Sharing and Supporting Anarchist Ideas and Experiences

Tag: abolition

Smash the Class, Episode 6: Discussing the Contradictions within the School

In our sixth episode, Sonia and Nicole expand upon ideas that they had written in their article “The Revolutionary Power of Asking Questions.” They discuss the ways that the school systems—regardless of their positions as public, private, or anything in between— are inherently colonial and imperialist structures that maintain specific hierarchies.

It is imperative that we explore the ways that these structures operate and how they ensure that change doesn’t happen, even as they make the claims that they are spaces of change and learning. We need to better understand the ways that people who grow within them learn their ‘place’ in society, and we need to recognise the ways in which they coerce people to assimilate into society’s desires. We believe that there needs to be more open discussion about the ways that all people, particularly marginalised people, are done a disservice by schools while also understanding that reforming them will never be enough.

In exploring this, we outline the ways in which traditional structures within the school maintain the status quo and teach children the supposed ‘correct’ way of behaving. We also outline the contradictions that are inherent in what we, as a society, believe schools are for and what they are actually designed to do.

Enjoy! And if you’d like to help us explore other topics of anarchist education, please feel free to reach out to us on our email or any of the social media listed here.

Regarding Recent Events in Atlanta, GA: Stop Cop City and Defend Weelaunee Forest

The following post is taken directly from the call for solidarity with the movement in South Atlanta, Georgia. We are reposting it in full and stand in support with all the activists who are working towards stopping the development of Cop City and have been defending the forest in whatever ways they can. You can share and endorse the statement here.

Other updates have been submitted to and posted by the Atlanta Community Press Collective, including the statement about the loss of Tortuguita. Our hearts are with you all.


In solidarity with the movement to Stop Cop City and Defend Weelaunee Forest

We call on all people of good conscience to stand in solidarity with the movement to stop Cop City and defend the Weelaunee Forest in Atlanta.

On January 18, in the course of their latest militarized raid on the forest, police in Atlanta shot and killed a person. This is only the most recent of a series of violent police retaliations against the movement. The official narrative is that Cop City is necessary to make Atlanta “safe,” but this brutal killing reveals what they mean when they use that word.

Forests are the lungs of planet Earth. The destruction of forests affects all of us. So do the gentrification and police violence that the bulldozing of Weelaunee Forest would facilitate. What is happening in Atlanta is not a local issue.

Politicians who support Cop City have attempted to discredit forest defenders as “outside agitators.” This smear has a disgraceful history in the South, where authorities have used it against abolitionists, labor organizers, and the Civil Rights Movement, among others. The goal of those who spread this narrative is to discourage solidarity and isolate communities from each other while offering a pretext to bring in state and federal forces, who are the actual “outside agitators.” The consequence of that strategy is on full display in the tragedy of January 18.

Replacing a forest with a police training center will only create a more violently policed society, in which taxpayer resources enrich police and weapons companies rather than addressing social needs. Mass incarceration and police militarization have failed to bring down crime or improve conditions for poor and working-class communities.

In Atlanta and across the US, investment in police budgets comes at the expense of access to food, education, childcare, and healthcare, of affordable and stable housing, of parks and public spaces, of transit and the free movement of people, of economic stability for the many. Concentrating resources in the hands of police serves to defend the extreme accumulation of wealth and power by corporations and the very rich.

What do cops do with their increased budgets and their carte blanche from politicians? They kill people, every single day. They incarcerate and traumatize schoolchildren, parents, loved ones who are simply struggling to survive. We must not settle for a society organized recklessly upon the values of violence, racism, greed, and careless indifference to life.

The struggle that is playing out in Atlanta is a contest for the future. As the catastrophic effects of climate change hammer our communities with hurricanes, heat waves, and forest fires, the stakes of this contest are clearer than ever. It will determine whether those who come after us inherit an inhabitable Earth or a police state nightmare. It is up to us to create a peaceful society that does not treat human life as expendable.

The forest defenders are trying to create a better world for all of us. We owe it to the people of Atlanta and to future generations everywhere to support them.

Here are some ways to support the defense of the forest in Atlanta:

  • Donate to the Atlanta Solidarity Fund to support legal costs for arrested protestors and ongoing legal action.
  • Organize political solidarity bail funds, forest defense funds, and forest defense committees where you live.
  • Participate in or organize local solidarity actions.