Category: Organizer Essays

Calling the cops often makes situations worse, puts people at risk and leads to violence and incarceration. We can cultivate networks of mutual aid to take care of each other and foster transformative justice. Here’s alternatives: 

-If your neighbor is having a noisy party, go over and talk to them

-Find a restorative justice mediator to resolve conflicts

-Develop a safety plan with your community

-Offer people experiencing domestic violence a place to stay or a ride
-Reach out to community resources like suicide hotlines and safe houses

How to help deescalate someone having a crisis

If you think back to a time when you were really angry and upset, maybe you said or did things you regret, maybe not. What did you need? What did someone do that was helpful? What did someone do that was not helpful? 

When someone is freaking out, the part of the brain responsible for logical thinking isn’t always functioning, while the parts of the brain responsible for emotion and instinct stay turned on. Before someone can make sense of the situation, people need to find their way back to themselves. 

When deescalating a situation, it’s important to use an anti-oppression framework as much as possible and recognize that there are interpersonal and systemic power imbalances based on differences in class, gender, race, physical ability, age, etc. You may be in a better position to de-escalate certain situations, or not, based on your positionality. Healing cannot happen in isolation. It happens in the context of supportive and caring relationships.

Tips:

• Are you the best person to respond? If you can’t respond, it’s okay — find someone else who can. If you intervene, introduce yourself by telling the person your name, who you are and that you’re there to help. 

• What is the person telling you about their needs through their behavior, words and body language? Ask what they need. Can you meet these needs? If not, what options can you offer? 

• While talking, take an open stance, maintain eye contact, and be aware of the volume and tone of your voice.  Slow down. Repeat yourself.  Keep your voice calm and soft, yet firm and direct. Your voice will have an immediate effect upon the person you are talking to.

• Ask the person to help you understand why they’re upset. Reflect back what they’re saying so they feel heard. Use brief, simple, direct statements. Affirm the person’s right to their feelings. 

• Create rapport that helps them feel like you’re on their team. Respect personal space. 

• Will they sit down with you and talk? Will they walk to somewhere safer with you, away from the conflict? 

• Don’t try to argue against voices or delusions. A person’s perception is their reality. 

• Don’t try to use logic to convince the person they are wrong. Affirm their feelings: “That sounds like it would be disorienting / frustrating / scary / overwhelming.” Narrate what actions you’re taking if you call for help, talk to someone else, or are even reaching into your bag. Be predictable. Avoid getting into a confrontation or triggered by the person’s “negative energy.” 

• Avoid labeling people or causing them to feel guilty.

• Set boundaries for what is and is not appropriate. Keep those boundaries.

• Sometimes humor and redirection work well. 

• Be aware and cautious of how you are affecting the situation. Leave or enlist additional support if a person you are talking to becomes increasingly agitated or behaviorally inappropriate. 

• Check on immediate physical health and safety. An intoxicated person may be physically ill or injured but unaware of it. Offer immediate, concrete help like detox, medical attention, etc.

• You can build rapport by offering water, food, coffee, or cigarettes. 

If Someone is Armed… 
• Identify the exits • Maintain eye contact • Keep your hands visible • Slowly back away 

When possible, debrief with the person after things cool down and a reasonable amount of time has passed.

Written with help from Open Table Nashville, a community group in TN

February 29, 2024 is Leap Day — how come it is not a holiday with the day off? Since it’s an extra day and only comes along every four years, shouldn’t we get to do something special and exciting — better than all the other days? The answer is yes — you can do something exceptional for Leap Day, but strictly on a DIY basis. The bosses, the government and other forces of wretchedness hope you won’t hear that since 2000, Slingshot has declared a universal general strike, jamboree, street party and be-in each Leap Day everywhere. If you’re reading this, you’re part of the organizing committee / conspiracy and all you have to do between now and Leap Day is talk with your friends and community, figure out a time and place to meet and what you want to do with your extra day — be it carouse, rebel, redecorate, enhance, promenade, engage, shindig, dissent or soirée.

The system is unsustainable — it’s crumbling around us while the environment teeters on the brink of collapse. It’s easy to feel gloomy and fearful. A lot of people are wallowing in doom, denial or resignation — which only decreases our chances for survival. Some of us yearn for a different world based on cooperation, pleasure, love, and harmony with the Earth, but it’s hard to know how to fight back or how to make a difference. You can’t revolt alone — the structures of oppression and destruction are designed to feel inevitable, unavoidable and overwhelmingly powerful. 

Someone or a small group of people has to take the first terrifying step off the sidewalk and into the streets to create change.  The right time to revolt is right now, but the precise day is arbitrary. Revolt transforms those who make it. We weren’t put here to passively go along with the end of the world nor aid and abet those who profit from murdering the Earth. 

We refuse to be consumers, viewers and objects to be managed. Let’s build a world that’s awake and engaged —shifting the focus from things and entertainment to firsthand experience. Life is too short and the world too beautiful to waste more time muddling through tedious jobs, polluted air, swaggering billionaires and endless wars.

Leap day offers an extra day and invites us to shake off our routine. The capitalist system, its technology and its distractions are fragile. Alternatives exist. February 29 offers an invitation. How do you really want to live? What would you do if you were living life like it really mattered? What will you do with your extra day? Plan ahead. Leap for it!

Non-fiction

Close to the Knives by David Wojnarowicz

The Invention of Women by Oyèrónkẹ́ Oyěwùmí

Social Anarchism or Lifestyle Anarchism by Murray Bookchin

Black Spartacus: The Epic Life of Toussaint Louverture by Sudhir Hazareesingh

The Transgender Issue: An Argument for Justice by Shon Faye

Building the Population Bomb by Emily Klancher Merchant

The Intersectional Environmentalist by Leah Thomas

Side-Show: Kissinger, Nixon, and the Destruction of Cambodia by William Shawcross

Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising and Its Legacy by Ann Thompson

It Came From The Closet: Queer Reflections On Horror by Joe Vallese

Fight Like Hell by Kim Kelly

Corporate Rock Sucks: The Rise & Fall of SST Records by Jim Ruland

DIY House Shows and Music Venues in the US by David Verbuc

Hungry for Peace by Keith McHenry

The Left Bank: Writers, Artists, and Politics from the Popular Front to the Cold War by Herbert R. Lottman

A Punk House in the Deep South: The Oral History of 309 by Aaron Cometbus & Scott Satterwhite

I Hate this Part of Texas by John Gerkin

Invisible Child by Andrea Elliot

Pirate Enlightenment, or the Real Libertalia by David Graeber

Captive Genders: Trans Embodiment and the Prison Industrial Complex by Eric Stanley & Nat Smithers

Fiction

No Gods, No Monsters by Cadwell Turnbull

We Won’t Be Here Tomorrow by Margaret Killjoy

The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones

The Futurological Congress by Stanislaw Lem

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers

Ruin by Cara Hoffman

Wild Thorns by Sahar Khalifeh

Poetry

Bread and Circus by Airea D. Matthews

Oh, you thought this was a date? by C. Russell Price

Cruel Fiction by Wendy Trevino

The Book of the Dead by Muriel Rukeyser

Patriarchy Blues by Rena Priest

Salutations – you light up the room and you’re lovable. We’ve created this organizer for a world where caring about ourselves and the Earth matters. Let’s build collaborative, decentralized communities that unite people from different backgounds. Doing so can bring us abundant meaning, passion and beauty. We’re so grateful that you’re reading thisand that we’ve found each other. 

Capitalism and its computers make more and more stuff, faster and faster — clueless as to why. It’s time to slow down so we can notice stuff — right now what are you feeling, hearing, smelling and seeing? Along with grief for those being steamrolled, there’s also energy and determination to forge something better.

You are not alone. Generations of freaks and renegades have created ongoing communities of resistance and liberation. Grassroots networks are organizing to advance freedom, kindness, pluralism, cooperation, health, environmental sustainability — plus fun and pleasure. With funky cooperatives, underground venues, bicycle kitchens and even this organizer, we’re nurturing DIY alternatives to cruelty, conformity, hierarchy, loneliness, violence and greed. Shall we live in hiding and fear — waiting for our lives to begin?  There are more of us than our tormentors.  In a world that has lost its way and is out of balance, we need each other. Let’s share our courage, loyalty, mutual aid and tolerance. 

This is the 30th year we amused ourselves by publishing the Slingshot Organizer. Its sales raise funds to print the radical, independent Slingshot newspaper. We distribute the newspaper for free everywhere in the US, often at the places listed in the radical contact list. Let us know if you can be a local newspaper distributor in your area. All the content for both the paper and this organizer are made by people like you. Thanks to the volunteers who created this year’s organizer: Ana, Avi, Andee, Antonio, Ashley, Bill, Cara, Dakota, Donna, Eggplant, Eliana, Elke, Gale, Georgia, Giz, Harlan/Hayley, Henry, Henry, Imani, Isaac, Isabella, Jacinthe, Jacquelynn, Jasmine, Jesse, Jhesú, Joe, K. Malia, KJ, Kai, Kangs, Katie, Katie, Kermit, Korvin, Leslie, Lew, Lily, Lucie, Marie, Matteo, Matthew, Max, Mimi, Nadja, Nina, Rachel, Rachel, Ren, Robin, San, Sean, Seandunn, Shinya, Silver, Sirdavid, Sirkka, Skye, Søren, Soren, Stephanie, Talia, Tamara, Tessa, Thaddius, Tracey, Trinity, Yasha, Yifan & those we forgot.

Slingshot Collective

A project of Long Haul

Physical office at least until mid-2025*: 3124 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley

* our landlord is threatening to tear down our building – check back for details

Mail: PO box 3051, Berkeley, CA 94703

510-540-0751 • slingshotcollective.org 

slingshotcollective@protonmail.com

@slingshotnews • @slingshotcollective

Printed in Berkeley, CA on recycled paper

Anti-copyright.

All volunteer collective – no bosses, no workers, no pay.

• duckduckgo.com – Search engine
• yewtu.be & invidious.weblibre.org – Fully-functional YouTube without ads or trackers
• Firefox – open-source, privacy focused non-profit browser (instead of Chrome, Safari, Edge)
• pad.riseup.net – Basic Google Docs equivalent
• cryptpad.fr – Encrypted forms, docs, etc.
• libgen.fun – free books
• search.openverse.engineering – search Creative Commons-licensed images and sounds

If you’re tired of going to work every day and not getting the respect and treatment you deserve, maybe you need a union. It’s not as hard as you think to organize. Here are some tips:

• Start by talking to just one or two coworkers about unionizing. If you already have a close relationship with your coworkers, and you trust them to not say anything to management, then you can ask them what they think about forming a union.

• If you don’t know your coworkers well, then start by getting to know them. Talk with them, hang out with them, help them out with the day-to-day difficulties on the job. When you’re ready, start talking to them about work. Ask them what they like about the job and what they don’t like. A lot of people want to avoid being a complainer, so they might not want to say anything negative about work. Go ahead and share some of your frustrations about the job — this gives them permission to go there, and gets them thinking about their own personal complaints.

• Make sure to listen. Ask questions and listen to your coworkers more than you talk. You will accomplish a lot more by listening than by talking. You have two ears and one mouth — listen twice as much as you talk.

• After you hear what they want to change, then ask how they think you can accomplish that? Can one of you make that change on your own, by just going and asking management to change? What about if all the workers together combine their power to make change happen? Well, that is a union. Once you have a few coworkers who want to unionize, you can get started.

• Keep your organizing secret until you and your coworkers are ready to be public with your union. Once the company finds out you are organizing, it is much harder to talk with your coworkers.

• Contacting an experienced Union Organizer can make a tremendous difference in coaching you how to inspire your coworkers and in taking the right steps to build a strong union. Being connected to an established union brings you a lot more power than you will have on your own.

• Don’t rush the process. It is a common mistake to try to move faster and get to the next step as soon as possible. You have to build up your power to create an effective union, and if you try to move forward before you have the power you need, you will lose.

• The company will fight your union — they always do. No boss wants to give up all the control they have over you, over the money, and over the workplace. You need to talk with all your coworkers about what to expect when the company starts to fight you. You all need to “inoculate” yourself so you are prepared when they start their campaign of fear tactics, misinformation, or manipulation.

• The company will say a union is a “third party” intruding on the work place. They will ask you to give them another chance to fix all their mistakes before you decide to unionize. They will use legal maneuvers and NLRB hearings to slow down the process in the hope that you lose your spirit and quit your job. It’s illegal for them to punish anyone or even ask anyone about their support for a union, but they will do it anyway because the law is stacked in their favor. Don’t be surprised if your supervisor starts crying in front of you about how they feel betrayed and they just didn’t know about all the problems and they promise they’ll work on making it better. The way to overcome all the employer’s tactics is to have strong relationships in place 

There is much more to the process, but once you join with your coworkers and begin to form an organizing committee, you are on your way. Organizing a powerful union will require you to develop your own individual power, and that alone makes it worth it. Multiply that for your coworkers, and you can make change that lasts the rest of your lives.

Good sex is an act of mutual aid. Every person, regardless of gender, is responsible for contributing to the well-being and pleasure of their partners and themselves. We must explore and know our own desires and learn to speak them. We must hear and respond to the desires of our partners (even if that means accepting refusal gracefully). This means finding the words to express how we like to be touched, spoken to, tied up, and cuddled. Getting explicit permission, however vulnerable and scary it may seem, is a great turn-on. What better than knowing your partner really likes it when you touch them that way, talk in that voice, or use that prop? What is better than knowing you can ask for anything, and it will at least be considered respectfully? There is no way that we or our relationships can grow if we don’t find safe spaces in which to explore.

If you have never spoken during sex, or asked permission, or blurted out your desires, feel free to start small. Most people hear compliments well, and appreciate encouraging suggestions. However, it’s equally important to discover the boundaries of your comfort (often situational) and speak them as well. Starting off with a “this feels so good” or “I love it when you…” or “I’d like you to spend the night if you’re interested” is fantastically brave. If you’re not there, work on moaning—just get yourself vocal. Steady yourself for disappointment (and delight), and enjoy the benefits of good communication. Often, people’s boundaries are related to past experience, and creating a safer “right now” can help some people open up closed doors. There is no implicit consent to touch someone’s genitals because you have kissed them, or to have intercourse because you’ve had oral sex. If your partner tenses up or cries or is unresponsive, it’s really important to stop, check in, and support what they need. Be honest about any risk factors you bring, such as sexually transmitted infections, whether you have unprotected sex with other people, and if you have allergies to glycerin or spermicide (in lube) or latex. Details make all the difference.

It’s also important that we take care of our community and help out our friends. At the very least, we should directly check in with them about what they want and expect, and possibly act to get them to a place of lower risk. It’s also important to confront people (in a supportive way) who act aggressively, because they may not understand that what they are doing is possibly assault. They are either okay with what they are doing, or don’t believe there’s anything wrong with it.

While being so direct about sex is outside of most norms, it transforms sexual experiences. When we are sure that we agree with our partners about expectation and desire, there is no fear to distract us—only pleasure and humor. It’s much less pressure to offer someone a choice (“Would you like to come home with me or would you rather hang out here?”) than a request (“Would you come home with me tonight?”). If we allow for slow and comfortable intimacy, we are likely to experience it more fully and joyfully.

So, if you are often the initiator of your sexual experiences, experiment with patience and let someone else take the lead. Even if it means being alone more often, you may find you enjoy yourself more when you have partners. If you are less likely to initiate sex, think of ways you could safely ask for intimacy. Having the support of friends could make it easier to approach that really great someone.

It’s our responsibility to create new sexual expectations based on good communication that not only reduce the likelihood of sexual assault, but affirm that sex is normal and necessary. This begins with teaching children healthy ideas about their bodies and believing people when they share stories of sexual assault. Consider it turning on the lights. There are endless ways for us to end our internal oppression and explore healthy, better sex.

Sometimes the message for spray painting a banner is obvious: Fuck the police! Stop the war! Land Back!

But putting these wonderful slogans into practice is harder. We need more clear, accurate, and actionable information! Instead, we’re surrounded by firehoses – social streams and mainstream screens – of misleading information and outright lies.

This is no accident. Corporate-owned or foundation-funded media can’t speak to our everyday lives under an unforgiving regime of landlords, employers, police, and government agencies. Big spenders can buy up ads, plant hundreds of tweets in the hope one goes viral, or – when all else fails – send in the cops to bust something up.

When we pick up false or misleading information, it can really damage our work. It can confuse who or what we are fighting, and set our demands and efforts shooting off in the wrong direction. Misinformation makes movements insular, as core members adopt the party line while those outside write it off as delusional or walk away due to an inflexible status quo.

To stay grounded in reality, we have to start local and unplug from social media when shaping our thinking.

***

When done wrong, finding the “truth” can mean aligning with the settler media, NGOs, and corporations that have defined it for so long. Truths seem to only get considered as such if written in the colonists’ language. Fuck that! Get the truth from the streets, the trees, the rivers and oceans, and the people. De-gentrify and de-colonize our thinking. Go deep and touch what’s real.

That’s powerful. This is what the people in power are trying to take away from us – by separating us from knowledge of the earth, sending us to schools which prepare us only for a lifetime of work, and keeping our grubby hands out of the air-conditioned archives. 

Here are some tips for getting up to your knees in information:

• Hit the books. Go to a free library, community center, or archive. Talk to the staff or volunteers. Read old newspapers, look at photographs, and check out relevant books. Sometimes you may encounter barriers dealing with pretentious archives, or be disgusted by a relentless focus on white settlers or powerful men. But often in the archives (sometimes only by reading between the lines) you’ll find glimmers of people like yourself – hungry for change.
• Make a public information request. Many government agencies are required to provide their emails, contracts, and other internal documents to anybody upon request. Some are more cooperative than others, and you may find yourself stonewalled if you hit a hot button issue. But generally, they are responsive and you may learn something from the results. Expose their plans, and avoid their co-optation strategies.
• Get the numbers. Data is often manipulated by those who have resources. Because our society collects such an incredible volume of data, people can often cherry-pick data points which are favorable to their goals. But oftentimes, we can go into these same data sets and find other trends which disprove their narrative – or learn something that might change our approach. Get out your bullshit meter and try to find somebody who knows their way around a spreadsheet.
• Search academia. Academic articles are notoriously dense and hard to understand, but often times someone has already done great footwork for you – it’s just buried in an obscure journal or master’s thesis! See if your local public university has a free computer where you can search catalogs and download PDFs, or talk to a reference librarian.
• Ask the streets. There’s nobody better to ask than someone who’s lived it.

Learning a lot? Consider writing it down in a place that others can read and which can be edited later. One problem with making a Twitter thread is it gets lost, probably never to re-surface, and it can’t be updated as you find out new information.

You can set-up a free blog on WordPress.com, Home.Blog, or an activist equivalent such as NoBlogs. You can organize your thoughts into posts on specific topics. An added bonus of this method is that it will surface in search results when people type in whatever you are organizing around.

That’s just a start. Get organized and liberate the knowledge!

People with uteruses have a fundamental right to decide “if, when, and how” to get and be pregnant or have a child — whether we live in one of the states where it is now illegal, or if we’re in a free state. We don’t have to face these new, repressive laws alone. Networks are forming to help fund, transport and shelter people who must leave their state to seek abortions elsewhere. Help out if you can.  Join a mutual aid network or form your own! Here are a couple examples: midwestaccesscoalition.org abortionfunds.org

Do you need an abortion?

If you’re 11 weeks pregnant or less, you can take Plan C pills (misoprostol only, or both mifepristone and misoprostol). Depending on how far along you are in your pregnancy, Plan C is 87-98% effective. Plan C pills are available by mail in discrete packaging, and their effects are identical to spontaneous miscarriage so emergency hospital care, if necessary, won’t reveal that you have taken Plan C. 

If it has been more than 11 weeks since the first day of your last period, you must have a safe in-clinic abortion to end your pregnancy in states were it is still legal.

People need to terminate their pregnancies every day, for a whole host of reasons. Reproductive justice, like so many other issues, disproportionately impacts BIPOC folks, low-income folks, and other marginalized identities. Having an abortion is safer than childbirth — planning for a child reduces family stress and increases resources available.

While we’re in this latest moment of crisis, dozens of organizations are providing information, funding, and access to safe abortions.

While this list is far from complete, here are some national (US) resources that provide Plan C and/or in-clinic abortions: 

AidAccess – a bilingual website that provides online consultations to access an at-home abortion

aidaccess.org

Bedsider Birth Control Support Network – information on birth control, sexual wellness, and abortion 
bedsider.org

Handbook for a Post-Roe America – along with a handbook you can order, this site also has a national map that lists local clinics, reproductive justice and rights groups, practical support and abortion funding groups.
postroehandbook.com

Indigenous Women Rising Abortion Fund – specifically for Indigenous/Native American people in the US and Canada

airtable.com/shrLw8oy9UTIPkpXv

I Need An A – connects individuals to reproductive resources with an emphasis on privacy

ineedana.com

National Abortion Federation – directory of providers and funding

prochoice.org

1-800-772-9100

National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice – serving Latina/x individuals seeking reproductive healthcare 

act.latinainstitute.org

National Network of Abortion Funds – connects people to clinics and funding

abortionfunds.org

Plan C Pills – provides information and a national (US) directory of where to find abortion pills 

plancpills.com

Planned Parenthood -the nation’s largest women’s healthcare provider. provides pregnancy and STI testing, counseling, and reproductive healthcare for men and women. 

Plannedparenthood
1-800-230-PLAN

Abortion funds in the American South:

Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Tennessee: 
ARC Southeast

arc-southeast.org
(855) 227-2475

Arkansas: 
Arkansas Abortion Support Network

www.arabortionsupport.org

Kentucky: 
A Fund, Inc.

kyafund.org

kyafund@gmail.com 

Louisiana: 
New Orleans Abortion Fund

Neworleansabortionfund

844.44.abort

North and South Carolina: 
Carolina Abortion Fund

www.carolinaabortionfund.org

Oklahoma: 
Roe Fund

roefund.org

(918) 481-6444

okrcrc@gmail.com 

Texas: 
Avow and Lilith Fund

needabortion.org

Virginia: 
Blue Ridge Abortion Fund

blueridgeabortionfund.org

434-963-0669

West Virginia: 
Holler Health Justice

hollerhealthjustice.org 833-465-5379