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Title: NW APOC Reportback Author: Brooke Stepp Date: October 2008 Language: en Topics: Anarchist People of Color, New York, reportback Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20100604010228/http://illvox.org/2008/10/nw-apoc-reportback/
The weekend of Friday August 15th through August 17th marked the renewal
of a specifically anarchist presence among people of color in the
Northwest. The gathering took place in Portland, Oregon over a three-day
period. Around twenty people of color from all over the region attended
the gathering coming from as far away as Eugene and Bellingham. Olympia,
Seattle and Portland were also represented at the event.
The focus of the weekend was to define what an APOC (Anarchist People of
Color) organization looks like, specifically in the context of the
Northwest, and also to define what it means to be part of an APOC
identity. Friday night was focused on a social event at a fellow
APOCer’s house where folks could hang out with one another, eat food,
and get to know everyone who would be part of the gathering. This was in
sharp contrast to many other activist events that take place. The focus
here instead was on building community and feeling comfortable around
one another rather than insisting on immediately “getting down to
business.” Despite the amazing community- building that happened that
weekend, there was much business that had to be addressed.
Saturday began with a report-back from the NE APOC gathering that
happened just before the one in the Northwest, followed by lively
discussions about the APOC of the past. APOC, as an idea, began over the
Internet on a listserv in 2001 by Ernesto Aguilar and was inspired by
anarchists of color throughout history, such as Lucy Parsons, Lorenzo
Kom’boa Ervin, and Ricardo Flores Magon. In 2003, the first formal
gathering of Anarchist People of Color at the national level occurred in
Detroit, Michigan at Wayne State University. Although some factionalism
occurred at the conference (see illvox.org), a sense of purpose emerged
from the conference in general. After hurricane Katrina in 2005, plans
fell through for another national conference that was to be held in
Houston, Texas. Resources could not be gathered to change the
conference’s venue in time. Thus, 2009 will mark the renewal of APOC at
a national level. The gatherings that are taking place now in the
Northeast, Northwest, and soon in the Southwest are precursors to this
renewal.
In the past, APOC has not been associated with any sort of centralized
group, but instead is a network made up of individuals and collectives.
There are many different ideas concerning what APOC is, what it should
be, and what it means to claim an APOC identity. In fact, the diversity
of opinions present throughout APOC is one of the reasons why it is an
important presence in left revolutionary movements today. At the recent
Northwest gathering, participants articulated many of these points that
make APOC essential and relevant. One of these ideas, and one that is
particularly salient, was the fact that an APOC organization gives
people of color working for social change a chance to come together and
take back our communities. It gives us the impetus to create revolution
in the here and now. In other words, coming together with other people
of color who have similar experiences is incredibly empowering and gives
us insight that we didn’t have before that we can then use in our own
communities.
Furthermore, an APOC presence allows people of color to reclaim our
anti-authoritarian past and ideas from what has become a movement with a
majority-white face. This reminds us, and the world, that people of
color all over the place were living in anti-authoritarian societies
long before Proudhon or Bakunin ever wrote it down and called it
anarchism. Therefore, APOC is extremely important because it allows
people of color to look back and take pride in our history that has been
erased through colonialism, imperialism, and domination. It shows the
world that anarchism is not just for and by white people. It is for all
people. Lastly, an APOC presence allows a place for people of color to
find support outside of our mass movement work.
The left in the United States is composed primarily of white folks.
Because of this, people of color involved in these movements face a lot
of difficulties from flat-out racism to being marginalized and not
understood by their comrades who have completely different experiences.
APOC serves as a place for people with similar experiences in relation
to race to come together and find much-needed support and guidance.
One issue that came up at the gathering that will need to be discussed
and analyzed further both in the Northwest and at a national level is
the term APOC itself. What does it mean? What does the “A” mean? How
does this label make people of color feel? Some people prefer the terms
“autonomous” or “anti-authoritarian” to “anarchist.” The reasons for
this are plenty and include issues of inclusivity and appearances. Many
people of color in the U.S. today do not wish to be associated with what
has become the stereotypical white North American anarchist movement
that is less about community and more about creating a lifestyle out of
anarchism. Because of these common notions of what anarchism is, many
people of color feel that the term alienates us from the communities we
come from. Furthermore, it was pointed out at the gathering that we
shouldn’t feel obligated to define ourselves by our relationships to
racism, colonialism, and imperialism, because all people of color have
different relationships to these histories. In other words, all people
of color are not the same and we all have our own complex pasts and
stories. However, what all people of color do have in common is the fact
that we are not white in a society that elevates whiteness, maleness,
heterosexuality, money, etc. above all else and defines everything in
relation to these “norms.” Because of this, there is common ground for
us to work together around issues that affect people of color in
particular such as immigration, access to healthcare, gentrification,
sexual violence, gang presence, war in our communities, and the prison
industrial complex.
The weekend ended with brainstorming about how our current work on
issues as diverse as working with youth, poetry and spoken word, hip
hop, Industrial Workers of the World, infoshops, homeless outreach,
prison work, education, and student movements fits into an APOC identity
in the Northwest. We brainstormed particular groups that are already
working around issues that affect us as people of color in the region.
We identified groups such as OLIN in Portland who do Zapatista
solidarity work, Communities Against Rape and Abuse in Seattle who are
an affiliate of INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence, Seattle
Solidarity Network who are doing a lot of positive work against
gentrification, and Olympia Industrial Workers of the World who are
doing support work for day laborers in the area. At the conclusion of
the weekend, we had developed a small community among APOCers in the
Northwest, a plan to publish a periodical, some concrete ideas to be
thinking about, and a date for the next gathering in December of 2008 in
Olympia, WA.