On this day, 7 June 2016, African-American Black Lives Matter activist Jasmine Abdullah was sentenced to prison in California for a crime which was called “felony lynching” for attempting to de-arrest a fellow protester.
While the common understanding of the term “lynching” refers to extrajudicial murders, of which there have been many thousands across the United States committed against African-Americans, in California law the term defined the term as attempting to remove someone from police custody.
After another Black woman, Maile Hampton (pictured, right), was charged with lynching on a Black Lives Matter protest the previous year, there was mass outrage. This led to California authorities renaming the crime to remove the word “lynching” in 2016, while leaving the rest of the law intact.
Prosecutors had requested a one-year prison sentence for Abdullah (left), but with the background of a widespread campaign in her support, the judge decided to sentence her to 90 days imprisonment, with three years probation and a year of anger management.
Meanwhile, racist extrajudicial murders of African-Americans continue, and continue to go unpunished. For example the killing of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman in 2012, and more recently the case of Ahmaud Arbery, who was racially abused and shot to death by three white men. The killers were not even arrested until months of protests forced Georgia state authorities to act – and even then they were not charged with lynching.
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This is a helpful list of places you can donate to the current Black Lives Matter protest movement in the US: https://docs.google.com/document/u/1/d/12y7-Wa4gi8HUeFTv17gPcbMGuVX5cqIudLJmhOrq1-k/mobilebasichttps://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/1445253945659751/?type=3
I know the news and other sites like here and twitter have died down about the protests but this isn’t over. People are still protesting. Don’t stop still we have justice.
Hey there, space cadets! Last month’s Solarpunk Action Week took off like a barn fire and exceeded Solarpunk Action Week 2019 by easily a factor of 10, with tons of people getting food planted, learning new skills, building
things, reducing waste, spreading information, taking direct action, and
getting their neighborhoods and workplaces organized.
So we’ll be doing a followup to coincide with springtime in parts of the southern hemisphere! Mark those calendars for September 20th-26th!
What is Solarpunk?
Solarpunk is
a movement in speculative fiction, art, fashion and activism that
seeks to answer and embody the question “what does a sustainable
civilization look like, and how can we get there?” The aesthetics of
solarpunk merge the practical with the beautiful, the well-designed
with the green and wild, the bright and colorful with the earthy and
solid. Solarpunk can be utopian, just optimistic, or concerned with the
struggles en route to a better world — but never dystopian. As our
world roils with calamity, we need solutions, not warnings. Solutions
to live comfortably without fossil fuels, to equitably manage scarcity
and share abundance, to be kinder to each other and to the planet we
share. At once a vision of the future, a thoughtful provocation, and an
achievable lifestyle.”
And what is Solarpunk Action Week?
Solarpunk
Action Week is a week dedicated to taking radical environmentalist and anticapitalist action to make the world a better place. Previous Action Weeks have seen people starting gardens, learning new skills, making and repairing things, reducing waste, spreading information, getting involved in community organizing.
All you have to do participate is begin or continue with an environmentalist, anticapitalist project and talk about it in the #SolarpunkActionWeek tag; it’ll get a lot of signal boosts to connect with other people around the world doing the same.
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The previous Solarpunk Action Week saw a lot of individual actions, and those were incredible to witness, but we’re at our most powerful when we come together, so your homework for the next 5 months between now and the end of September is: Get organized! If we were able to do so much as individuals back in March, just imagine what you could get done rolling into Solarpunk Action Week with a crew ready to go.
If you’re new to organizing, here are some great places to get started:
And I’m sure people will link to all sorts of other great projects and resources in the rebagels, so keep an eye on the notes!
What can I do?
So many things! You can check out the #SolarpunkActionWeek tag to see what others have done in the past for inspiration. The two dinguses organizing these events have got resource tags full of just so many things you might could do and how to get started on them, here and here respectively. And here are some other fun ideas:
So for work I brought in some pride pins, cause it’s pride month and like half my co-workers are queer. And apparently a coworker complained and said they should get to wear there MAGA pins if we’re allowed to wear our “political” pins. My boss is going to talk to his boss cause while he is a straight white man who doesn’t quite understand, he does agree that’s bullshit.
So here’s some new pins I’m thinking of bringing to work cause I’m a petty bitch:
Haven’t decided which one, would love some feedback.
This blog is mostly so I can vent my feelings and share my interests. Other than that, I am nothing special.
If you don't like Left Wing political thought and philosophy, all things related to horror, the supernatural, the grotesque, guns or the strange, then get the fuck out. I just warned you.
