Read & Revolt

On Tuesday, October 17th, starting at 7 PM, we will be discussing “The Dragon and the Hydra: A Historical Study of Organizational Methods” by Russell Maroon Shoatz at Boxcar Books.

This text is an outline of different struggles against European colonialism and slavery in the last couple hundred years. It highlights the contrasts between decentralized forms of struggle with those that are centralized, and is meant to argue for the effectiveness of the former.

Russell Maroon Shoatz is an imprisoned Black Liberation fighter who was part of the Black Panthers and Black Liberation Army, who wrote this essay from prison.

On October 3, 2017, we will be reading – “A Very Short Introduction to Afro-Pessimism” by Isidore.

This is the preface of the new book “Afro-Pessimism: An Introduction.” Afro-pessimism is a theoretical tendency that centers anti-blackness as opposed to white supremacy itself, and explores how the concept of the human is made in antithesis to that of the slave. These theorists re-examine the definition of slavery and the social death that accompanies it in order to demonstrate that this society is structured by the social death of black people, that blackness is defined in this way, and that it is impossible to eliminate this social death without destroying the foundations of this society

On Tuesday, September 19th, we will be reading “Eating the Other: Desire and Resistance” by bell hooks, which is a chapter from her 1992 book Black Looks: Race and Representation.

This text analyzes how blackness is viewed by white people as being more intense, authentic, and therefore threatening, and how a commodified form of blackness is sought after because it is seen as more pleasurable. You can pick up a free copy the text at Boxcar Books for two weeks prior to its discussion, or read it online here.

This is the second in a series of discussions we will have about anti-blackness throughout September and October. By sharpening our ideas, we hope to better fight against racism and this monstrous society that it is deeply woven into.

We will be meeting at Boxcar Books, 408 E. 6th Street, starting at 7 PM. Read & Revolt is a discussion group seeking to analyze this society and the potential for liberation from an anarchist perspective.

For the next discussion we will be reading “Towards an Anarchist Ecology”, which is a series of essays written by the group Knowing the Land is Resistance, who are concerned with deepening their relationships to the land and natural world. In these texts they discuss their experiences engaging in these processes, while taking on some tough questions regarding their statuses as settlers on stolen Native land, ecology in urban settings, and their attempts to deflate the assumed importance of “expertise” in ecology/naturalist circles.

The texts can all be read online here, and a PDF for printing here (heads up, it’s 25 MB).

We will be meeting at Boxcar Books, 408 E. 6th Street, starting at 7 PM. Read & Revolt is a discussion group seeking to analyze this society and the potential for liberation from an anarchist perspective.

The upcoming discussion taking place July 4 at Boxcar Books starting at 7PM will be the Introduction and Chapter 1 from The Unquiet Dead. It’s a study of fascism from an anarchist perspective, and specifically an analysis of fascist mythology with gender and race essentialisms as its core components.

You can pick up a free copy of the text at Boxcar Books for two weeks prior to its discussion. It’s a longer one, so you might want to pick up a copy sooner rather than later!

The discussion this coming Tuesday will be taking place at Boxcar Books at 7 PM. We will be discussing “Where Do We Meet Face-to-Face?” a text anonymously published in the early 2000s that’s becoming increasingly relevant over time.

You can pick up a free copy of the text at Boxcar Books for two weeks prior to its discussion. You can also find it online here.

As usual, this event is free and all ages are welcome. Here’s the facebook event.

“Alienation is as old as civilization itself since the dawn of civilization corresponds with the origin of institutionalized power structures. But resistance to alienation is just as old.”