action
There are many different types of actions that we take while organizing with our community: When our community experiences state repression, we take a personal action by checking in with ourselves and each other, and holding space for one another. When we agree on an issue, we take collective action and make plans together. Sometimes this means going to the streets to march and mourn, sometimes this means gathering somewhere together.
There are many components to taking action with our community. Some of the roles we often see in these moments are: Legal Advisers, Defendant Support, Street Medics, Media Strategists, Action Liaisons, and Mutual Aid Organizers.
Before the Action
There are multiple ways we can prepare alongside our community to take action together. We can chat about our needs and about our ideas and share strategies with each other. We can cook together and learn about our different experiences and thoughts. We can talk about necessary things like worst case scenarios and how to or how not to talk to the police. We can also incorporate processes of care and accountability into our organizing, to ensure that we do not project our trauma or internalized violence onto one another.
When we talk about roles, it’s important for us to think of these positions as fluid, someone who is knowledgeable about plant medicine and first aid could also be very knowledgeable about strategy and direct action. Roles are ideal for an event, but in a long-term task, it is better to rotate these roles between members of the group, to continue to bring harmony and balance to the crew. When considering roles, it’s crucial for us to share skills with each other, so that we can help each other grow. This is also a way of keeping chores balanced as well, as we all cook and wash dishes, and we all clean up after ourselves. Every role in an action is centered on care: we learn about first aid to take care of each other, we cook to feed each other, we chop wood to keep each other warm, we learn about legal strategy to understand the tactics of the state, and we learn about media strategy to show the world that we are still here.
We can harbor an abundance of skills and knowledge to fulfill many roles. Teaching others and also learning from others is a great way to make connections and also share important skills and to rotate roles within a community or collective. By being fluid in the roles you fulfill you lessen the burden on movement organizers and leaders and encourage rest and decompression for your comrades. It’s important to be capacity centered and remember that there is a role for everyone to fulfill, no one is disposable. Queer, Trans, and Femme Indigenous, and Black led movements and campaigns have created frontline spaces that are bringing the practice of kinship and solidarity to the forefront and creating unapologetic love, care and joy. It is from these structures and foundations that a new world will grow from.
After the Action
After an action it is always good to reflect and have a time of rest. We cannot expect ourselves to sustain enduring the violence of state repression especially because this heightens our risk of surveillance. As grassroots and autonomous organizations and groups we have little resources, and we have to think strategically on how we are to use them. Bail funds and pouring our resources into the state is not a sustainable solution, but it is sometimes necessary when taking strategic action towards our oppressors.
Direct Actions and Frontlines are spaces that can be preyed upon by Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) or Non Profits. Frontlines are attractive to 501c3 status organizations because they provide an opportunity for the organization to appear as if it has a hand in social change, while extracting the labour and resources of grassroots youth who have the kinetic energy to create social change. NGOs are often the barrier preventing the catalyzation of radical action as they seek to liberalize and neutralize organic rage and creativity. Community organizers should be wary of external organizations invading frontline spaces.
Action is a necessary part of creating change. Action does not always look the same, it takes many forms. It is important to be intentional and strategic about the actions we take and to clearly outline our goals. For example a goal could be to cost the company as much money as possible thus giving them financial incentive to abandon their project or it could get as much publication as possible. We must not aim to be confined within the scope of respectability politics and remember that as Indigenous people resisting colonialism, our ancestors have always been anti-fascist, anti-resource extraction, anti-colonial, and anti-capitalist.
