Author: Slingshot Collective

The arrival of Janet Napolitano as the president of the University of California adds to the gradual liberal façade of oppressive state policy in our lives. Her first appearance locally here in Berkeley was met with protests but not nearly enough to throw to light this dubious appointment that lacks any citizen input. I mean, were you asked who is to run the schools?

Janet Napolitano’s first move as the new president was to freeze tuition — a gesture called for way back in that distant 20th century. But regardless of its tardiness this will look good on her resume when the media touts her next move. Conversely Janet’s pedigree as viewed by the left is short but hiss–able. As Democratic Governor of Arizona she shamelessly aided the right–wing agenda of bashing brown skin people, administrating policies that made alliances with such blatantly malevolent characters as Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Later as head of Homeland Security she continued in this manner with the deportations of immigrants at wholesale numbers. The fact that this was done AFTER the nefarious Bush Jr. presidency stokes the skepticism that there is any difference between Democrat and Republicans. The deportations actually increased after 2008! But the whole organization of Homeland Security is suspect. That is unless their definition of security is to prolong and expand harsh laws in the handling of so–called immigrants, while real threats to life and infrastructure come in the form of climate and environmental chaos, weapon proliferation and a meltdown of civil society. Good job assholes!

Perhaps appointing someone like Janet Napolitano, who has no experience in managing education, is a continuation of the entertainment and business industries having sway in the popular political arena. With an army of handlers helping such a figurehead make the easiest of decisions all that is needed is a competent voice to make the decree. People should have gotten the point by now with leaders being synonymous with Ronald Reagan, Arnold Schwarzenegger and George Bush Jr. that the alien–like policy doesn’t need a visible mastermind much less your consent. These are people with no job experience besides fulfilling a character type. Janet’s station as a liberal woman (a member of a “minority class”) makes her job to practice having a smile while kicking those trying to rise above abject poverty.

This abhorrence in American culture to give a look at how capitalist policies makes for blowback is a real embarrassment to anyone living with a conscience. Very few news sources besides whiny lefties will ever draw attention to the spike in the number of border–crossers with the arrival of NAFTA jobs in the global South twenty years ago. That is, they are essentially state sanctioned sweat–shops — the kind that normalizes garment factories burning down and hundreds of low wage souls perishing in a lame ass attempt to protect business from labor laws and unions. Slave labor is the new policy without saying as much, a practice not all that new by the way. But the skitzo mainstream media is in denial of its sleight–of–hand function in misdirection when facing issues. Or to sound like an old lefty paper — Prime Time endeavors to have the poor betray its own class when processing the anger of the present day situation. It’s far easier to hate the day laborers standing a block from Walmart than it is to go after the overseers running shop of the world’s largest chain.

A glance at a nearby Palmist’s crystal ball could predict Napolitano’s contribution to come. The 9 UC campuses will expand the partnership with developers in land grabs and new construction. The solidification of corporate giants such as oil companies and pharma industries in guiding research will more deeply infect the curriculum and make sick the developing minds. Doors will be opened to bring more out–of–state students, which will generate high revenues to take home for the administrative class. Meanwhile the people living next door to the colleges — often in slums — will never dream of attending a UC as they see their Jr. Colleges fight eviction as in City College of San Francisco. The few menial jobs that people can access on a college campus will be increasingly unpleasant and with a shrinking revenue. These are all policies consistent with cutthroat business ethics. Colleges seeking high credit ratings for loans have gotten into the practice of IMF–type operations.

Hell, Janet may even bring in the heinous Arizona policy, which outlaws ethnic studies in classrooms. This seems especially apt in a Koch brothers’ type agenda since California’s population is headed for a white minority. By Arizona legally denying the teaching of the world’s culture it ultimately enforces a white European malaise across communities just when people of color could stop pretending to fawn over a colonial lie and start to know and respect their past. Ethnic Studies is a direct result of people of color revolting and demanding change from the academy to the streets.

Perhaps this is the treatment we get for not committing either way. By neither fully rolling on our bellies nor jumping at our aggressor and biting back, that we are given this luke–warm– fascism. The kind of boiling that will make the increase of temperature seem “tolerable” for most while those complaining can be muffled off camera. The last marker of collective backbone demonstrated by university students was in the late 1990s when people of conscience (and intelligence!) fought to expand affirmative action — not erase it. Affirmative action functions to counter the work of white supremacy of the last 400 years against brown skinned people. The irony of descendants of (European) immigrants pointing fingers and shaming brown skin people (with indigenous blood) is the joke that should clear the room.

But by the early 2000s the momentum of protests across UC campuses to save Affirmative Action also helped to mobilize a challenge to the insane tuition increases. Protests against deportations even spread to California’s K–12 as was seen with the inspired “Day without an Immigrant” rallies that happened in May of each year. Whole communities created festivals of convergence and open resistance while mainstream America marveled at Bush Jr. This prairie fire spark is what is needed across this flaccid country to make a more fair and involved community.

People wishing to see similar examples in history can look at the Columbia University takeover in 1968 that within months helped to create a national movement of radicals not only in colleges but also in high schools. Imagine the fear it inspired in law & order types who watched kids go from teenyboppers to protest organizers. Our coming together to bring muscle in fighting the policies like tuition hikes, racism, corrupt corporation influence, and war had gained momentum on college campuses. Protests 45 years later (essentially on the same core issues) helped fuel the national movement that eventually was articulated as the Occupy movement.

So to appoint Janet Napolitano, a well likeable liberal minority (though women are 51% of the population) is a diversion tactic so that people don’t keep pressuring for real change. Change like destruction of the grading system, community control of who is in power (Democratize the Regents), better pay and representation for the lower tier workers, and an eradication of corporate and military influence on campus….more demands on the way. I’ve always felt that as dour and hopeless every day seems to be the actual potentials of change is matched by the enormous sum of conscious beings alive on the planet. Imagine if more people were involved… That’s actually inevitable.

As we trod on in this unsustainable modern way of life and rest our very survival on some capitalist dice game…one wonders if any other future awaits us. The gradual changes that can be made by progressive leaders seem to have little effect on the course of these days. No longer is working within the system a convincing detriment to the diet slavery and death offered as a replacement for us owning our own lives. Perhaps the leadership necessary to free us resides away from the high thrones and the media spotlights. The time wasted following celebrities is better spent other places. More protests directed at fucked up policies are called for. There are a thousand websites you will be referred to fulfill your desire to participate and revolt. Rather I suggest you just follow the latest struggles at the local K–12 schools and colleges, then show up when asked to.

In one of the highest profile labor struggles in the US this year, BART transit workers in the San Francisco Bay Area went on strike twice over wages, benefits, and working conditions. The issues behind the strikes and the impact on transportation highlight some labor and land use issues common to many urban societies.

A little background on the 2013 BART strike

In BART’s 2009–2013 contract negotiations, unions accepted over $100 million in cuts which expired in June 2013. Management’s proposal of additional cuts for 2013–2017 led to a strike in July 2013 and a second strike in October 2013 after management refused workers’ offer of binding arbitration. During this second strike, two people were killed by a train being run by management. This strike ended with both sides agreeing to a deal that kept worker compensation on par with inflation.

Inflation, the relentless wage cutter

Often in labor negotiations, management will frame labor’s demands as being huge raises, while labor will defend that they are just maintaining what they have. That’s because inflation requires labor to constantly fight for more money just to maintain a constant standard of living.

Inflation occurs when the amount of money increases faster than the production of goods and services. This is a deliberate policy on the part of the banks, as economic theory states that inflation is a useful tool for lowering wages, as wages tend to be “sticky” — in other words, hard to cut. Wages aren’t the only thing that matter – it’s also about dignified labor that treats workers as people with real human needs.

In good times, transportation workers fought at the front for better working conditions and pay. Now, with society running in reverse, they’re the rear guard against complete destruction of the middle class.

At BART, in addition to the issue of wages, two other issues were prominent – work rules that helped preserve predictable schedules, and paid leave that ensures that workers don’t have to choose between a paycheck and caring for sick family members.

As the service economy makes talent increasingly subjective, transit workers signal the importance of public sector jobs to the minority middle class. Private companies can hide discrimination in handshake hiring and secret salaries. The public sector guards equal opportunity with public compensation records.

It’s true the BART strike made life difficult for commuters and worsened air pollution. Unfortunately, victories don’t come from appealing to the ruling class’s morals. They come from having leverage over their economy.

The commuter system: a product of pollution, gentrification, and transit policy

In the beginning, people moved out of cities because of pollution: coal, chemicals, diseases from raw sewage. Even today, inner cities suffer the worst air pollution — now from ships and cars passing through.

Now the city is unaffordable. Extreme wealth inequality begets extreme hogging of housing. A three–apartment Victorian becomes a single–family house. Foreign wealth buys up empty U.S. apartments as revolution insurance. Whole buildings are used as vacation rentals, second homes, or speculative investments. New highrises often house fewer people than the modest buildings they replaced.

Waves of gentrification spill out from San Francisco to Oakland to the Central Valley and finally to Latin America, where displaced agriculture from the U.S. clearcuts rainforest and seizes indigenous land.

When someone takes up two seats on the BART, someone else has to stand, and if it gets crowded, another person gets left behind on the platform.

In today’s USA, with 5% of the people owning 62% of the wealth, the rich each ride their own private train car, everyone else stands, and billions get locked out on the other side of the border faregates.

Planning for BART began in the 1940s, with funding provided in 1959. The plan: make driving easier for the new suburbs. One year before, the Key System railway had closed, and its tracks on the Bay Bridge and East Bay streets were converted to car lanes.

Compared to the Key System, BART extended into then–rural Fremont and Walnut Creek, but had fewer stops in Berkeley and Oakland (10 versus 100s). Entire neighborhoods were bulldozed to create parking lots around stations. The amount of housing within a 1–hour ride of San Francisco actually decreased.

Going further up the line, why are so many people going to work at all? The workweek remains unchanged since 1937, and average hours have gone up as two incomes become necessary to stay middle class. Productivity is up 400% but wages have only doubled. Where did all the work go?

Given that 62% of the wealth is owned by 5% of the people and that labor creates all wealth, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday is just serving the rich.

Likewise, behind the “average” American’s ecological footprint is this: The majority is living sustainably, while the elite is entirely responsible for the excess. It’s that extra demand that drives the use of less efficient resources like tar sands. Renewable energy already powers half of all U.S. homes — the poorer half — and could power it all today if everyone was middle class.

Where do we go from here?

To end the race to the bottom, the bottom needs to be brought up — and a lid put on the top. It’ll take higher minimum wages, universal healthcare, women’s empowerment, ending discrimination, restoring taxes on high incomes and inheritances, and more. It begins with not asking why some workers have it so good, but rather, why don’t we all?

While it’s true that anarchists are frequently ignored by labor historians, the lack of writing about Lucy Parsons is especially egregious, even among fellow anarchists. Her relative lack of recognition is hard to explain, given her tremendous contributions. She often spent more time organizing than writing theory, and perhaps contemporary anarchists privilege theorists in their histories. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that, unlike more well–known figures like Emma Goldman, her audience was almost exclusively poor and working class. Or maybe it’s simply because much of her history has been stolen from us: almost immediately after her death, the FBI raided her personal library (including her collection of private writings), and to this day refuses to release it to the public. Regardless of our excuses, she was, at one point, one of the most important anarchists in the American labor movement, and her story is worth knowing.

To be fair, there’s a lot we don’t know about Lucy Parsons. We don’t know where or when she was born (but it was probably around 1853 near Waco, Texas), how she met her future husband or when she married him (or whether she had been married before), or her race (she publicly maintained that she was Native American and chicana, not black, but most biographers claim that the evidence suggests that she was born into slavery with black parentage). We do, however, know that she left Texas for Chicago, Illinois with her husband, Albert Parsons, (a white, Confederate veteran, who became an advocate for racial equality after the civil war) in 1873 to evade legal and vigilante persecution (their marriage was an open defiance of the state’s anti–miscegation laws), and Albert had been shot the year before while registering black voters.

It was an especially difficult time to be poor in Chicago – two years after the Chicago fire, almost all of the money collected by the Relief and Aid Society had been funneled into the Society’s board members’ company accounts, leaving the city’s working class in a state of disaster long after the city had been rebuilt. To make matters worse, Wall Street’s feverish investment in railroad securities (along with other factors) culminated in a financial crisis called the Panic of 1873. The Panic plunged the United States and Europe into a massive depression that lasted until at least 1879, and the working class immigrants and emigrants who helped define the urban core of American cities like Chicago were condemned to a cycle of crippling semi–employment and confinement in almost–uninhabitable slums. When the Parsons arrived in one such Chicago slum (a ghetto of poor German immigrants within today’s Old Town), they were not only exposed to a kind of poverty they had never seen in the American South, but also to the emerging wealth of radical European literature imported by the neighborhood’s recent immigrants. They began attending labor meetings together, and even got involved with local socialist organizations, but the Parsons maintained their old Republican faith in law and peaceful voting as primary vehicles in social change.

All that changed in 1877, when a railway strike in West Virginia erupted into a nationwide wave of walkouts and sabotage, only to be beaten back by endless hoards of cops and corporate security thugs, leaving hundreds of workers dead, including dozens in Chicago. As Lucy later reflected in The Principles of Anarchism, “I then thought as many thousands of earnest, sincere people think, that …. government, could be made an instrument in the hands of the oppressed to alleviate their sufferings. But… this was a mistake. I came to understand that such concentrated power can be always wielded in the interest of the few and at the expense of the many. Government in its last analysis is this power reduced to a science.” So while she was not yet a full–fledged anarchist, her own anarchistic critique of hierarchy was already present in the aftermath of 1877.

Lucy began making and selling dresses to make ends meet after Albert was fired from his printing job and blacklisted from the publishing industry for strike agitation, but continued her work with the Socialist Labor Party (SLP). This work included writing for the party’s semi–official paper, the Socialist. During this period, she advocated for a broader labor movement, one that would encompass forms of unpaid labor frequently performed by women, such as housework and childcare. Lucy knew of this injustice all too well: she gave birth to her two children around this time, and became a prominent speaker for the Working Women’s Union. When the relatively center–left Knights of Labor began accepting women as members, she was among the first to join, but she remained a representative of the militant wing of the movement, advocating for a shorter work week and armed struggle against the police (she eventually left the Knights of Labor for their lack of support for a class basis in revolution. When the SLP split in 1881, she helped form the militant International Working People’s Association (IWPA), a group that saw unions as a potentially violent revolutionary force to destroy class rule, establish gender equality, and create a society organized by free contracts between autonomous communes. Such beliefs brought Parsons into personal contact with firebrands such as Johann Most, an orator who had been exiled from his native Germany for promoting violent political action acts (such as assassination of counter–revolutionary bosses or police) to promote a revolutionary idea. Along with her personal experiences with labor organizing, where striking laborers were openly murdered by police and company security whether or not the strike was a ‘violent’ one, new associates such as Most further radicalized Lucy Parsons’ approach to the labor question, and she soon began publicly identifying not only as an anarchist, but also as an advocate for dedicated sabotage and violence. In one 1884 pamphlet, she encouraged “tramps, the unemployed, the disinherited, and miserable” to “learn the use of explosives!” if they wanted to capture the attention of the upper class. Her radical attitudes extended to her racial politics: unlike most ‘black leaders’ who embraced the appeasement philosophy of Booker T. Washington, and white labor organizers who typically ignored racism and the nation’s wave of lynchings altogether, Lucy insisted that capitalism and racism were dual monsters that could not be fought independently, arguing for against assimilationist politics and racial hierarchies in the labor movement. In 1887, Albert was executed by the State of Illinois in a notorious case called the Haymarket Affair, in which seven anarchists were sentenced to death following a bombing that killed seven Chicago police officers, on the grounds that they may have inspired the unidentified bombing by espousing anarchist ideas. Her status as the case’s most prominent widow thrust Lucy into the international spotlight, where she refused to be the apolitical woman in mourning that the press seemed to hope she would be. Rather than attempting to appear more moderate to the public to help with her husband’s trial, she raised money for the legal team through an aggressive revolutionary speech tour (during which she incurred some legal fees of her own when she was arrested for her fiery invectives). After the execution, she kept the Haymarket affair from falling into obscurity by publishing the final speeches and biographies of the condemned anarchists.

As Chicago’s population swelled and changed, so did the Chicago anarchist movement. The failed attempts by a young anarchist named Alexander Berkman to assassinate a murderous strikebreaking industrialist had failed to incite much more than a stiff prison sentence, Johann Most recapitulated his political stance on terrorism and began to denounce violence, and Lucy increasingly stumbled into ideological squabbles with other leftists. By the time an anarchist finally managed to kill a major American head of state (President McKinley in 1901, by Leon Czolgosz), she had grown pessimistic about the power of sporadic acts of violence to mobilize class war, and was in search of an alternative. In 1905, she joined major organizers Eugene Debs, Mother Jones, Bill Hayward, and others in founding the International Workers of the World (IWW), which abandoned the ‘craft unionism’ typical of the time for ‘industrial unionism’ (meaning that they tried to organize all the workers of entire industries regardless of skill level, rather than simply organizing individual trade groups). The IWW organized African American, Asian, and white workers alike, valued rank–and–file organizing over strong leadership positions, and sought working class struggle through general strikes and direct action rather than through electoral politics. A series of successful campaigns sent the IWW’s membership rates soaring, bringing Lucy under even more scrutiny by the police: her travels were closely watched by coordinated police information networks, and she was often followed or arrested upon entering or leaving a new town or before giving a speech. She was seen as a magnet for uprisings, and not without good reason. During an impromptu 1914 visit to San Francisco, for example, a crowd from the city’s enormous unemployed and homeless population gathered in the hopes of hearing her speak. When the cops arrested Parsons to prevent her from appearing, a thousand people broke instantly into a riot; soon afterwards, the IWW set up shop in San Francisco, and terrified California politicians scrambled to fund employment–boosting public works projects in the hopes of forestalling future riots.

After the outbreak of World War I in 1917, however, an enormous wave of state repression all but decimated the IWW. Lucy had already begun grown suspicious of or exhausted with a number of IWW policies (and anarchism generally). By 1927 she was sitting on the executive council of the strictly–communist legal advocacy group (where she admittedly supported the anarchist political prisoners Sacco & Vanzetti) and publicly aligning herself with the soviet Communist Party (where she worked for fifteen years until her death), and trading jabs with more individualistic anarchists such as Emma Goldman over the repression of anarchists in the newly–formed USSR. She wasn’t shy about her reasons: she wrote that anarchists had fallen into a trap of going to conferences, talking, and going home instead of actually mobilizing, and that she joined the communists because “they are the only bunch making a vigorous protest against the present horrible conditions!” Parsons was less interested in any particular ideology or political philosophy as she was in organizing the working class. Her willingness to ‘switch sides’ probably had less to do with ideological changes as it had to do with changes in the size, composition, and activity of the anarchist movement generally.

On March 7, 1942, Lucy Parsons, nearly 90 years old, died in a house fire, leaving her anarchist friends to bicker with her communist friends over funeral arrangements while the pigs raided her charred home. There’s been a lot of embittered hand–wringing about Lucy’s apparent defection from anarchism, but I think it’s entirely possible to appreciate her contributions to anticapitalist and antistatist movements without agreeing with her later defenses of soviet terror (I sure as fuck don’t agree with her), especially when many of her frustrated criticisms of anarchists are being repeated earnestly within the anarchist tent nearly a century later. In the meantime, learning her life story is like reading the history of American anarchism itself, and while she always insisted that that stories of individuals were unimportant and unworthy of study, I think we can make an exception for her.

Here are some suggestions for further reading, both big and small:

For light readers: “Lucy Parsons: More Dangerous Than a Thousand Rioters”, by Keith Rosenthal. (available for free online)

For readers with intermediate interest: Lucy Parsons: American Revolutionary, by Carolyn Ashbaugh (~250 pages, Charles H. Kerr Publishing Co.)

Disclaimer: My intent for this piece was to give the readers a glimpse into the bay area punk scene, more specifically, the Blatz reunion show that I attended in December 2013. I felt it was important to include this in Slingshot as a reminder that our counter–culture and the music shows that we attend can be an escape from the struggles that we face in our daily lives. Unfortunately, my piece failed to mention providing a safe space for all. On the night of the show, a trans member in our community was violently assaulted outside the venue by a group of skinheads. I learned this from a member of the collective while writing this article. Trying to get the details of the attack was hard, as it seemed that no one could give me any information. My failure to include this topic upset many collective members and there were angry emails in our inbox regarding the issue. On the morning of the layout party, the collective had a heated discussion about the issue and resolved that I write a disclaimer, while another member would write a response. If you have any feedback or want to further the discussion, please email us at slingshot@tao.ca. We’d love to hear from you.

When Blatz formed in 1989, I was barely 2–years–old and so was the 924 Gilman Street Project. Any punk from the bay area can tell you that this venue, along with the bands that performed on it’s stage, had a huge part in creating the diverse and politically charged scene that we have today. An all–ages venue with an anything–goes–attitude was the perfect platform for a band like Blatz. This east bay band had 5, sometimes 6 members, who were mostly in their teens. Their performances were messy, chaotic, and fun, which helped them gain several fans from the bay area and beyond.

The legend that surrounded Blatz would make sure I would hear them as a teen. In high school, my friends and I would escape our lifeless, suburban hometown to the cool streets of Berkeley. Our favorite place to hangout was Telegraph Avenue, more specifically, Amoeba Records. As we cruised the aisles looking for new music to discover, I came across the ‘Shit Split’ by Blatz and Filth. I especially loved the Blatz side thanks to the shrieking female vocals and the anthemic songs about fucking shit up. When I got my drivers license, that specific cd ended up getting scratched up and lost inside my car forever.

Fast forward to December 2013, it was announced that Blatz would be reuniting to play a show at Gilman at the end of the month. Odd, since several of the members lived in different parts of the states and hadn’t played together as a band in 21 years. It turns out this was a benefit show for their friend, Mike–O the Psycho of Filth, who is fighting cancer. The buzz surrounding this show was huge and was

talked about through various circles in the punk community. People who hadn’t seen Blatz in decades and people who hadn’t even seen them at all would finally get their chance. I was stoked.

On the night of December 27th, 2013, I arrived at the venue with some friends and was surprised that the line wasn’t snaked around the block as previous reunion shows at Gilman have been (ie: FILTH). Several

people I know bought advance tickets online for $20, while others decided to stay home, thinking there was no chance they were getting in. At 7pm, the volunteers opened the doors and started letting everyone in.

The asking price for the show was a sliding scale of $5–$20, all proceeds going to Mike from Filth to help with his medical expenses. After paying my share, I checked out the merch tables where they were selling Blatz t–shirts, records, and even a few zines. Not wanting to spend my money on merch, I decided to walk across the street to Pyramid Brewery to drink with old and new friends. After hearing stories about “the good ol’ days of Gilman” and sharing several pitchers, we decided it was time to head back and see what was happening.

As we entered Gilman, the crowd had tripled in size. Trying to squeeze my way to the bathroom was a feat, but I made it to the graffiti drenched stall to empty my bladder before watching the main attraction. Special Forces was the last band to play before Blatz and I caught the tail–end of their set. The band was wearing ski masks and had a fog machine onstage. Nice try, but even dramatic stage theatrics didn’t phase the crowd who were waiting to see the headlining band. I had missed Aspergers, World of Shit, and Death March, but that was fine by me. As Special Forces closed their set and thanked the crowd, I made my way to the stage to secure a spot in the first few rows. As I looked around, I saw a lot of familiar faces and the energy in the room was mostly excitement. The excitement increased as the members took the stage to set–up their instruments. All original members of the band were there except John Santos, their sometimes bass player and co–founder. The nervous energy was heightened for the band as all eyes were on them as they fumbled onstage to get everything in place. Jesse Luscious and Robert Eggplant were yelling about something, Marshall Stax looked calm, Anna Joy Springer and Joey Perales looked excited, Annie Lalania looked nervous. At around 11pm, the band was ready to play. Springer asked the crowd to send good vibes to Mike Filth and then they jumped into ‘Homemade Speed.’ The crowd instantly started swaying back and forth and sang along to every word. After the first song, the crowd finally recovered and some

people from the audience tried to hop on stage but were shot down by Luscious, who waved a finger in their face and told them to get off the stage. It seemed both Luscious and Springer had control over the crowd, both of them charismatic and confident, while the other members held down their instruments. The band sounded great, transmitting all their punk energy into the crowd even though they had confessed to only practicing once before the show. A trash bag of shredded newspapers was revealed and members of the band and audience started throwing paper around the room. I’m just glad it wasn’t cat food, which I heard Blatz liked to throw at the audience back in the day.

When the band broke into their cover of ‘Nausea’ by X, all hell broke loose. The sea of bodies went from swaying back and forth, to full on storming the stage. After almost getting trampled, I had no choice but to hop onstage where I made my way near the drum kit. The view from up top was amazing. I looked into the crowd and felt like I knew everyone there, whether it was through zines, their bands, or going to shows. The entire place was packed and that’s when I realized how truly special this band was. Blatz still sounded fresh, still had chemistry, and still had the ability to bring so many people out to a place that they helped create. The band played almost all of their songs, and at the end of their set, Springer thanked everyone for coming out to help support Mike, telling the crowd that “we have to take care of each other.” Unfortunately not everyone was taken care of that night. The day after the show, it was revealed that a trans member of our community was violently assaulted outside the venue. Whether or not those people were held accountable, I’m not sure. After the band stopped playing, hundreds of sweaty punks exited the venue, everyone hung around outside looking energized and excited about what they had just experienced.

Most reunion shows leave me feeling depressed, wondering why I wasted
my time seeing a band that should have stayed in the past. Fortunately this was not the case with Blatz. As a bay area native, the energy I felt at this show was one I hadn’t experienced in a long time and I have to wonder if this is what it was like to be a part of the scene that Blatz was a part of in the early 90’s. This specific scene has a rich history that can be traced back to the late 70’s through fanzines like Maximum Rock N Roll and venues like the 924 Gilman Street Project, both originating in Berkeley and both affected by the recent economy. As we all continue the fight to survive, whether it’s combating the government, poverty, or sexist, racist, and classist assholes, Blatz reuniting was a reminder for all of us to get together and ‘fuk shit up.’

While we acknowledge the cultural relevance of the Blatz show at 924 Gilman, we do so only while simultaneously recognizing and honoring the violent reality present that evening in a space with an empty claim to safety. The music scenes that celebrated this concert sadly omitted key aspects of the night’s events. In covering this show, we refuse to replicate dominant culture by centralizing the voice of dominant culture; instead we centralize the experience of our trans sister. Instead, we offer a brutal examination of the normalization of the trans brutality of a member of our community who was attacked after the show and abandoned by the silence of her peers. The survivor, after befriending a cis female at the show who was clandestinely part of a group of nazi skins on the lookout for a person to complete a violent initiation ritual, was followed from the venue, choked, punched, held to the ground and threatened with being taken by force to be further injured in another location. The survivor blacked out and managed to escape. She was subsequently denied reentry into Gilman on the basis of her distress, a tragic lack of connection with Gilman’s desire to be a “safe” space for marginalized people.

What is the experience of this trauma within the experience of dominant culture, which perpetuates attitudes that normalize, excuse, tolerate, and condone violence to queers?

This situation is just one instance of violence that pervades capitalist realities, that spills over into so–called safe spaces, often ignored. The violence is complex and comes from many intersecting facets in our daily lives of who we are, our choices and our privilege that each of us have.

The discussion needs to expand. It is important to not invalidate people’s rage, pain, anger, etc. that result from traumatic events or people’s feelings of lack of concern by communities, collectives, or other projects that oppose capitalism. The necessity lies in aiding each other in our personal survival (by protecting and defending our hearts and our heartfolx, giving people space/time/ resources to heal or reflect) and the attempt to make radical spaces and projects sustainable and as safe as possible.

This is not the end of this conversation in Slingshot, but a beginning.

Bashback appears to be actively recruiting and cracking skulls again, and the radical community’s frequent inattention to violence against trans/queer people makes its revival more relevant than ever. Loved one, dear one, dear heart, you belong here. We will make sure of it. Next time we don’t bash back, we shoot first.