up your copy!* / [In bold] Tuesday May 2nd, 11:30AM-12:30PM and 2:30PM-4:30PM / Wednesday May 3rd, 11AM-12PM and 1PM-4PM / Thursday May 4th, 11AM-12PM and 2�PM-3:30PM / [in italics] *Limit 1 copy/person. While supplies last. We will offer second round print delivery and pickup in a couple weeks based off demand!*](https://i0.wp.com/guante.info/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/5.png?resize=720%2C720&ssl=1)
![[Image: a continuum titled “SOCIAL MEDIA AS HELP VS. HINDRANCE TO MOVEMENT WORK” with green/good on one end, and red/bad on the other. Starting on green and moving to red: (1) signal-boosting organizers: sharing Their asks, information, and calls o action; (2) Sharing resources related to the issue; (3) Sharing stories + personal connections; (4) Outrage (which can be mobilizing or demobilizing); (5) Silence, both-sides-ism, neutrality, (6) perforamative cynicism + condescension, (7) Uninformed hot takes, "deep thoughts" (8) spreading misinformation + disinformation]](https://i0.wp.com/guante.info/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/BEYOND-HOT-TAKES.png?resize=720%2C405&ssl=1)
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