We Are More Than a Piece; We Are Part of the Puzzle PDF Print E-mail Written by Heather Ajani Monday, 11 October 2004 Full title: "We Are More Than a Piece; We Are Part of the Puzzle: One Year After the 2003 APOC Conference – Criticism, self-criticism and moving away from individualism " Nearly a year has past since the first Anarchist People of Color Conference in Detroit. So where are we as people of color who identify as anarchists, anti-authoritarians, agitators, autonomous, etc. When I look at the past few months of my life, I realize that as a participant in last year's conference as an organizer and a co-author of a network proposal, that being an anarchist/anti-authoritarian (fill in the blank "a") person of color is probably more of a description of who we are rather than how we function in the larger context of social and political movement. It makes me wonder if we are looking at our identities in terms of who we are politically above who we are personally and whether that leads us to necessitate the creation of yet another organization rather than spaces in which we can gain empowerment and self-determination-the strength to struggle against a larger system of domination. Or are we mirroring what is already existent in the left, but as people of color? Does that bar us from seeing the larger struggle of people color around the world, and more still from participating in that struggle within our communities locally as well as globally? Since last October, I have seen projects in the works, participated in conference calls, been to a regional gathering, collective meetings, participated in committees, and met with individuals who identified with "APOC" tendencies as part of an oral history project. I can't help but wonder what it's all for. What makes us cohesive? What does representing APOC mean, say for instance if one is an anarchist of color, but isn't "with APOC," are they still not APOC? Does this make your head spin like it does mine? Are we repeating identity politics or are we creating a political tendency that is becoming a loosely knit organization? So far, we have committees, forums, websites, a monthly publication -- hell, we even have a book. Why are we not calling a spade a spade? Or is the spade really a club? If we are going to move ahead, we need to look at serious questions. We need to look at the bigger picture. This begins with defining ourselves politically. One thing that came up as I traveled the country was the need to address things like race, class and gender among radical people of color. This has been largely ignored as we still have tendencies towards activist tourism, middle-class guilt, assimilation, cultural appropriation, machismo, disproportionate numbers in terms of cultural/racial representations, etc. We have all the makings and mistakes of what white-led groups have already built, so what makes us different? That we are brown, black, etc? Is that enough when it comes to building the foundations for revolution? It may seem pessimistic to dismiss organic growth process, but even when gardens grow organically, the crops still need to be tended to. Whether it be together, separately, within the larger activist left, or in our communities (where we live, where we work, etc.) we need to redefine how radical tendencies apply to communities of color in a contemporary context. This means that we need to study our histories and our cultures. We need to look at political movements across the board and learn what worked and what didn't. We need to figure out how words and ideologies become who we are now in terms of our struggle. We have to be able to write and develop our own theory, we need to be self-defined. We can't leave our destinies up to dead-(mostly) white guys who wrote about struggles going on a hundred years ago, when so much more has been done to manipulate and further hold us back. We need to begin by developing a political program, thus recognizing and addressing how we are involved in our communities and how we work together on a larger scale. This also means that we need to take seriously racial hierarchies, gender oppression, and class differences/privileges. We need to struggle against the tyranny that is the Amerikan Project. We need to look at politics/society as a fluid and ever changing experiment. While we can take from the lessons of groups like the Black Panthers, the Young Lords, etc, we can also look at mistakes such as those made historically in those groups as well as white-led movements such as the Weather Underground. We need to not take on the tendencies of the white left, white anarchism, etc. Those tendencies to which I am referring to are those in which there is a separation between those activating and those organizing their own people against an oppressor. We should be able to plug into community struggles without an individualist approach that garners the need for self-gratification. We need to remember that we are part of something that is bigger than us, not the communities of activists we are building. Our call to consciousness should be contingent on the struggles we live daily, not a discovery or a realization or a "calling" to "help" others. The problem in duplicating another anarchist milieu is that anarchism currently allows for reinvention of the wheel, patronization/ tokenization of oppressed peoples, lifestylism that borders on the moralism so prevalent in the Puritanical values that drive the existing empire. Contemporary anarchism does little to truly challenge and breakdown that culture instead focusing on monthly bike rides, co-ops, collective houses and infoshops that further fuck over oppressed people with gentrification, dislocation, economic hardship among other problems. Anarchism today is little more than a bastardization of various social movements that allows angst-ridden individuals to live as they choose within the context of Amerikanism. It is little more than a sub-culture with little cohesion or political unity. I am not saying that all of what I've raised is necessarily true or applicable to all anarchists or all anarchists of color. The point that I'm raising is that anarchism comes with a lot of preconceived notions. We need to break those tendencies; we need to break the cycles of marginalization that we experience on various levels. We need to see anarchism as an ends to which we determine the means. We need to tear down before we can rebuild. More clearly, this means that we need to develop an analysis that is unique to the anarchist people of color tendency and in which the practice of that analysis is contingent upon. We should view trends of mirroring the white left with the same skepticism that many of us do when we talk about the participation of whites in our movements. By not developing our own unique political praxis, we are falling into a whitewashing of our pain and struggle. There is a need to rebuild on various levels. Recently, I saw a documentary on the Weather Underground and something Kathleen Cleaver said in regards to the FBI's counter intelligence program (Cointel-Pro) was that it was effective in not only tearing revolutionary movements apart, but that it had succeeded in tearing away the trust, love and sense of humor that we once had in our struggles. We need to have political and personal praxis to function effectively. We need to develop accessible political language and build political unity that not only allows for our autonomy, but strengthens our struggle towards a common goal. We need to become a part of the world around us or get reacquainted with our non-activist communities if we aren't/haven't done so already. We need to be able to assess our needs, goals and visions within those contexts. We need to also be disciplined and serious in meeting those goals and working towards those visions. We need to look beyond our own individuality and look towards a common goal, the bigger picture. When we start to get away from the notion that we are part of something bigger than ourselves, then we can truly be effective. We need to realize that our strengths lie in empowerment of ourselves within our communities, building unity amongst people of color, promoting self-definition and self-determination, working towards freedom and developing a vision that we can work towards and until we start doing these things, we replicate the tendency of yet another subculture.