Posted on January 31st, 2012 in AK Allies, AK Distribution
I assume that most of you have seen the great monthly posters put out by the folks at Chapel Hill’s Prison Books Collective — every month, they release a new one that you can print out and hang up around your school, infoshop, workplace, and local coffeehouse with the names and addresses of incarcerated comrades celebrating their birthdays that month.
This year, I encourage all of you to send letters, books, zines, AK catalogues, images, postcards, and anything you can into the prisons. Check out the Prison Books Collective calendars for suggestions of who to write to, find your local prisoner support organization, join or start a letter-writing night, ask for advice at your local infoshop (that’s why they exist!) or whatever it takes. Don’t forget our friends on the inside. They’re a vital part of our struggle, and in many ways, we are fighting for them, just as they are fighting for us.
Click here to download February’s calendar of Political Prisoner Birthdays.
Posted on January 25th, 2012 in AK Authors!, AK News, Happenings, Uncategorized
It’s true: the book tour for Why Are Faggots So Afraid of Faggots is about to begin! Please spread the word, and tell your local booksellers to order the book!
Why Are Faggots So Afraid of Faggots?:
Flaming Challenges to Masculinity, Objectification, and the Desire to Conform
Edited by Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore
(AK Press, February 2012)
“These essays, alternately moving and sprightly, contemplative and outraged‚ display the power of presenting an alternative to the mainstream: a world of greater tolerance, acceptance, support, and creativity.”–Publishers Weekly
“You may have thought you understood human nature before you read this book; after reading it you will be humbled by all you failed to grasp until now. America invented identity politics but here those identities have been multiplied and articulated as never before.”–Edmund White, author of A Boy’s Own Story
“These essays come like a plunge into a forest pool of revitalizing joy, honesty, and common sense. Read them. Now. No‚ not tomorrow. Now!”–Samuel R. Delany, author of Times Square Red, Times Square Blue
Upcoming Events:
Stories Books and Cafe, Echo Park
Sunday, January 22, 6:30 pm
1716 West Sunset Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90026-3225
www.storiesla.com
(213) 413-3733
http://www.facebook.com/events/348593838486877/
University of Southern California
Monday, January 23, 5 pm
Los Angeles, CA
Claremont Colleges
Scripps College, Balch Auditorium
Thursday, January 26
7 pm doors, 7:30 pm talk
Reception and book signing to follow in the Hampton Room above Scripps Dining Hall
Claremont, CA
Friday, January 27 publishing conversation
Pomona College, Queer Resource Center, 3 pm
Snacks provided
Pomona, CA
University of San Francisco
Wednesday, February 8, 5 pm
University Center (UC) 4th Floor Lounge
San Francisco, CA
THE BIG BOOK LAUNCH
Valentine’s Day 2012, Tuesday, February 14, 6 pm
(come early for heart-shaped refreshments)
San Francisco Main Library
1100 Larkin St
San Francisco, CA
A delicious discussion with contributors Jaime Cortez, Tommi Avicolli Mecca, Debanuj DasGupta, Booh Edouardo, Eric Stanley, Harris Kornstein, Gina de Vries, Horehound Stillpoint, Matthew D. Blanchard, and your lovely host Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore
(more…)
Posted on January 24th, 2012 in Events
Pathologized, terrorized, and confined, trans/gender non-conforming and queer folks have always struggled against the enormity of the prison industrial complex. The first collection of its kind, Eric A. Stanley and Nat Smith bring together current and former prisoners, activists, and academics to offer new ways for understanding how race, gender, ability, and sexuality are lived under the crushing weight of captivity. Through a politic of gender self-determination, this collection argues that trans/queer liberation and prison abolition must be grown together. From rioting against police violence and critiquing hate crimes legislation to prisoners demanding access to HIV medications, and far beyond, Captive Genders is a challenge for us all to join the struggle.
Join editors Nat Smith & Eric Stanley along with Julia Oparah (Sudbury), Alexander Lee, Dean Spade, Michelle Potts, and Ralowe Ampu, for readings and conversation.
Posted on January 24th, 2012 in Events
Join Eric Stanley and Dean Spade in celebration of their recently released books: Captive Genders: Trans Embodiment and the Prison Industrial Complex (AK Press) and Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics and the Limits of Law (South End Press). The event is free and open to the public.
About Captive Genders:
Pathologized, terrorized, and confined, trans/gender non-conforming and queer folks have always struggled against the enormity of the prison industrial complex. The first collection of its kind, Eric A. Stanley and Nat Smith bring together current and former prisoners, activists, and academics to offer new ways for understanding how race, gender, ability, and sexuality are lived under the crushing weight of captivity. Through a politic of gender self-determination, this collection argues that trans/queer liberation and prison abolition must be grown together. From rioting against police violence and critiquing hate crimes legislation to prisoners demanding access to HIV medications, and far beyond, Captive Genders is a challenge for us all to join the struggle.
About Normal Life:
Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics and the Limits of Law raises revelatory critiques of the current strategies pivoting solely on a legal rights framework, but also points to examples of an organized grassroots trans movement that is demanding the most essential of legal reforms in addition to making more comprehensive interventions into dangerous systems of repression—and the administrative violence that ultimately determines our life chances. Setting forth a politic that goes beyond the quest for mere legal inclusion, Normal Life is an urgent call for justice and trans liberation, and the radical transformations it will require.
Posted on January 6th, 2012 in Events
The North American Anarchist Studies Network is holding its third annual conference this year in San Juan, Puerto Rico. It will be a forum for those engaged in intellectual work within existing institutions, such as universities, but also those engaged in the production of knowledge beyond institutional walls to share their ongoing work. Far more than an academic conference, the NAASN wishes to create spaces in which there’s a friendly dialogue regarding topics that might help us expand the knowledge of the theory of anarchism and how to construct a better and equal society.
For more information on the conference, and its schedule of presentations, visit: http://naasnpr.org/
Posted on January 5th, 2012 in AK Authors!, Current Events, Recommended Reading, Uncategorized
We just received this letter from our author and comrade, Marshall “Eddie” Conway, currently serving a life sentence in a Maryland prison for a crime he didn’t commit. As ever, his spirits remain high, and his work is an inspiration to activists and organizers both beyond and inside the prison walls. And, there’s hope on the horizon – Eddie is in the midst of a parole appeal. Read on for an update on his case, and on how you can lend support. And, if you haven’t read Eddie’s autobiography, Marshall Law: The Life and Times of a Baltimore Black Panther, we highly recommend it – it’s one of our top sellers for 2011!
Revolutionary Greetings, to all my family, friends, and supporters. The last few months have been a very busy time for me. I am very happy to report that some progress has been made in several areas. The best news to date is the progress with my parole situation. Since my last update letter, my lawyer filed a request for a parole hearing for me. I had the hearing on November 30, 2011. I met with two commissioners and they decided to advance my case to the next level of the parole process for persons with life sentences. That level requires a psychological evaluation, which means that sometime in the near future I will be transferred to another institution for a three month evaluation. This whole process is called a Risk Assessment, and once this level is completed the case goes before the full body of the parole commission. There are ten commissioners and a majority vote is required before the case can be sent to the governor who has the final right to approve or deny.
Thanks to all of you who wrote support letters or sent cards. One of the key reasons for moving my case forward was the enormous amount of community support reflected by those letters and cards. You all really helped, thank you once again. For those who did not know that this process was underway, it happened fast, but there is still time for you to write. The case will go before the full commission and the members will once again read the letters of support. So please continue to send letters requesting parole to:
Mr. David Bloomberg
6776 Reisterstown Rd.
Baltimore, MD. 21215
My lawyer, Phillip Dantes and his legal team has committed to filing my case in court by the end of this year 2011. As of this writing, that schedule is still being honored. We are looking forward to being in court sometime in 2012. Once we have a date, I will make you all aware via facebook and an update letter. We will be organizing a fundraiser in the spring to help with legal and court costs.
Since my last letter I have had the opportunity to speak at a number of events. I spoke with students and activist at University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, University of California at Riverside, and Students Against Mass Incarceration at Howard University. I also spoke at several community events and book readings of Marshall Law The Life and Times of a Baltimore Panther: the Urban Network in Detroit, MI., Internationalist Books in Chapel Hill, N.C., and readings in Chicago, Ill., and in Baltimore, MD. Some of these events also included large groups form Occupy Riverside, CA. and Occupy Chicago, plus students from University of North Carolina. In October I participated in a conference of community leaders and activists like Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle organized by Dylan Rodriguez with the American Studies Association; their annual meeting was held in Baltimore. I also had the opportunity to meet and speak with National Black United Front members who visited me and offered some encouragement for the survival of our community.
The work we are doing with the Friend of a Friend (FOF) mentoring organization is going very well. The organization has developed so many positive community leaders and mentors that I can no longer keep up with all the new people around the system and out in the community; that is a good thing and I am happy with both the group’s growth and direction. The (FOF) prison project is expanding into another prison- with one more wanting the program; it is currently in five Maryland prisons.
I will never be able to thank the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) for taking on this task and helping us save hundreds of lives and put many positive activists back into the community. We are now organizing our families outside with the support of a local church, Pleasant Hope Baptist Church and Pastor Heber Brown. Members of a Friend of a Friend are working with a local school to help provide guidance to youth; they are starting a Freedom School in 2012, and are also speaking at colleges in the region.
Our Neutral Grounds project has opened up a snack and beverage stand to demonstrate our concept of “Do for Self”. Since unemployment is highest among people of African descent and even higher among former prisoners we have to think of ways to employ ourselves, and create our own economic opportunity. My family is okay in general. However, I recently lost a brother-in-law; he was married to my sister for thirty-nine years. Many of the family are planning a large holiday dinner and I plan to call in to the gathering. I am still struggling with high blood pressure, but I am exercising and trying to eat right, but prison food only allows so much right eating.
One thing I wish I could do better is write everyone as soon as the mail comes in, it’s just not possible, but I greatly appreciate every letter – thank you all. I am looking forward to the coming year, and hope to see positive changes in the world. 2012 is an important year for our community and as the economic picture continues to change and capitalism collapses, food and basic needs will be in greater demand for the most vulnerable people in our communities. We need to learn and teach everyone how to grow our own food in local city gardens, and meet our needs collectively. Block by block – help rebuild the community- grew something to eat!
In Struggle,
Eddie Conway
Posted on December 30th, 2011 in Events
As the “do-it-ourselves” uprisings and occupations that have swept across the globe from Egypt to United States are proving, the ethical practices that anarchists have long advocated are becoming powerful everyday experiences for millions, with people self-organizing everything from civic defense and trash collection to tent encampments and general assemblies. Indeed, the contours of the US occupy movement in particular could be viewed, in large part, as anarchism in action. Yet despite its obvious debt to anarchism, OWS and its lightning-speed proliferation across North America seemed to come as a surprise to anarchists, and in many ways, our learning curve as antiauthoritarians has been just as great as for those many liberals and political newcomers who overwhelmingly populate(d) the spaces of occupy. That surprise has created novel challenges and contradictions for anarchist theory and practice as well as anarchists’ own self-understanding. More surprisingly still, it also appears to have cracked open the potential for fundamental social transformation in a way that our recent anticapitalist efforts never could on their own. Cindy will offer some reflections on occupy anarchism within the quirky, compelling experiment of occupy everything and then facilitate a conversation.
Cindy is an Institute for Anarchist Studies board member, an active participant in Occupy Philly, and the author of Anarchism and its Aspirations.
11:30am Brunch
(delicious vegan food will be provided, but potluck contributions of vegan dishes are always welcome and helpful to feed the hungry masses)
12:30-2pm Talk/Discussion
E-mail anne@riseup.net for directions.
Posted on December 30th, 2011 in Events
As the “do-it-ourselves” uprisings and occupations that have swept across the globe from Egypt to United States are proving, the ethical practices that anarchists have long advocated are becoming powerful everyday experiences for millions, with people self-organizing everything from civic defense and trash collection to tent encampments and general assemblies. Indeed, the contours of the US occupy movement in particular could be viewed, in large part, as anarchism in action. Yet despite its obvious debt to anarchism, OWS and its lightning-speed proliferation across North America seemed to come as a surprise to anarchists, and in many ways, our learning curve as antiauthoritarians has been just as great as for those many liberals and political newcomers who overwhelmingly populate(d) the spaces of occupy. That surprise has created novel challenges and contradictions for anarchist theory and practice as well as anarchists’ own self-understanding. More surprisingly still, it also appears to have cracked open the potential for fundamental social transformation in a way that our recent anticapitalist efforts never could on their own. Cindy will offer some reflections on occupy anarchism within the quirky, compelling experiment of occupy everything and then facilitate a conversation.
Cindy is an Institute for Anarchist Studies board member, an active participant in Occupy Philly, and the author of Anarchism and its Aspirations.
Posted on December 30th, 2011 in Events
As the “do-it-ourselves” uprisings and occupations that have swept across the globe from Egypt to United States are proving, the ethical practices that anarchists have long advocated are becoming powerful everyday experiences for millions, with people self-organizing everything from civic defense and trash collection to tent encampments and general assemblies. Indeed, the contours of the US occupy movement in particular could be viewed, in large part, as anarchism in action. Yet despite its obvious debt to anarchism, OWS and its lightning-speed proliferation across North America seemed to come as a surprise to anarchists, and in many ways, our learning curve as antiauthoritarians has been just as great as for those many liberals and political newcomers who overwhelmingly populate(d) the spaces of occupy. That surprise has created novel challenges and contradictions for anarchist theory and practice as well as anarchists’ own self-understanding. More surprisingly still, it also appears to have cracked open the potential for fundamental social transformation in a way that our recent anticapitalist efforts never could on their own. Cindy will offer some reflections on occupy anarchism within the quirky, compelling experiment of occupy everything and then facilitate a conversation.
Cindy is an Institute for Anarchist Studies board member, an active participant in Occupy Philly, and the author of Anarchism and its Aspirations.
Posted on December 30th, 2011 in Events
Join Eric A. Stanley, Ralowe T. Ampu and Toshio Meronek for a book launch and reading of Captive Genders.
Pathologized, terrorized, and confined, trans/gender non-conforming and queer folks have always struggled against the enormity of the prison industrial complex. The …first collection of its kind, Eric A. Stanley and Nat Smith bring together current and former prisoners, activists, and academics to offer new ways for understanding how race, gender, ability, and sexuality are lived under the crushing weight of captivity. Through a politic of gender self-determination, this collection argues that trans/queer liberation and prison abolition must be grown together. From rioting against police violence and critiquing hate crimes legislation to prisoners demanding access to HIV medications, and far beyond, Captive Genders is a challenge for us all to join the struggle.
Books will be available at the reading.
