Last week two APD police vehicles were totally decommissioned in ATL & made unuseable in solidarity with the DTF struggle; this action was effective because it was done in a small group and had nothing to do with the fanfare and surveillance and cop attention around something like a Week of Action (WOA). #FindYourPeopleAndGetShitDone
We’ve heard time and time again from the white folks privileged enough to not have any legal charges from the DTF struggle left over, “if only there has been a mass encampment, then cop city would have been stopped,” a couple things are funny about this statement, as there has been mass encampments, and the seemingly “random acts of solidarity” that these folks would have hoped to have come from this, already have… At the last week of action, a couple hundred people marched to the Northgate of the cop lair and wrecked shop accordingly, costing them millions on their project– if this isn’t the kind of solidarity WOA organizers are referring to, then plain and simply, your mass encampment idea seemed to just be an excuse to party with the rest of your white rad lib friends you have left, and furthermore, it seems you would go to great lengths to make sure nothing harmed your WOA party, to “stay safe”…yes all things under the guise of safety.
This is not to say that WOA’s are “bad” by any stretch of the imagination, but organizers have undoubtedly put some bad tastes in people’s mouths unquestionably… And clearly a couple of people want to be very seen and very “running” things at some of these.
Well here’s the thing, if you want to “stay safe”, then clearly you aren’t gonna go too far or risk too much of your freedom and social life to stop cop city– a lot of you have already made it this far without charges, probably also because a lot of these people who want the mass encampment not to be endangered at all costs primarily only lived in the woods for the weeks of action and not much outside of that in general; they also seemed to be really hell bent on, “bringing in more new people to the movement,” during the WOA, which as we’ve seen at the last one, the new people didn’t really throw down anyway and got caught up in the non-informed consent way they did as cannon fodder at the music festival… Wow just awesome… especially since a lot of these new people didn’t really have the best hold on or understanding of solidarity/what it means to be solid with your codefendants, etc.
The other thing these long term mass encampment for the sake of mass encampments thing people are missing, is that it took a concerted effort of eight hour days of scouting and physically keeping cops and construction at bay every day for well over a year to halt cop city, and regular antics fucking with their shit… Some of you definitely spin a narrative that conveniently leaves that out… And when you make it more than unpalatable and actually UNSAFE for more militant folks to be there long term because they might disturb your white orgy, well where does that leave us? On top of that, y’alls egos seems to be effecting your ability to have any kind of security culture when you get emotional makes for a real bad scene. Let it also be noted no one has ever been arrested at a so-called and new fangled “work party” from what is known.
Weeks of Action have NOT kept cops at bay, big raids always happen after them, and the last week of action solidarity action at Northgate that the WOA peace police didn’t like was a much needed response to shit the cops set up on Key Rd after a bunch of militant folks had been pushed out.
Also if people hadn’t been scouting regularly for a long time, critiquing something you probably never helped with unless you were finally in the woods at a Week of Action is just downright ridiculous.
A lot of the woods has been clear cut now because of our enemies, not the WOA (Week of Action) peace police but them pushing militant people away certainly didn’t help.
#NotUpForDiscussionAfter80AcresHaveBeenClearCut
We need to keep doing things to fight Cop Shitty, but we really need to be on our shit because we don’t need more people to get arrested with DT charges — some of our comrades are still incarcerated to those it matters to.
There needs to be a big push back against the whitest, loudest voices repping the DTF struggle and WOAs. There’s nothing wrong with repping the DTF struggle and WOAs, but how and who is doing it DO matter when it’s predominantly white folks with NO charges in the blackest city in America.
The struggle for cop city is NOT over but the old ways of doing things in the struggle definitely are and NEED to ADAPT to obvious changes. We must take care of each other so we can be dangerous together, and that is why it is important for these things to be shared and for history to not repeat itself.
Also, please stop referencing Standing Rock like we won that struggle…. A lot of beautiful things came from it, but stopping the pipeline wasn’t one of them. Jess & Ruby did more damage to the physical pipeline than ten thousand people in a Field…. The ten thousand people in a field served another important purpose indeed, but this also needs to be mentioned.
With a Burning Heart Full Of Fire & A Desire to See Positive Change, Knowing that No Risk = No Reward
Submitted Anonymously Over Email
Source: Scenes from the Atlanta Forest
Note: photo not associated with action.