THE= NAOMI INDYPENDENT KLEIN INTERVIEW, P10 = #227: SEPTEMBER 2017 • INDYPENDENT.ORG

75 YEARS FOR WEARING BLACK?, P12 STATEN ISLAND RISING, P14 INDY SUMMER BOOKS P18 MAN VS.

PALESTINIAN-BORNMACHINE SOCIALIST KHADER EL- YATEEM WANTS TO BE TO BE THE FIRST ARAB ELECTED TO CITY COUNCIL. THERE’S JUST ONE PROBLEM: THE ENTIRETY OF THE DEMOCRATIC ESTABLISHMENT STANDS IN HIS WAY. PETER RUGH, PAGE 4 DAVID HOLLENBACH 2 READER'S THE INDYPENDENT VOICE

THE INDYPENDENT, INC. 388 Atlantic Avenue, 2nd Floor Brooklyn, NY 11217 212-904-1282 www.indypendent.org THE F-YOU TRAIN elected government officials (“Still Unsure About Single- Twitter: @TheIndypendent Payer Health Care? . . .” Indy online). Ignorance, abuse and facebook.com/TheIndypendent The ABCs of Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the Metropolitan greed have become too routine on the part of our political Transit Authority: Authoritarianism, bureaucracy, corrup- leadership. People’s lives are at stake. BOARD OF DIRECTORS: tion (“Why Your Commute Sucks” July Indypendent). Mis- — Anon Ellen Davidson, Anna Gold, management, underinvestment and waste are rampant, as Alina Mogilyanskaya, Ann well. They better get their act together. Schneider, John Tarleton BLAME THE VICTIM — Pedro Rivera Jr. EDITOR: I am certainly not advocating treating prisoners like ani- John Tarleton mals (“From Solitary to Shackles on NYC’s Rikers Island,” THE GREEN LINE Indy online). However, I think we are starting to move too ASSOCIATE EDITOR: far in opposite direction with prisoner rights. I am sorry, Peter Rugh As Howie Hawkins' gubernatorial running mate on the but I don’t give a crap about whether solitary confinement Green Party ticket in 2010, our campaign regularly targeted or restraint desks seem cruel or emotionally damaging to CONTRIBUTING EDITORS: Gov. Cuomo and the Democrats for their continuing role in prisoners. A lot of these prisoner rights groups are defend- Ellen Davidson, Alina using the MTA as a cash machine (“Why Your Commute ing prisoners that would kill them for a pack of cigarettes Mogilyanskaya, Nicholas Sucks” July Indypendent). Radicals and revolutionaries and not even think twice about it. If the prisoners don’t like Powers, Steven Wishnia need to take every opportunity to not only point out bad solitary confinement or restraint desks there is a very simple behavior by individual Dems but call out the Democratic solution: Don’t be so violent and unruly to get yourself put ILLUSTRATION DIRECTOR: Party itself for selling out the working class. Leaving left, in solitary confinement or restraint desks. Frank Reynoso independent and Green Party candidates and spokespeople — Robert K. out the narrative, leaves out a big part of the real resistance. DESIGN DIRECTOR: Mikael Tarkela — Gloria Mattera DAMNED IF YOU DO

DESIGNERS: Al Gore is proposing a step in the right direction from what Steven Arnerich, Anna Gold FOLLOW THE MONEY we are doing now and what Trump and Republicans have planned (“Al Gore’s Convenient Infomercial for Green Cap- SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER: Staten Island is the whitest of all New York boroughs and italism” Indy online and page 15). In either case, humanity Elia Gran incomes are higher than average there too (“Building Resis- is doomed from its own hubris. tance on Trump Island,” July Indypendent). Them giving — Rudy McCormack Donald Trump such a substantial portion of their vote is INTERN: not at all surprising. Cole Boyd — Clem A DANGEROUS MOONLIGHT GENERAL INQUIRIES: In the 1941 British film, Dangerous Moonlight (Suicide [email protected] POLITICAL GEOGRAPHY Squadron upon it’s U.S. release), a Polish composer, now a fighter pilot, takes part in the struggle against the 1939 SUBMISSIONS & NEWS TIPS: Staten Island is a different country (“Building Resistance on German invasion of his country. [email protected] Trump Island,” July Indypendent). As a composer, he writes the Warsaw Concerto, a roman- — Stevie A. tic-heroic piece which became renowned both in the film it- ADVERTISING & PROMOTION: self and in real life as a symbol of the resistance to the Nazis. [email protected] Is there an equivalent today to the composer-fighter pi- SHAPING UP lot's combined bravery and creativity? What might that be? The dilemmas of our era seem un- VOLUNTEER CONTRIBUTORS: We have some heavy lifting to do (“Will the Democratic resolvable. Sam Alcoff, Linda Martín Party Open its Doors . . . ?” Indy online). Most of us old- The wars must end. Alcoff, Gino Barzizza, Bennett time, rank-and-file Democrats would welcome some new — Donald Paneth Baumer, José Carmona, blood and fresh ideas. A number of us remain devotees to Leia Doran, Renée Feltz, New Deal and Great Society policies. Let’s regain those pro- COMMENT ON THE NEWS AT INDYPENDENT.ORG. Lynne Foster, Priscilla grams of the people and go forward together. Grim, Lauren Kaori Gurley, David Hollenbach, Gena — Richard Austin Hymowech, Dondi J, Colin Kinniburgh, Gary Martin, Erik McGregor, Mike ROUTINE OPERATIONS Newton, Astha Rajvanshi, Mark Read, Reverend Billy, People in this country must ignore all the phony wedge is- Jesse Rubin, Steven Sherman sue, divide and conquer tactics, and come together to de- Pamela Somers, Gabriella mand their needs be addressed first and foremost by their Szpunt, Leanne Tory-Murphy, Matthew Wasserman, and Amy Wolf.

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THRU SUN SEP 3 Pure dancehall, soca, afrobeats, chicken and fried plantains and SUN SEP 10 $25 ADULTS, $17 SENIORS, $12 champeta, reggaeton, calypso, admire the revelers in elaborate 1PM–4PM • $30 STUDENTS (SUGGESTED) baile funk and more. Prepare to costumes at this annual celebra- CLASS: FEMINIST ART CLUB EXHIBIT: THE BODY POLITIC; VIDEO dance, prepare to sweat, prepare tion of New York City’s Caribbean Why is there an enormous triangu- FROM THE MET COLLECTION to fête. Tickets available in ad- culture. The parade stretches lar table at the Brooklyn Museum Historically, the phrase "body vance at vibrasnycfete.splashthat. from Schenectady Avenue to covered with genitalia-shaped politic" is used to describe a com. Grand Army Plaza on Eastern dinner plates? Why was that Intro community comprising disparate Starr Bar Parkway and then continues down to Art History course you took in individuals. Today, the phrase 214 Starr St. Flatbush. undergrad all about white men can also connote the politics of from Europe? How are art and the body, how individual bodies SAT AUG 26–SUN AUG 27 THU SEP 7 feminism related and what does not only suffer political violence 10AM–4PM • FREE 7PM–9PM • FREE it even mean for an artist to be but also wield political authority, WORKSHOP BOOK LAUNCH: RECLAIMING feminist? Art educator Stefanie especially in terms of their race, Kids will learn about the impor- GOTHAM Lewin explores these questions ethnicity, class and gender. Each tance of achieving balance diet Democracy Now!’s Juan González and more. Register at brooklyn- of these meanings is relevant to through fun activities and food launches his latest book, Reclaim- brainery.com. the video works featured in “The samplings. Appetites of all ages ing Gotham: Bill de Blasio and the Brainery Annex Body Politic.” Visit metmuseum. will be satisfied. Hands on cooking Movement to End America’s Tale 1233 Prospect Ave org for hours. lessons available for $25. More of Two Cities with a public talk Metropolitan Museum of Art info at kidsfoodfestival.com. followed by an onstage conversa- SUN SEP 10 1000 Fifth Avenue The Oculus at Westfield World tion with New York City Council 1PM–5PM • FREE Trade Center Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, MUSIC: THE WASHINGTON THRU SUN SEP 17 185 Greenwich St. moderated by Amy Goodman. SQUARE PARK FOLK FESTIVAL FREE Alvin Johnson/J.M. Kaplan Hall, Now its seventh year and set PERFORMANCE: CHECKS & SUN AUG 27 The New School in the birthplace of the 60s folk BALANCES AND BOTTOMS UP 7PM • $10 66 W 12th St. renaissance, this festival features Theater for the New City is taking PERFORMANCE: YIDDISH FOLK string bands, Blues, traditional its production of Checks and Bal- SONGS FOR WOMEN THU SEP 7 Turkish and Balkan music and ances and Bottoms Up to parks French violinist and singer 8PM • $20 rounds out with a good, old-fash- across the city. This operetta for Eleonore Biezunski has been ex- MUSIC: KEVIN MORBY ioned square dance. the street pairs a Catholic school ploring Yiddish musical traditions He’s the Walt Whitman of contem- Washington Square Park girl and a subway conductor of the old and new world for quite porary rock ‘n roll. Check him out against a monster puppet as they some time — both as a musician with Shannon Lay. WED SEP 14 fight for the health and safety of and as an archivist. Together with Music Hall of Williamsburg 7PM–9PM • GIVE WHAT YOU CAN all New Yorkers, the civil rights Lauren Brody (vocals, accordion) 66 N 6th St. READING: TELL ME HOW IT ENDS of America and, finally, the future and Joanna Sternberg (vocals, Essayist Valeria Luiselli reads of our planet. Visit theaterforth- double bass), she will explore the FRI SEP 8 from her acclaimed book, Tell Me enewcity.net for locations and "yerushe," the heritage of women's 7:30PM • $10 SUGGESTED How it Ends; an Essay in 40 Ques- showtimes or call (212) 254-1109. Yiddish folksongs, orally transmit- DONATION tions, which examines the plight ted to her or preserved with great PERFORMANCE: ENCHANTED of migrant children arriving in the THRU SUN OCT 22 care and love by folklorists such FORMOSA United States from Mexico and TK as Ruth Rubin. Enchanted Formosa travels across Central America. All donations EXHIBIT: IVAN VELEZ; BRONX Barbès 100 years of Taiwanese history, support the New Sanctuary Coali- HAIKU 376 9th St. from the Qing imperial era, to the tion of New York City. Bronx-born Puerto Rican cartoon- Japanese colonial decades, to Judson Memorial Church ist and educator Ivan Velez exhib- THU AUG 31 the current republic. With songs 55 Washington Sq. S its a series of drawings related 7PM–9:30PM • FREE from indigenous tribes, Hoklo to comics and activism spanning WORKSHOP: MAKE YOUR groups and Hakka villages, singer- SAT SEP 16 his thirty-year career. From his OWN ZINE WITH TIGER BOMB songwriter Yu-Wei Hsieh and his 2PM • SLIDING SCALE $6–$15 groundbreaking work on LGBTQ MAGAZINE band perform a repertoire that LECTURE: DAS CAPITAL & youth issues during the AIDS Tiger Bomb Magazine is an combines folk, pop, and rock. REVOLUTION crisis to his subversive writings international teen magazine Flushing Town Hall Kevin Anderson of the Univer- for DC Comics and Marvel, this that highlights youth activism, 137-35 Northern Boulevard sity of California, Santa Bar- exhibit offers an engaging survey culture influencers, zines, art and bara reconnects Karl Marx the of Velez’s mission to effect change literature. This event includes an SAT SEP 9 revolutionary with Marx the and to diversity an art form that overview of zine culture, followed 10:15PM–11:30PM • $15 social theorist in his analysis of July/August 2017 July/August plays an indelible role in American by a lesson in making zines and a COMEDY: JANEANE GAROFALO this seminal 19th Century text. popular culture. See bronxmu- tutorial on using social media to The actress, comedian and politi- Anderson is the author of several seum.org for hours. promote self-published work. cal commentator headlines the books, including Lenin, Hegel, and The Bronx Museum of the Arts Bluestockings Bookstore line-up at this event, part of the Western Marxism. 1040 Grand Concourse 172 Allen St. Cinderblock Comedy Fest taking Marxist Education Project at place throughout Brooklyn from Brooklyn Commons FRI AUG 23 MON SEP 4 Sept. 8 to Sept. 10. Tickets and 388 Atlantic Ave. INDYPENDENT THE 11PM • $5 ONLINE, $10 AT DOOR 11AM • FREE more info available at cinderblock- PARTY: VIBRAS NYC: ISSA FÊTE! PARADE: WEST INDIAN DAY comedyfestival.com. If you mixed together the car- PARADE Bar Matchless navals from the Caribbean, Latin More than a million spectators 557 Manhattan Ave. America and Africa in one room turn out annually to bump-it to reg- you'd get Vibras NYC: Issa Fête! gae and calypso, chow down jerk 4 NYC POLITICS

MAN VS. MACHINE PALESTINIAN-BORN DEMOCRATIC SOCIALIST KHADER EL-YATEEM WANTS TO BE TO BE THE FIRST ARAB AMERICAN ELECTED TO CITY COUNCIL. THERE’S JUST ONE PROBLEM: THE ENTIRETY OF THE DEMOCRATIC ESTABLISHMENT STANDS IN HIS WAY.

By Peter Rugh just out-organized,” she told attendees at the People’s ENTHUSIASTIC ALLIES Summit in Chicago this summer, where activists t’s a summer Sunday morning in Brooklyn’s Bay working to continue Sanders’ mission of pushing the El-Yateem has another ace up his sleeve, the Demo- Ridge, and services are in full swing at Salam Democratic Party leftward gathered. Sarsour called cratic Socialists of America (DSA), a once-small so- Arabic Lutheran Church, at the corner of 80th for building “a political revolution that centers the cialist grouping that since its involvement with Sand- Street and Fourth Avenue. There are candles most marginalized communities among us.” ers counts 25,000 members nationally, 2000 of whom burning, statues of Jesus and the Virgin Moth- El-Yateem’s Council drive is an early test of such a reside in New York City. He’s one of two Council er,I Byzantine-esque placards displaying the Stations strategy. All citywide offices and all 51 seats on the candidates the group has endorsed this year; the other of the Cross. Light pours in through the stained-glass Council are up for election this year. Yet the 43rd Dis- is Jabari Brisport, an upstart tenants-rights advocate windows, shining on thick billows of incense. trict is one of the few where an insurgent candidate is running on the Green Party ticket in the 35th District, This might seem like a funny place to find a so- running strong against a Democratic Party favorite, which includes Prospect Heights and Bed-Stuy. cialist, but there’s at least one here. He’s handing out in part because El-Yateem has raised over $100,000 In Bay Ridge, DSA has sent dozens of volunteers out communion to the 30 or so parishioners taking turns while refusing to take money from the real-estate in- weekly to canvass on El-Yateem’s behalf. The group kneeling at the altar. A few minutes previously, he dustry and similar special-interest groups. Along with looked for candidates and campaigns that would help read from Matthew 13, where Jesus tells his followers the citywide housing crisis spurred by hyper-gentrifi- it advance its socialist message and grow roots in com- “pulling the weeds, you may uproot the wheat.” The cation, illegal home conversions are a hot topic in Bay munities where it has been absent, says Tascha Van subsequent sermon, along with most of the service, Ridge. The practice of turning the neighborhood’s Auken, a member of its New York electoral working was in Arabic, but Khader El-Yateem later explained two- and three-story houses into multi-unit residenc- group. El-Yateem, who supported Sanders and joined to me that he used the passage as a metaphor for the es is on the rise, forcing tenants, many of whom are DSA after Trump’s election, fit the bill. Syrian refugee crisis. undocumented, to live in cramped, unsafe conditions. “He’s the only candidate in this race who is not El-Yateem, who founded the church 20 years ago, “I’m going to fight the greedy landlords, fight the taking money from developers,” she says. “I don’t un- insists that welcoming the refugees is the Christian developers who are taking over our neighborhood, derstand why anyone would be supporting Democrats thing to do. That’s a radical proposition to some in fight for affordable housing,” El-Yateem says, speak- who call themselves progressive and are taking money Bay Ridge, a neighborhood that was once a bastion ing in an alley outside his campaign headquarters, from developers. That seems like an obvious line we for white-ethnic Catholics and is now home to a away from the commotion — a spot his campaign can draw.” growing Arab population. manager, Kayla Santosuosso, jokingly calls “our sec- Justin Brannan has been endorsed by Public Ad- The Lutheran minister is one of four candidates ond office.” vocate Letitia James, the Working Families Party, running in the Sept. 12 Democratic primary to suc- Much of the money that has come into El-Yateem’s and unions including Transport Workers Union Lo- ceed City Councilmember Vincent Gentile, whose campaign is from the neighborhood’s Arab communi- cal 100, Service Employees International Local 1199, term expires this year. El-Yateem’s main opponent is ty, where the pastor has deep roots. He has served on and Communications Workers of America District 1, Justin Brannan, Gentile’s director of communications the local community board for and legislative affairs. Also in the race: Kevin Pete 12 years, and is also on the board Carroll, an aide to Councilmember Stephen Levin of the Arab American Associa- WILL A NEIGHBORHOOD of Brooklyn Heights-Williamsburg, and Democratic tion. Many in Bay Ridge trust state committeewoman Nancy Tong. Three Republi- him to fight for immigrant rights, cans are also in the contest in the 43rd District, which and are excited that he might be THAT VOTED FOR BERNIE includes Bay Ridge, Fort Hamilton, and parts of Dyk- the first Arab-American elected er Heights and Bath Beach — all historically one of to the Council. Voting rights for SANDERS LAST YEAR VOTE the city’s more GOP-friendly areas. pre-citizens and an end to bro- Six weeks before the primary, El-Yateem has a very ken-windows policing, which can FOR ANOTHER OUTSIDER different scene waiting for him once he leaves the bring the undocumented to the church he helped found two decades ago. His store- attention of immigration agents, front campaign headquarters a few blocks away buzz- are among the causes El-Yateem THIS YEAR? es with volunteers making phone calls to potential has championed in his campaign. voters on behalf of “Father K,” as they fondly refer Exactly how many Arabs live in Bay Ridge is tricky as well as Councilmember Gentile. He too has raised to him. The walls surrounding them feature maps of to determine, because “Middle East” falls under the more than $100,000. Bay Ridge and a big piece of butcher paper reading, category of white on U.S. Census forms, but it is com- Brannan also portrays himself as an outsider, high- “These volunteers have put people before money in mon to see Arabic lettering above the butcher shops, lighting the AIDS and animal-welfare activism of his politics,” cluttered with signatures. Dunkin Donuts cafes and groceries in the neighbor. youth and his salad days as a punk-rock musician. He detritus mingle with printouts of voter-registration “Bay Ridge has a heavily Italian, Irish, Greek and played guitar with the hardcore bands Indecision and data on desks and tables. The campaign ought to be German voting-age citizen population but it has a rap- Most Precious Blood throughout the ’90s and early sponsored by the coffeeshop chain, a young volunteer idly growing Arabic-speaking population too,” says 2000s, and describes sleeping in squat houses and jokes. John Mollenkopf, who directs the Center for Urban performing in veterans’ halls. A combination of energized youth, white working- Research at the CUNY Graduate Center. Citing the “I think it’s adorable if anyone thinks I’m ‘the es- class voters and minority communities — Arab-Amer- Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, con- tablishment candidate,’” he said. “That’s really pre- icans chief among them — helped Bernie Sanders ducted between 2011 and 2015, he noted that just 5.7 cious.” carry Bay Ridge during last year’s Democratic presi- percent of voting-age citizens in Bay Ridge speak Ara- Since his punk-rock years, however, Brannan’s life dential primary when much of the city went strongly bic at home: “Bottom line, Rev. El-Yateem is going to has taken a more middle-of-the road turn. He worked July/August 2017

for Hillary Clinton. El-Yateem is hoping a similar co- have a hard time winning the nomination.” for Bear Stearns until the investment firm went under alition will give him the Democratic nomination on Mollenkopf, however, also says it’s possible that in the 2008 financial crash it helped spawn. He then Sept. 12, and with it, the inside track on winning the Kevin Pete Carroll, an Irish-American, could divide took a job working for Gentile. seat in the November general election. the white ethnic vote with Justin Brannan, who is of “I’m an outsider that decided I could effect change Linda Sarsour, a Palestinian leader from Bay Ridge Italian descent. from the inside out,” Brannan explained. who has risen to national prominence, has endorsed

THE INDYPENDENT El-Yateem “We were never outnumbered, we were 5

MAN VS. MACHINE PALESTINIAN-BORN DEMOCRATIC SOCIALIST KHADER EL-YATEEM WANTS TO BE TO BE THE FIRST ARAB AMERICAN ELECTED TO CITY COUNCIL. THERE’S JUST ONE PROBLEM: THE ENTIRETY OF THE DEMOCRATIC ESTABLISHMENT STANDS IN HIS WAY.

IS DE BLASIO PLAYING FAVORITES? this neighborhood,” El-Yateem says. “They see the Democrats here are not doing anything Kayla Santosuosso is frustrated that more to change that. We have a lot of Democratic unions haven’t gotten behind El-Yateem. “I clubs. It’s the same people that look the same feel like we’re running a campaign against the way. They’re not doing anything to represent Mayor of the City of New York,” she said, ex- the people of color who are outside of their plaining later in an email that Bill de Blasio’s cliques. The neighborhood is changing and director of intergovernmental affairs, Emma it is changing rapidly. The status quo has to Wolfe, was apparently whipping labor to back wake up and realize you cannot be in office Brannan behind the scenes. Wolfe could not forever. The people that are here are getting be reached for comment despite multiple at- engaged and organized.” tempts through her office. Neither City Hall’s El-Yateem was born and raised in Bethle- press team or de Blasio’s campaign responded hem, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank region. to inquiries either. That experience led him to cross another red Brannan denies anyone from City Hall is line in American politics. In addition to his advocating on his behalf and says the endorse- vocal support for socialism, he backs Boycott, ments he has received are the result of the re- Divestment and Sanctions (BDS), which seeks lationships he has built up over the years. The to apply economic pressure to Israel to end money he has raised for his campaign, he says, its occupation of Palestinian lands. DSA en- speaks to the roots he has in the community. dorsed the boycott at its national convention “I’m not taking money from anyone I don’t in Chicago in early August. have an existing relationship with,” he says. “My movements were always controlled,” “That money is not coming from developers.” El-Yateem says of his childhood. “I was not A look under the hood at Brannan’s cam- able to play outside my house after dark. My paign filings shows that some real-estate mon- mother would send me to school and not know ey has crept in. Sal Raziano, a senior realtor if I would come home or not.” When he visits at Casandra Properties, gave Brannan $2,000. his birthplace, Israel does not recognize his James Vavas, operator of Vavas Insurance and U.S. citizenship and insists that he travel with Financial Services, which provides commer- Palestinian documents. “You cannot choose cial property insurance, chipped in $1,000. issues of justice that are convenient to you, Anthony Constantinople of Constantinople that only serve your political career,” he says. & Vallone, and Samara Daly of DalyGonza- “When you are committed to justice you have lez offered smaller amounts. Constantinople to be committed all the way.” & Vallone is a consultancy firm whose clients Last year, the City Council passed a resolu- include the Trump Soho Hotel, TD Bank, tion condemning the BDS movement as anti- TMobile, and the private prison company Geo Semitic. It echoed an executive order signed by Group. Daly’s clients include Hudson Com- Governor Andrew Cuomo a few months earli- panies Incorporated, The Durst Organization er to have the state boycott companies and in- and BFC Partners, the company behind the re- stitutions that boycott Israel. The law created cent attempt to redevelop the Bedford-Union a public blacklist of BDS-related organizations Armory into luxury high-rises. available on the state’s Office of General Ser- When asked Brannan about these donations vices website. in an interview on Aug. 9, a member of his “I strongly oppose the BDS movement that staff asked me to move the conversation in a at its core seeks to delegitimize the state of Is- different direction. rael’s right to exist as a Jewish state,” Brannan July/August 2017 July/August says. “Israel is a vital U.S. ally and the only democracy in the Middle East. And, frankly, PALESTINIAN ROOTS BDS is counter to the inclusiveness and toler- ance that we value in this district.” New York’s Democratic machine, composed El-Yateem’s Palestinian heritage and his so- of politicians and the unions and advocacy cialist affiliation have become a rallying cry groups who depend on their ear, appears to for Republican hopeful Bob Capano, a viru- INDYPENDENT THE be operating under its usual quid-pro-quo lent Trump supporter and owner of a Grist- guiding principle, backing Gentile’s anointed edes supermarket on the Upper East Side. He successor. But a rising minority group in Bay has referred to the pastor as a “cleric” and Ridge is challenging that, trying to win a place “radical leftist.” Internet death threats di- of its own in city government. “People are angry; people are alienated in Continued on page 7 6

ELECTION & REVOLUTION, TOGETHER AGAIN THE DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISTS OF AMERICA PLANT THEIR FEET IN THE WORLD

By Daniel Moraff were three significant electoral moments on a nation- ed. This has robbed progressive electoral politics of wide scale on the American left: critical energy and leadership, and it has robbed the f the 1,000 delegates, volunteers, and left of realistic paths to power. The Sanders campaign staff at the recent national convention • Ralph Nader’s run for president in 2000 and the rise of DSA represent a small but critical step. of the Democratic Socialists of Amer- ignited huge rallies and a grassroots ground- ica – an organization of over twenty- swell. Sadly, by running as a Green Party Daniel Moraff is a member of the National Electoral five thousand dues-paying socialists candidate, he doomed his campaign from the Committee of the Democratic Socialists of America. O–– one would be hard-pressed to find 50 opposed to beginning and finished with under 3% of the He lives in Pittsburgh, where he manages an (inde- electoral politics. On display at the convention was a vote. pendent) judicial campaign. broad consensus that electoral politics had a key role to play in the American socialist movement. • A broad coalition of unions formed the The question of whether or not to run candidates Labor Party in 1996, which promptly dis- in Democratic primaries was hardly a question. A covered that third-party runs are a dead end resolution to “Draft Bernie for a People’s Party” was in the vast majority of American elections. overwhelmingly voted down. The national organiza- Within 10 years, the party was gone. tion has endorsed six candidates currently running in 2017, three of whom are running as Democrats (in- • Jesse Jackson’s runs for president in 1984 cluding New York’s Khader El-Yateem), two of whom and 1988 spawned large mobilizations and are running in nonpartisan races, and one of whom is built promising multiracial coalitions across a Green (Jabari Brisport, also of New York). The list the country. Instead of producing any sort of DSA members in office is growing; most of them of democratic organization, it produced a are Democrats. None of this is particularly contro- publicity mill for Jackson, who promptly ran versial. the coalition into the ground. The explosive growth of DSA, which remains com- mitted to supporting candidates running as Demo- This points to an obvious question: what if someone crats, is an extraordinary and very hopeful develop- were to do what Jackson did, but do it better? What ment for the American left. if they spawned not a personal machine, but instead incited massive growth of a bottom-up, democratic • • • organization? What if this organization was openly socialist? What if this organization was part of a Once upon a time, revolutionaries were a fixture broad progressive coalition that sought to merge so- of American electoral politics. The 1860s and 1870s cial movements with radical electoral politics? And saw a wave of left-wing black abolitionists elected to what if the organization got over the left’s hang-ups state, local, and federal offices. The Populists of the about the Democratic ballot line? What would hap- 1890s railed against industry and capital; they elected pen then? governors and senators. The Socialist Party followed It is a critical question – and in the wake of the suit in the 1900s and 1910s. A slate of candidates in Sanders campaign, DSA is part of a broad coalition California ran in the 1930s on a platform of heavily on the left that is going to answer it. converting private industry to worker cooperatives, Many socialist organizations – Socialist Alterna- instituting a massive income tax, and transitioning tive, the International Socialist Organization, Soli- California toward a socialist economy. They swept darity, etc – condemned Sanders’s decision to run races across the state, utterly transforming Califor- as a Democrat. DSA, which has always advocated a nia’s politics, and they did so through the Democratic strategic orientation toward the Democratic line, sup- primary. Huge victories around wages, labor protec- ported Sanders’s strategy from the beginning. In do- tions, and rent control can be traced directly to the ing so, DSA recognized a fundamental truth in Amer- victories of these movements and, critically, their ican politics: it is virtually impossible to win almost electoral arms. any major election on a third-party line. If we want to This tradition withered. Many of those participat- gain the support of a large number of working-class ing in the uprisings of the sixties and early seventies voters, we will find them in the Democratic primary. declared themselves fervently opposed to electoral The organization has been proven right. Its mem- politics, and scorned those who sought to run in the bership has tripled in the past year. Its longtime mem- July/August 2017

Democratic Party. Some radicals forsook elections bers, who toiled in relative obscurity for decades, altogether, as did foundation-backed organizers in- have been vindicated. Elections are a useful tactic for spired by Saul Alinsky. The hopes of those seeking the left. We can run candidates as socialists and win. to “realign” the Democratic Party were dashed, their We must be willing to use the Democratic primary if coalition shattered by the AFL-CIO-backed Vietnam we want to get anywhere. War. For too long, the pursuit of revolution and the pur-

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of the Council’s decision to enable Mayor MAN VS. MACHINE Michael Bloomberg’s bid for a third term. Continued from page 5 Four entrenched incumbents were given the boot. Among the newcomers voted in were rected at El-Yateem have followed. One Jumaane Williams in Flatbush and Ca- person expressed a desire to crush El-Ya- narsie and Margaret Chin in Manhattan’s teem’s skull. Chinatown. While Williams has remained DEMOCRACYNOW.ORG “There are some things I can tolerate a staunch progressive voice since taking of- because I’m a big boy,” says El-Yateem, fice, Chin, a one-time Maoist who surfed Tune In Live Every Weekday 8-9am ET who is a father of four. “But when it comes in on the same Working Families slate, has down to people saying they want to put my come under fire from anti-gentrification ac- • Audio, Video, Transcripts, Podcasts head in a vice, that becomes a threat. I have tivists for encouraging high-rise construc- my children at home. They have access to tion in her district. • Los titulares de Hoy (headlines in Spanish) social media. They read things and they “I didn’t go to seminary school to be a are living in fear. They are terrified, hear- politician,” El-Yateem says, insisting power • Find your local broadcast station and schedule ing that people want to kill me.” won’t change him. “I’m not accountable to Despite the threats against him and the a political machine. I’m accountable only • Subscribe to the Daily News Digest challenges El-Yateem is facing taking on to the people who live here, to my family the city’s political machine, he is affable and to my neighbors. I’ve been telling mem- Follow Us @ DEMOCRACYNOW and self-effacing, criticizing his opponents’ bers of the progressive movement, people politics without a grimace. Walking door- that have been opposing Trump, ‘You don’t to-door along Bay Ridge Avenue and its have to hold me accountable. I will hold surrounding streets, he bows to greet every you accountable, if you aren’t getting the dog that barks in his direction, especially job done.’” the small yelpy ones. (El-Yateem, who is But first, the movement will have to put over six feet tall, is the proud owner of a El-Yateem in office and show that the en- “Of course she had me at Koko Taylor. She had me again at shea butter and Yorkie.) When the dogs’ humans meet him, thusiasm that made Sanders a contender Ron Artest and especially at an eerily intriguing fur suit. This is an effusive their cynicism melts into optimism, and nationally is applicable on a local level. suspicion gives way to encouragement. The mini-purge of 2009 didn’t change celebration of black girlhood in all its muted but relent less sparkle, a tenacious “What are you doing? Don’t you know the City Council much, but it did light a this is Trump territory?” a white woman flame under complacent incumbents, who exploration of all its lives, t he wide-aloud witnessing of a born storyteller slicing at one door greets him half-jokingly. The began to worry they might be vulnerable. Trump-Pence ticket won 35 percent of the If the coalition of Arab Americans, young her two-wheeler t hrough t he streets of a broken and boisterous city.”” vote in Bay Ridge last November, and car- socialists and disaffected members of the –-Patricia Smit h ried Dyker Heights. By the time she fin- working class — many of whom, in Bay Out now from Haymarketbooks.org ished speaking with El-Yateem, however, Ridge, are white — that El-Yateem is build- the woman was asking where his campaign ing propels him to office, it could push the office was located so she and her family Council further leftward and set the stage could come and volunteer. for more socialist gains in 2021. At an Arab-run grocery store, the pro- DSA is seeking to build power through prietor chastised El-Yateem for missing his “hard grassroots work,” Tascha Van daughter’s wedding. “My mother-in-law Auken says: knocking on doors, making was in the hospital,” he pleaded. He was phone calls, building democratic organiz- forgiven. ing structures. It’s operating separately One middle-aged white guy sporting from El-Yateem’s official campaign, she a gray moustache looked at El-Yateem’s adds, which will enable it to maintain its flier cross-eyed from his doorstep. The contacts after the primary, no matter what candidate was drawing on a list of regis- the outcome. tered Democrats, but the man was clearly disgruntled with the state of city politics. “Nothing is getting done with one party running this town,” he said with a sigh. After learning that El-Yateem was cam- July/August 2017 July/August paigning to take on the Democratic estab- lishment, the man lightened up. “I’ll look this over,” he said, tapping the flier against his palm. It was by no means a vote clearly won, yet it showed El-Yateem’s potential support. After all, dissatisfaction with pol- itics — particularly along economic lines INDYPENDENT THE — was a key reason voters turned to both Trump and Sanders in the last election. Progressive insurgents successfully shook up the City Council in 2009, when a slate of Working Families Party-backed candidates rode a wave of voter resentment 8

CITY COUNCIL PASSES BILLS AGAINST “CONSTRUCTION AS HARASSMENT”

By Steven Wishnia plans. The measures are important, says White, because they en- early two years after they were first introduced, able the Department of Buildings to address problems it was the City Council on Aug. 9 overwhelmingly not prepared to deal with in the past, to enforce regulations passed 11 bills in a 12-measure package in- against a “pattern of behavior” instead of just individual viola- tended to curb “construction as harassment,” tions like continuing construction after a stop-work order has the practice of landlords trying to drive tenants been issued. outN by using demolition and renovation to create noxious con- “This really comes from a lot of different angles,” says Emily ditions. Goldstein, senior organizer at the Association for Neighbor- The bills “are going to keep both rent-stabilized and unregu- hood Housing Development. lated tenants in their homes,” and show that the city is “not One key measure, says Jane Li, a staff attorney at the Urban tolerating unsafe practices,” says Andrea Shapiro of the Met- Justice Center’s Community Development Project, is Intro 918- ropolitan Council on Housing. A, sponsored by Councilmember Margaret Chin (D-Manhat- The 12 bills were part of a package promoted by Stand for tan), which passed 41-1. It will increase the amount of auditing Tenant Safety, a coalition of more than 20 housing, neigh- the Department of Buildings has to do on applications for per- borhood, and legal-services organizations. The Council also mits, instead of letting landlords hire their own professionals passed five other bills intended to help tenants fight harass- to certify their work. Specifically, the department will have to ment, such as by making it easier to prove harassment, and audit 25 percent of those applications in rent-regulated build- preventing landlords from visiting or contacting tenants at odd ings, affordable-housing projects, or buildings that are being hours without their consent. investigated for rent overcharges, and go over the documents “For too long, landlords have wielded construction like a monthly. weapon against tenants,” said Marika Dias, director of the That bill was a “big win,” Li says. The 25-percent figure was Tenant Rights Coalition at Legal Services NYC. “By strength- arrived at after much negotiation with the Buildings Depart- ening our tenant harassment laws and Department of Build- ment, which objected that it didn’t have enough resources to ings protections for tenants, while also increasing penalties and do audits that extensive. enforcement against landlords who refuse to respect tenants’ The one bill out of the 12 that did not pass, however, is what rights, these laws give tenants multiple new ways to fight back.” Li calls “the crown jewel of our package.” Intro 934, sponsored “Construction as harassment” involves the demolition and by Councilmember Stephen Levin (D-Brooklyn), would create renovation of vacant apartments in a manner intended to a “real-time enforcement unit” that would have to do inspec-

“make life miserable for the tenants they’re trying to move tions for complaints about work being done without a permit STEVEN WISHNIA out,” explains Kerri White, director of organizing and policy within two hours after it receives the complaint. It would also at the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board. It’s a “double have to inspect buildings where a significant amount of con- bonus” for unscrupulous landlords, because they can add the struction is being done within five days after work starts, and cost of the renovations to the rent on vacant apartments, and if do periodic unannounced inspections afterwards. any tenants move out after their ceiling collapses or they spend “By the time DoB shows up to check the work that’s going a month without cooking gas, the owner can renovate their on illegally, often it’s already over,” Julie Bero, Levin’s legisla- apartments and charge more. tive director, told Tenant/Inquilino at a City Hall rally in Feb- The practice emerged after the state weakened the rent-stabi- ruary. But the department, Li says, objected that it didn’t have lization laws in 1997 to let landlords deregulate rent-stabilized the resources to handle that kind of demand. The bill is still apartments if the rent is high enough. It has become widespread being negotiated. over the last decade. Steven Croman, who combined maximum-nuisance construction with trumped-up evic- THE PRACTICE EMERGED AFTER THE STATE tion lawsuits and aggressive demands that tenants leave, became the poster child for it before he pleaded guilty WEAKENED RENT-STABILIZATION LAWS IN to fraud charges in June, but it has proven a highly profitable business 1997 TO LET LANDLORDS DEREGULATE RENT- model for East Village/Lower East Side building-flippers such as Ben STABILIZED APARTMENTS IF THE RENT IS HIGH Shaoul. It has also spread to gentrify- ing neighborhoods such as Williams- burg, Greenpoint, Bushwick, and ENOUGH. Ridgewood. The 11 bills passed take on various aspects of the problem. “Real Time Enforcement is key to getting the Department Two will increase fines for violating a stop-work order or do- of Buildings to be able to send inspectors while the illegal ing construction work without a permit. Others will enable the construction is happening,” Met Council said in a message to city to put liens on buildings that owe significant amounts of members Aug. 14. “We need to continue advocating and orga- July/August 2017

fines and have the Department of Buildings withhold permits nizing to insure Real Time Enforcement is voted on by the end for major work from owners who owe more than $25,000 in of the summer.” unpaid fines. One will require that the occupancy status of any Overall, Li says, the passage of these bills “speaks to how building where a permit has been issued be posted on both the tenants across the city have mobilized” to demand a response department’s Web site and on-site permits, to make it harder to “an emerging trend in landlord harassment.” for landlords to get away with claiming that the building is

THE INDYPENDENT unoccupied. Others beef up current rules for tenant-protection 9 BRIEFING ROOM

ELEPHANTS incentives to attract $800 billion in private IN DONKEY’S investment. The same budget eviscerates a CLOTHING $500-million-a-year transportation fund A new coalition of progressive activists is and the $3-billion-a-year Community De- raising cash to unseat members of the so- velopment Block Grant program, which called Independent Democratic Conference supported infrastructure improvements in (IDC), a collection of eight New York State low-income neighborhoods. Senators elected as Democrats that caucus with the Republicans. No IDC NY is also circulating a pledge on its website, noidcny. THE WITNESS org, where voters can commit to casting PROTECTION their ballots against IDC members in next AGENCY? year’s Democratic primaries. Led by Sen. The head of the Environmental Protection Jeff Klein of the Bronx, additional IDC Agency (EPA) hasn’t been doing much envi- members in New York City include Mari- ronmental protecting lately but he has been sol Alcantara (Manhattan), Tony Avella protecting himself. Scott Pruitt has placed (Queens), Jesse Hamilton (Brooklyn), Jose the entire floor where his office is located Peralta (Queens) and Diane Savino (Staten on perpetual lockdown and has insisted Island). IDC has held up numerous pieces on a round-the-clock, armed security de- of reform legislation in Albany — single- tail even while inside the EPA’s Washing- payer health care, tuition aid for undocu- ton headquarters. With Pruitt at the helm, mented immigrants and a statewide $15 an the agency has stopped collecting data on hour minimum wage — despite the Demo- greenhouse gas emissions, rescinded clean crats holding majorities in both the senate water regulations and could have its budget and the State Assembly. slashed by nearly a third at Pruitt’s recom- mendation. COMMUTER’S CALAMITY DEPORTATIONS ON New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and Gov. THE RISE Andrew Cuomo are touting separate plans President Trump’s pledge to crackdown to fix the Metropolitan Transit Author- on undocumented immigrants appears to ity while commuters continue to bear the be one of the few campaign promises he is slings and arrows of a decaying subway making good on. Figures released by the system. To tax the rich or auction off Justice Department in August show 49,983 branding rights, that is the question facing people received deportation orders between New Yorkers this month. Bill de Blasio pro- February and July of this year, a 28 percent posed a variation of a plan devised by State increase compared with the same time- Sen. Michael Gianaris (D-Queens) to tax frame last year. Sixty-six thousand people the city’s wealthiest in order to pay for sub- were detained by immigration officers, an way improvements and subsidize rides for uptick of 40 percent. Approximately 8,000 low-income commuters. Cuomo wants to people were ordered to leave the United recruit corporations to adopt ailing subway States voluntarily. Immigration courts have stations. He has also called for imposing an estimated backlog of 600,000 plaintiffs. tolls on drivers crossing the East River — Attorney General Jeff Sessions has warned essentially amounting to a flat tax on vehic- cities that refuse to cooperate with its de- ular travel between Manhattan, Brooklyn portation drive that they will lose federal and Queens. A similar toll plan, proposed funding. Speaking after deadly violence by Gov. David Paterson in 2008, was shot erupted at a white nationalist rally in Char- down in the State Assembly and it is un- lottesville, Virginia Trump expressed a de- likely that the millionaire’s tax will make sire to pardon Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio, much headway either with Republicans, convicted of criminal contempt for ignor- together with self-described “Independent ing a court order to halt discriminatory pa- Democrats,” wielding power in Albany. trol practices that targeted undocumented immigrants. July/August 2017 July/August THE DEVELOPER- IN-CHIEF President Trump came into office pledg- ing a trillion dollar infrastructure plan but figures released from the Census Bureau in August show that infrastructure spending INDYPENDENT THE is at it lowest level on record. Public con- struction amounted to just 1.4 percent of the United State’s economic output in the second quarter of this year. Trump’s pro- posed budget calls for a $200 billion infra- structure infusion, along with unspecified 10 11 INTERVIEW

By Linda Martín Alcoff rallies are organizing drives designed to recruit followers, in the dietary department. A sense of belonging is just the By Mike Ben Zev movements with a more confrontational stance have some have yet to happen and can still be prevented. The only way raise funds, and excite their base. Their displays of armed sort of feeling that a union campaign can engender. People history of success, as in the cases of those who opposed the forward, then, is to make fascism history again. he expected racist march was set to start. A power are designed to dominate the public sphere through can learn to build trust and fellowship despite having dif- was marching beneath a blue Virginia sky, alongside British National Party in the ’80s, Aryan Nations in the Before it’s too late. large, multiracial crowd that included students, threats and intimidation. Their memes and slogans aim to ferent backgrounds and experiences. They learn to let each some 500 antifascists, when it hit me—all of us—all ’90s, or Greece’s Golden Dawn Party in the 2010s. townspeople, curious young folks, and armed build a movement that will violently curtail the free speech other speak and to listen more carefully to what everyone in at once. One minute, we were united in song, clapping Second, the argument against “antifa” rests on the no- law enforcement had been steadily growing in of all those they hate. They are opposed not merely to our the group says. Union success requires cooperation, and the and chanting our way down Water Street following tion that there is no clear and present danger to be con- size, waiting for events to unfold. Although it ideas, but to our very presence in “their” country. daily practices that cooperation requires engender a bond. the Alt Right’s eviction from the public space formerly fronted—that fascism can’t happen here, or now—and that Twas a sunny, warm day, the atmosphere sent a signal of high We cannot cede the public square, even for a single day. knownI as Robert E. Lee Park. The next minute, we were any disruptive action taken by antifascist militants is there- alert. Nobody was quite sure what was going to happen. scattered—some of us shattered—by the force unleashed by fore an overreaction. But the threat is real, and the threat Crowds this large of blacks and whites together were not SPECIAL CHALLENGES the gray Dodge Challenger driven by a white supremacist is growing. Since the 2016 election, the far right has been a common sight in this small Southern city, and the folks GETTING OUT OF OUR COMFORT ZONES with a license to kill. reenergized and emboldened by their friends in the White of color were not sure how the white people around them Movements against identity-based forms of injustice — such James Alex Fields had been spotted at Emancipation Park House—and by the weakness of the opposition. Hate crimes would react if things turned ugly. The second challenge is more difficult, for it calls on us as racism, homophobia, Islamophobia, and so on — face earlier in the day, mingling with members of Vanguard have reached record levels, and rallies like Charlottesville’s Then suddenly, the march began, and just as suddenly, it to think beyond resistance and move outside of the com- special difficulties in creating unity and trust among activ- America, as young men like him milled about, toting guns, have drawn record numbers. ended. The antiracist crowd was too large, too vocal, and fortable circles of people with shared experiences and val- ists, simply because not everyone involved is targeted or af- clubs, shields, and a variety of flags: the Stars and Bars of The response from the left has failed to keep pace with too angry. A black teenager hurled a brick, and it struck ues. We have to understand that some of the best breeding fected in the same way. the Confederacy, the black-and-blue of Blue Lives Matter, this growing threat from the right. Deferring to Democrats paydirt. The Ku Klux Klansmen were herded into police grounds for right-wing extremism are beleaguered constitu- The police are likely to respond more harshly toward the “national flag of Kekistan” inspired by the battle stan- and donors, left organizations have, with few exceptions, vans and scuttled off the street to safety. We’d won. encies. Many are seeking answers to their lack of economic nonwhites than toward whites, and the differences in our dard of the Third Reich. failed to step up to support antifascist organizing, leaving This was not Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017, but Tal- and social success, and would have much to gain by allying experiences produce some significant differences in our It would take the murder of a young white woman that activists at greater risk of getting hurt, or worse. Left and lahassee, Florida in 1977. Forty years ago. Little, it seems, themselves with working-class people of color to press de- knowledge base. That cannot be swept under the rug in the day to drive the point home: American fascists aren’t here liberal media have laid the blame for the violence at the feet has changed. In Tallahassee, as in Charlottesville, the rac- mands for living wage jobs, healthcare, free college educa- name of an abstract unity, a shared commitment to justice or for a walk in the park. They aren’t out to engage in an ex- of antifascists, equating the Alt Right with the so-called “Alt ist march was legal: It had a permit from the city, and the tion for their children. inclusion. Thus, in movements against identity-based forms ercise in free speech. Ultimately, they are out for power and Left” (as Trump dubbed us in an August 15 press confer- local American Civil Liberties Union defended its right to They are also seeking a sense of belonging, a connection of injustice, it can be hard to create the kind of social bonds they are out for territory. Terror can be a potent tactic when ence). free speech. As in Charlottesville, the size of the opposition to something bigger than themselves and relief from the that are strong enough to withstand the opposition’s subtle other tactics fail (as the Unite the Right rally had done so The reality behind the reality show is this: one side is crowd led the police to force the marchers to forgo their alienation and isolation that the mass societies of contempo- ideological maneuvers, as well as its physical threats. But spectacularly that day). openly advocating for genocide. The other is trying to stop planned parade route, for their own safety. But there were rary capitalism create. Identities are often avenues for com- we have to find ways to create a sense of belonging for all of That day, Fields, like so many of his comrades, was out them. The Democrats won’t stop them. The AFL-CIO won’t also some key differences. munity. The ability to build a diverse social infrastructure those who suffer, for all of those willing to take a stand, for for blood. Heather Heyer wasn’t the movement’s first mar- stop them. The police assuredly won’t stop them, just as they In Charlottesville, the racists came out packing, with ma- that will redress alienation is a difficult task, not one that as many as we can. tyr, and she is unlikely to be the last. Since 1990, more than failed to stop James Alex Fields in Charlottesville or Jeremy jor weapons and shields. They felt no need to wear hoods to we should smugly believe has already been accomplished. The white-nationalist groups are offering a club where 450 people have been murdered by white supremacists in the Christian in Portland, Oregon. In fact, recent reporting has hide their identities: They could reasonably count on protec- “The first issue is how their current thought process is whites can belong, but only like-minded whites. Whites who United States alone. Across Europe and the former Soviet revealed that police departments are welcoming outright tion from the White House. Although the police cut short being reinforced, Mathew Fransen-Marsh, a young work- disagree will be bullied, punched, kicked, and killed. We Union, fascists routinely maim and murder racial, religious, neo-Nazis into their ranks. One imagines they feel quite at the Unite the Right March, they did not curtail the confron- ing-class friend from rural Pennsylvania, writes. “They’re need to make sure such whites know another world is pos- and sexual minorities, along with anyone who stands in home. tation it set off, but let it play out, with the result the killing being told by the ‘alt-right’ that the left is trying to take sible, a world that will include them. their way. The only force capable of checking the spread of fascism of Heather Heyer when a neo-Nazi marcher crashed his car everything from them, exclude them from things, and make When fascist forces are on the march, it is always a matter is civil society itself, self-organized for self-defense. Self- into a crowd of counterdemonstrators. them second-class citizens. They reinforce these mantras by Linda Martín Alcoff is a professor of philosophy at the City of life and death for those in the scope of their semiautomat- defense, to an antifascist, encompasses much more than a Today, the chant of “You will not replace us” signals that pointing out exclusionary terms and legislation, making it University of New York and author of The Future of White- ics. In fact, white nationalist ideology defends, and often street fight. While antifa actions are typically associated we are in a new historical moment, providing new fears and seem like they’re being ostracized as the enemy. They liter- ness (Polity 2015). demands, the extermination, enslavement, and expulsion with physical confrontation, it is but one tactic among many motivations to legitimate lynch mobs. ally convinced people that people saying ‘black lives matter’ of entire populations. In this light, the Alt Right’s love af- in the antifascist toolkit. It is also a tactic that carries height- The events of Aug. 11-12 in Charlottesville have thrust were trying to state that only black lives matter. They use fair with General Lee, like its love affair with Adolf Hitler, ened risks, especially for those who are already at height- forward two major challenges for social-justice activists the typical emotional weaknesses of the average person to should come as no surprise. ened risk whenever they walk down the street. July/August 2017 July/August across the country, particularly for white anti-racists. make them hateful and angry toward a group looking for The question is what, if anything, is to be done when Many antifascists prefer to do other work, engaging, for First, how should we respond to the public expression of equality. They use this to chip away, piece by piece, until would-be mass murderers are given free rein to parade about instance, in workplace organizing, in coalition building, in racist hatred? And second, how can we compete more ef- they can pull these people in and convince them that they the streets calling for blood. For decades, the liberal’s an- boycotts and strikes and even, from time to time, in politi- fectively for the working-class whites that this new array of are their only allies. You see it every day. swer has been a simple one: not much. Indeed, liberals and cal campaigns to defeat white supremacy wherever it rears white supremacist groups is trying to recruit? “I know, because I used to fall victim to the common conservatives tend to agree that fascists are best ignored, not its head at the local level. These tactics are less newsworthy I helped to organize the counter-rally in Tallahassee, de- tactics they use, and only education helped me to realize confronted. A strategy of confrontation, some argue, does than a battle royale. They are, however, more accessible to July/August 2017 INDYPENDENT THE

spite being admonished by liberal friends to let the Klan ex- the backward ‘logic’ I was being fed. I’ve been working on more harm than good, giving the far right free publicity, antifascism’s popular base. ercise its rights to free speech. A host of local ministers and my family with such things because they used to hold such repelling potential allies, and attracting new recruits. Nonetheless, it was they who, when the Challenger plowed town leaders also argued that people opposed to the Klan views, but it’s likely I’ll never get any of them to truly change The problem with the liberal line is twofold. First, it is into the crowd, ran towards the crash and rushed to the as- should just stay away, that our presence would only augment their views, much less strangers.” based on a moral theory, and not on the historical experi- sistance of the shellshocked and the wounded. In a very real the publicity they sought, and could endanger lives. Mathew’s pessimism is belied by his own story of per- ence of fascist violence. At no time has a strategy of non- sense, this is what we do: we are first responders, called to But neither the Klan nor today’s “alt-right” neo-Nazis are sonal change. His “education” came in part from partici- confrontation served as an effective check on the growth of the scene of a series of horrific crimes. Some of these crimes,

THE INDYPENDENT simply exercising free speech. Their events, Websites, and pating in a labor struggle in the hospital where he worked far right movements or street gangs. By contrast, antifascist such as slavery, were committed in the distant past. Others 12 MIGRATION

WE’RE ALL IN THE SAME BOAT DIY LIFEGUARD CREW TAKES TO THE HIGH SEAS TO AID REFUGEES

By Elia Gran his attention to the humanitarian crisis occurring Proactiva brings journalists with them to document closer to Spain, off the shores of Italy. Proactiva raised the plight of refugees on the open water. Reporter BARCELONA — Images abound of migrants from funds for a boat to help them reach refugee´s dinghies Andrew Katz, traveling with photojournalist Santi the Middle East and Africa piled atop each other in before they sank between Libya and southern Europe. Palacios, recently wrote for Time Magazine of what small boats adrift on the Mediterranean Sea. By the Aware that many of the organizations who were al- he witnessed on Mediterranean with Proactiva: “One time the refugees step aboard these flimsy boats they ready at sea only had funds to maintain their missions hundred and eighty-one people were crammed into a have already been traveling for months or even years during the summer, the Proactiva also rented a Dutch rubber dingy meant to hold significantly fewer souls from places like Senegal, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Syria, fishing vessel for the winter. The number of refugees off the coast of western Libya on July 24. By the time Afghanistan, even Bangladesh. They have crossed traveling during the colder months decreases but there the Spanish rescuers arrived the next day to the se- multiple borders with the objective of making it to are still many people who risk their lives on the frigid verely deflated vessel, 13 people, including two preg- Europe, leaving behind the horrors of war, torture or waters for a more affordable price from smugglers. nant women, were dead.” poverty. Recently, Proactiva received a tugboat donated by One of the women was the mother of three children “The only way to get away is through the sea,” Ós- a Spanish businessman that resists both winter and who were also in the vessel. She died from inhaling car Camps, founder Proactiva Open Arms, told The summer weather and can carry a greater number of the fumes coming from the engine. Indypendent. passengers. Proactiva and other NGOs seeking to rescue the The Spanish NGO was founded in September 2015, migrants aren’t the only boats searching for refugees as the European refugee crisis began to mount. The in the Mediterranean. Right-wing organizations like group specializes in rescuing people who need help in IMPOSSIBLE CHOICES Defend Europe accuse humanitarian organizations of the Mediterranean sea, as well as raising awareness of collaborating with smugglers to send refugees to Eu- the injustices migrants incur along their route, which Saving migrants at sea has proved to be a bit more rope. Defend Europe has launched a boat of its own, often go untold in the media. complicated than on the beaches of Spain due to the the C-Star, seeking to repel the refugees. Ironically, “When we rescue people at sea, there may be 110 sheer number of people who need help. at least 20 members of the boat’s crew were deported men and nine women, but these numbers aren’t the “Initially, we always tried to get to the children be- when the ship docked in Turkish Cyprus in July, after same ones at the beginning of their trip,” Camps says. cause they were the first ones to drown,” Camps said. authorities discovered they were Sri Lankan migrants. “Many women don´t make it to the end. The most “Later, after seeing the images of that day broadcast In August, protests prevented the boat from docking vulnerable people in this whole story are children and on TV, the children that we had rescued were standing in Tunisia. women. Women have a certain value on the market. alone crying because nobody had rescued their par- They become sexual slaves in brothels.” ents. These were children left in a new continent, with Unlike the larger NGO’s Proactiva collaborates a religion that wasn’t theirs, where people spoke a ONGOING CRISIS with such as Migrant Offshore Aide Station (MOAS), language that they didn´t know. They became vulner- Doctors Without Borders, and SOS Mediterranee, able to whatever situation might come. That’s when There is no easy solution to the refugee crisis facing Proactiva’s founders are lifeguards, saving lives at sea we realized that we were doing it all wrong. After that Europe and the world. Missing Migrants Project re- is what they specialize in and know how to do best. experience we decided to rescue whole family units. ports that 5,143 people died crossing the Mediter- That at the same time means we let whole groups of ranean last year, victims of conflicts and human families die. We will have to live MOVED TO ACT with those decisions for the rest of our lives. You don´t remember The group’s origins began with the image Alan Kurdi, everyone you save but you re- ‘WHEN YOU’VE BEEN ABLE a Syrian boy who washed up dead on the shore near member those you saw die.” Bodrum, Turkey. Journalist Nilüfer Demir´s Sep- In the last year and a half, tember 2015 photograph of the three-year-old laying over 200 volunteers have passed TO SAVE 400 PEOPLE AND face down on the sand went viral and moved people, through the NGO and there is a Camps among them, who until then hadn’t realized current waiting list of over 3,000 TAKE THEM OUT OF THE SEA how deadly the refugee crisis had become. people who want to join — all Initially focusing on the Aegean route from Turkey of them are doctors, nurses, YOU FEEL SO PROUD AND to Greece, Camps and a friend pooled their savings, lifeguards, boat captains, boat approximately $18,000, and traveled with a team of mechanics or cooks. Volunteers fellow lifeguards to the island of Lesbos offering their drop everything they are doing in UNSTOPPABLE’ help. Thousands of refugees fleeing the Syrian and Af- their day-to-day lives to join the ghan wars were seeking to reach Europe. Before the rescue missions, which last 15 days at a time at sea. trafficking who had few other options for survival. trip, Camps and his team had worked as lifeguards Each volunteer is provided access to psychological as- Camps hopes that the number of fatalities will cross on the beaches just outside of Barcelona, a day job sistance. Camps explained the psychological toll the decrease this year, not simply because of his work but Camps has kept even while running Proactiva. They rescue work can take: “When you’ve been able to save because international institutions will step in to help made the switch from saving tourists to saving refu- 400 people and take them out of the sea you feel so stop the conflicts and prioritize the lives of civilians gees off the Greek shore. proud and unstoppable but initially you don´t know if before they are forced to flee their homes. Camps grew astonished at the scarce help being of- you are going to be able to save everybody or if you Camps says he started Proactiva in order to end fered by the United Nations and the European Union, are going to have to drag 37 corpses out of the water.” it, meaning he wishes the work his organization per- and how little information people in Western Europe The Proactiva has now been operating for almost forms was not necessary. Still he is a “completely” were receiving about the refugees. “I thought that the two years thanks largely to public donations. Mem- changed man since he helped founded the group. “It´s UN and the EU were important and serious organiza- bers of the NGO recently came to New York City to like when you turn a sock inside out, it´s a completely tions,” he said. “Turns out that the EU is a piece of receive an award from the Abraham Lincoln Brigade different sock,” said Camps. “I am much more toler- crap with a flag made up of 12 stars and that the U.N. Archive and the Puffin Foundation for human rights ant and much more of an activist . . . Your ideas and is conditioned by 150 countries that simply veto each activism. The $100,000 prize they received along with principals are the things you have to defend and the July/August 2017

other. We realized that all these organizations that we all donations to the group go towards gas for their things you have to preserve.” trusted have been useless. When a humanitarian crisis boats and water, milk, blankets and clothes for refu- like this happens, they ask for money and won´t go to gees rescued. Camps estimates the upwards of 40,000 the affected territories until they get it,” he said. people have been saved this year alone thanks to the After an agreement between the European Union group. and Turkey in 2016 in which Turkey was paid to take Raising awareness of the refugees plight is the other

THE INDYPENDENT back the refugees from Greece, Camps started to shift side of Proactiva’s mission. During their trips at sea, 13

WE’RE ALL IN THE SAME BOAT DIY LIFEGUARD CREW TAKES TO THE HIGH SEAS TO AID REFUGEES July/August 2017 July/August THE INDYPENDENT THE 14 BOOKS

NEW YORK MAY BE VANISHING, BUT

JEREMIAH MOSS His analysis has some shortcomings. He doesn’t salon, serving wealthy people whose sex partners

mention the state’s 1997 gutting of rent stabiliza- want Barbie dolls without any messy human-animal XAVIER GUERRA tion, which gave landlords a legal method to charge pubic hair. Moss’s is Café Edison on 47th Street in HAS APPEARED astronomical rents and thus a massive incentive to Times Square, a classic Eastern European Jewish drive out tenants, and doesn’t dwell much on how coffeeshop, that got pushed out for a chain called eremiah Moss’s Vanishing New York: How a wholesale harassment then became a business model Friedman’s Lunch — named after Milton Friedman, Great City Lost Its Soul is a scream against for investors in “undervalued” buildings. He makes the intellectual godfather of modern free-market the city’s “hypergentrification,” a 420-page the accurate observation that the 9/11 attacks were fundamentalism. screed of lucid analysis and crystalline prose. a critical turning point, but can’t quite put his finger “Remember? New York of agitators and noncon- J Moss, the pseudonymous publisher of the on why that happened, positing a vague ‘American- formists, of creation and disruption, of people who Vanishing New York blog, moved to the East Vil- ization’ of the city on top of the election of billion- were aware and worked to wake the rest of America lage as an aspiring poet in the early 1990s. He’s en- aire Bloomberg and his “luxury city” vision. with writing, art, politics, and social justice,” Moss raged that he caught just the last gasps of the city he But he makes numerous perceptive observations. writes near the end. “That is the city for which I am dreamed of before its soul was murdered. Twentieth- Real-estate developers market neighborhoods’ au- nostalgic, and outraged, and cranky as hell. Aren’t century New York, he says, was “noisy and dirty, a thentic culture “in order to sell it to an invading cul- you?” cacophony of cultures and classes, juiced by the en- ture that would then destroy it.” (Trump son-in-law If you care about the soul of New York City, you ergies of liberated people,” a home for “immigrants, Jared Kushner advertises a Lower East Side building must read this book. laborers, bohemians, and queers,” its tone set by he harassed the old tenants out of as the place where “working-class wiseguys and neurotic intellectuals” Allen Ginsberg wrote “his famous poem ‘Elegy’” who spoke an argumentative and funny “language — which must be the Google Translate version of of toughness mixed with warmth.” Twenty-First- “Kaddish.”) Where it once took a decade or more century New York has replaced that with “the icy for hypergentrification to hit a neighborhood after aura of contempt,” morphing into a sterile, over- young artists and queers started moving in, “today priced morass of glass-box offices and luxury high- it happens overnight.” He lists myriad examples of rises, frat-boy bars and suburban chain stores. the new colonialists’ arrogant “sense of Manifest He’s doubly enraged because this was not the re- Destiny”: white people moving to Harlem and call- sult of natural processes, not even the inexorable ing in noise complaints on the African drummers in hand of the market. It was a deliberate assassina- the park, a yuppie on the Lower East Side repulsed tion, he contends, a campaign of economic, ethnic by the smell of pickles from Katz’s Deli and Mayor and cultural bleaching, driven by the corrupt ideol- Bloomberg telling the auto-repair shops of Willets ogy that the purpose of the city is to serve the rich. Point that “this land is too valuable for you.” What real New Yorker hasn’t kvetched about this? Moss and those of us who complain about all this There are thousands of individual examples, from are often denounced as cranks wallowing in nos- Williamsburg to Willets Point, from Surf Avenue talgia, left-wing reactionaries resisting any kind of to 125th Street, but Moss collects them all in one change. But the real issue is what kind of change. place, with shocking statistics on how fast and ex- Yes, I miss the Brighton Beach Avenue of my child- treme the changes have been. After Mayor Michael hood, of bakeries with fresh rye bread with caraway Bloomberg rezoned West Chelsea to allow high-rise seeds, massive kasha knishes from Mrs. Stahl’s. But development, the opening of the High Line’s second now you can get Russian black bread and Geor- section in 2009 “heralded a mass extinction event, gian baguettes baked in a circular oven, and street like the impact of the K-T asteroid that wiped out peddlers vend handmade potato, pea and cabbage the dinosaurs.” Within one month, four of Tenth knishes for $1.50. That’s different from the Coney Avenue’s gas stations and auto-repair shops would Island bodega where I used to get a bottle of seltzer be gone. Bloomberg gave the nearby Hudson Yards to drink on the beach being forced out and replaced luxury development between $500 million and $1 by a theme-park restaurant that charges $4 for a billion in tax breaks. Within five years after Wil- bottle of water. liamsburg was rezoned in 2005, more than 170 The enraging thing about the changes in New buildings had been demolished, replaced by a wall York over the last 10 or 25 years is that they have of tax-subsidized luxury apartments. Thousands of gone in only one direction—relentlessly upscale. If small businesses now close every year, unable to pay they were simply that the “working-class wiseguys” July/August 2017

triple, quadruple or even octuple rent increases — or now speak in Spanglish or Jamaican patois instead because landlords and banks prefer chains for their of old-school Brooklynese, and the “neurotic intel- brands’ perceived value, and even charge them lower lectuals” are black, Puerto Rican or Chinese instead rents. (Moss endorses bringing back rent regulation of Jewish, it would still be the city we loved. My en- for commercial spaces, as well as the milder Small capsulation of this would be the used bookstore on Business Jobs Survival Act that has been bottled up West 18th Street, an intellectual oasis for the low-

THE INDYPENDENT in the City Council for years.) budget literate, that got replaced by a body-waxing 15 FILM

here are few subjects more reliably de- level, he has evolved from “buy a better light bulb” pull this system out by its roots, it is going to kill us

pressing than the problem of impend- to “buy yourself a solar panel” — specifically from and our children. EMILY GAGE ing climate chaos. In some ways, the Elon Musk’s SolarCity, a company that Gore’s in- I look forward to a sequel to this film, wherein a Trump administration’s daily dumpster vestment firm, Generation Investment Management, group of Gore’s former students finally pry from the fire is a welcome distraction from the has a stake in. He also persuasively advocates for dying, greedy hands of Big Wind and Big Solar what Tincreasingly dire harbingers of the hell that awaits working with local governments to “green the grid.” was never theirs to begin with, and fan out across us if we do not drastically and immediately alter our I don’t mean to make light of this strategy. En- the world like modern-day Johnny Appleseeds to en- current trajectory. Climate change can be hard to couraging municipalities to get their energy from sure planetary survival by redistributing the power look at without sinking into despair. renewable sources and invest in renewable energy of knowledge for everyone to use. That will be a film It is worth going to see Al Gore’s documentary In- infrastructure is one of the most important things worth watching. It’s up to us to write it. convenient Sequel: Truth to Power, however, for the that we can do, but it remains well within the lines same reason that it was valuable to see its prequel, that have already been drawn by our current institu- An Inconvenient Truth, over a decade ago: Through tions. Anyone honestly assessing the scale of the cli- these films we can come to understand the short- mate problem will admit that this won’t be enough. comings of how the liberal establishment proposes Still, credit Gore with providing at least the inkling to tackle this, the mother of all capitalism’s crises. of an idea for how we can begin to work collectively Gore remains the perfect spokesperson for the to address this crisis. That in itself is of value. liberal approach to addressing climate change. He The real limitations to what Gore and his ilk are doesn’t come off as a bad guy — he’s an affable, de- capable of imagining is revealed during the film’s cent fellow, with a hue of misfortune hovering about coverage of the Paris climate accords of 2015. That him — but he consistently reveals the essential limits it depicts Gore as the behind-the-scenes savior of the of what the ruling class can imagine. His tragic aura negotiations is annoying, but it’s understandable, makes him the perfect pitchman for lost causes. as the filmmakers are creating a hero arc for their Gore’s faith in our political and economic system subject. The means by which he supposedly saved has remained undaunted, despite the debacle of the the negotiations, however, is revealing, as is the 2000 election, when the former vice president ceded uncritical praise for the accords themselves, which the presidency to George W. Bush after the Supreme most climate activists will tell you are woefully in- Court halted a recount of votes in Florida just when adequate. it appeared that Gore might take the lead. His con- As the filmmakers tell it, Gore was working tire- cession speech, wherein he took a stand for the “or- lessly to get the Indian government to sign off on derly transition of power,” is a terrific reminder of the accords. He was racking his brain, trying every- how dangerous a reflexive and myopic faith in “the thing he could, when he was struck by a big idea: system” can be. The same goes for his inability to Persuade SolarCity to share its patent for a super- imagine any truly radical response to the imminent efficient solar cell with India. He got on the phone climate catastrophe. He simply cannot see that the with his pals, convinced them to be the “corporate market-absolute logic that governs our current insti- heroes of the Paris agreement,” and voila! India was tutions constrains our ability to address the crisis. on board. Everybody wins! Gore’s imaginative/political limitations were on The problems with this happy ending are many. full display in the 2006 film. After painstakingly First, there reportedly has not yet been any technolo- laying out the irrefutable case that climate change gy transfer. This certainly undermines the claim that is real and will have devastating consequences, the SolarCity’s patent-sharing saved the climate talks. way out he suggested was “buy a better light bulb at The bigger problem, however, is the unquestioning Walmart.” Yes, ladies and gentlemen, there is hope, fealty to the premise of private intellectual property, and it’s as convenient as making better consumer specifically for such sustainable-energy technology, July/August 2017 July/August choices! Gore did a masterful job of explaining the by Gore and pretty much everyone involved in the problem, but his lack of vision, his lack of any deep talks. What moral justification is there for a private critical thinking or analysis of power, was nakedly corporation to withhold potentially Earth-saving exposed. technology from humanity, particularly when that More than a decade has passed since then. The technology rests squarely on prior advances devel- apparent premise of this new film, subtitled “Truth oped with public dollars? Why should it be up to to Power,” is that Gore will now get “political” and SolarCity whether the Paris accords succeed or fail? INDYPENDENT THE level with the audience. So, where does he land? Has If we are to survive as a species, the legal, eco- he changed his tune? nomic and cultural structures that privilege private He does suggest a collective response in addition ownership of intellectual property over the interests to an individual one, but none of his ideas funda- of the many must be challenged and fought at every mentally challenge the status quo. He advocates for turn. This must become a cornerstone of our fight two primary courses of action. On an individual for a more just and sustainable future. If we do not 16 BOOKS

ver the past few years, many people this tale: son of civil rights activists; former pub- people accused of crimes would do — and, realis- BRIAN PONTO who decry mass incarceration have lic defender; founder of a D.C. charter school that tically, can do, given crushing caseloads. Forman, coalesced on certain tenets of col- works with justice-involved youth. No one should however, did not stop there. He spoke to the victim, lective wisdom. First, as the title of doubt his commitment to combating mass incarcer- telling him Dante’s story and his remorse. With the Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim ation. But we need to understand the nature of the victim urging mercy at sentencing, the judge agreed OCrow suggests, that mass incarceration is a form of beast if we want to fight it. not to imprison Dante. Decades later, Forman ran racial domination that shares essential elements with The story he tells is nuanced. He takes pain to into Dante in the streets of D.C.; he has never been the regime of Jim Crow. Second, that the massive note how black leaders also wanted programs that re-arrested, works in construction and has a family. increase in incarceration since 1970 — from about would address the root causes of crime such as edu- It seems doubtful that the story would end this way 300,000 people behind bars to 2.3 million people cation and social services — support that was not if Dante had been shipped off to a juvenile jail, let imprisoned today — is essentially the product of a forthcoming from the federal government. And alone adult prison. backlash to the gains of the civil rights movement. he is sensitive to class distinctions in attitudes and This story is exceptional but it need not be. If we And, finally, that this massive increase has largely experiences within the black community. But just are truly committed to ending mass incarceration, been fueled by the drug war. You hear these beliefs as mass incarceration cannot be ascribed to white we have to be willing to take chances on rehabilita- repeated in President Obama’s speeches, in articles backlash politics when it comes to D.C., it cannot be tion, even when people cause real harm. This will in liberal magazines and at bars in Brooklyn. described as just the politics of the black bourgeoisie require a radical revamping of our sense of justice. It’s a nice pat narrative. It provides us with con- either. It was a response to a real sense of fear and No longer can the length of the prison sentence venient villains, a tidy moral, and an easy answer insecurity: D.C., like New York and many other cit- be the only way we measure the seriousness of the for what should be done—let those nonviolent drug ies, had a crime wave that did not peak until the crime. No longer can we banish people to prisons offenders go free! early '90s and, just like now, poor black people were upstate, far from major population centers, and for- There’s just one problem. It’s wrong. Not totally both more likely to be criminal defendants and more get about them. And no longer can we concentrate wrong, of course, but certainly incomplete, and in likely to be the victims of crime. It seems obvious to- those who commit acts of violence in cages to fight some ways misleading. The criminal justice system day that mass incarceration is a racial justice issue, among themselves. undoubtedly reflects and reinforces racial domina- but many people steeped in the civil rights move- The current carceral state was not built in a day. tion, cementing an equation of blackness with crim- ment saw the problem as more the lack of attention It was the product of numerous actions, by various inality; the racial disparities in who goes to prison to black victims. policymakers, most of whom did not fully anticipate for drug charges are real and appalling, despite As Forman would likely be the first to admit, the consequences of their choices. And, as Forman surveys consistently finding that at least as high a there are real limits to his methods. D.C., with its suggests, dismantling it will likely have to take place percentage of whites use and sell drugs; the “war majority-black government, is not a good proxy for in the same incremental manner. on crime” and “war on drugs” were ways for reac- the country as a whole. And the reasons why a par- tionary politicians like Nixon and Reagan to foment ticular set of policies were adopted are not necessar- and channel a white backlash without ever explicitly ily the reasons why they remain in place. Neverthe- talking about race; and so on. But, although people less, Lockingp U Our Own is a major contribution convicted of drug offenses make up about half the to the literature on mass incarceration. federal prison population, they make up only about As Forman argues, the real problem of mass in- one in five people imprisoned in this country. The carceration is what we do with people who com- racial domination thesis offers no answers for why mit violent crimes. Certainly, the almost half a we lock up white people at a far higher rate than million people in cages in this country because of Europe or Canada — albeit at a far lower rate than drug charges should be let out immediately. Every- black or Latino people. Violent crime rates really one in jail on petty-ante bail pending trial should did rise dramatically in the '60s. And, finally, the be let go, too — Rikers is filled with poor people white backlash thesis fails to explain why black who are there because they can’t scrape together leaders were among the staunchest advocates of $500 or $1,000 to buy their freedom. But there are the punitive criminal policies, including mandatory also almost 1 million people behind bars for violent minimums for drug cases, that brought us to the offenses—and figuring out what we do with these present impasse. people poses a knottier problem. Yale Law School professor James Forman Jr. fo- There are no easy answers. But this does not mean cuses on the last part in Lockingp U Our Own. In- there are no ways forward. In the epilogue, Forman terweaving analysis and autobiography into a tight- discusses the case of a teenager, Dante, he repre- ly argued and compellingly readable package, he sented. Dante robbed a working-class black man at details how black police, black politicians and black knifepoint as part of a gang initiation. There was no July/August 2017

voters played a crucial role in ratcheting up penalties question of his guilt; in fact, he confessed as soon as and building the current carceral state. Focusing on he was caught. But Forman did not let that stop him: Washington, D.C., he tells stories from the court- he tracked down records of Dante’s horrific child- room trenches of how black judges would lecture hood and, with help from his mom, found a youth black defendants about how they were desecrating program that would accept his client, who was the legacy of Martin Luther King before handing skilled at working with his hands. This much is al-

THE INDYPENDENT out harsh sentences. Forman is ideally suited to tell ready far more than what the lawyers for most poor 17 BOOKS

SHEER PUNK LOVE

expect the bayonet.” BRENDAN O’CONNOR Trying to light the fire of unrest throughout the album, Sheer Mag often draws inspiration from his- tory. “Suffer Me” recounts the bravery of the par- ticipants in the Stonewall riots that resulted in “one he band Sheer Mag introduces their al- less boot pressing down on one less throat.” The al- bum with the lines, “Beyond the nox- bum closes with a tribute to Sophie Scholl, a White ious haze of our national nightmare Rose activist executed for distributing anti-Nazi lit- — as structures of social justice and erature at the University of Munich. It’s clear that global progress topple in our midst — Sheer Mag took to heart her last words: “What does Tthere lies a faint but undeniable glow in the distance. my death matter, if through us, thousands of people What is it?” are awakened and stirred to action?” The first thing you see when you pick up the record Single acts can snowball into monumental change. is a plane braving dark and stormy skies, headed for In our day-to-day lives, though, Sheer Mag affirm a soft glow in the distance. It’s a sentiment we’re the need for human connection, community and likely all familiar with these days: Now is pretty aw- love above all. The songs “Need to Feel Your Love,” ful, but better times are ahead of us, we hope. “Just Can’t Get Enough” and “Pure Desire” — a The stage has been set for an unsatisfied young track where Halladay pines, “I need you more every punk band to rail against the machine. Enter Sheer day” — stress the importance of this connection, es- Mag, a Philadelphia quintet who’ve put out three pecially in such turbulent times. well-received EPs in the last three years. With Need “Rank and File” highlights the power of friends to Feel Your Love, their first proper full-length re- to carry some of the emotional burden: “If you’ve cord, they state unequivocally that if we’re ever go- fallen lonely on your cause, I got the rank and the ing to overcome this mess, we need to lean hard into file here to even the odds.” In an era of cynicism and love, rally to the defense of the abused and neglected ugliness, perhaps the most punk rock thing you can and maybe even throw a few bricks through a few embrace is sincerity and human connection. windows. Right now is awful, but Sheer Mag seems con- The album begins with a stirring rallying cry in fident that better days are ahead of us. Thanks to “Meet Me in the Street.” The song immediately them, for the first time in a while, so do I. kicks with as much fervor and rock ramp-up as AC/DC or Thin Lizzy, with a beat that could just as easily inspire a march as your standard concert head-bob. Singer Tina Halladay wails over a steady drumbeat and soaring guitars, grabs you by the throat and keeps you there so you hear her loud and clear. She wants you to know she’s sick of the mili- tarization of the police, she will fight for our right to protest and a day will come when the powers that be will respect that right or move out of the way, “Seven blocks north of the avenue, we’re throwing rocks at the boys in blue,” she shouts. “Silver-spoon suckers headed for a fall, and justice for all.” It is surging. It is urgent. “Expect the Bayonet” reinforces the album’s defi- July/August 2017 July/August ant message: The abused will not sit idly by forever. While Republicans figure out how to further stuff their pockets and squash voting rights, Democrats have lost touch with the working class. Last I heard, they were contemplating taking artistic liberties with the Papa John’s Pizza slogan and printing stick- ers with the phrase “Have you seen the other guys?” INDYPENDENT THE America deserves a party that works for the people and doesn’t frame itself as the only option that isn’t horrific. But how do we get there? Halladay an- swers: “We got the power to take back our nights, give up our silence and give up our time alone. We’re not on our own. … If you don’t give us the ballot, 18 LITERATURE

By Nicholas Powers But it doesn’t have to be. Just the rising fear does. And I DREAM WORKS flinch when walking near a television screen and see another Now I’m afraid,” she said, “I wasn’t before. Too Nazi, yelling. Or the president, washing the blood off their Another protest is called for tomorrow. And another after privileged to feel fear.” The protest at Trump hands with his rhetoric of false equivalency. I flinch and fear that. It’s good. It’s our responsibility. We of the left are the Tower was loud, so we, leaned in to each other tightens my chest, turns my eyes into tight screws and I be- only ones who can create new answers. Every other political as if whispering secrets. Another war chant rose gin to hate. I watch them march and fantasize buying a gun movement is stalled or going backwards. Liberals are de- from the people at the barricades. to go meet them and sweep it back and forth, firing as they fending a collapsed center. The right tries to remake a past ““After seeing the car hit the marchers. Kill that girl,” her fall. that can’t return. eyes fixed on some distant scene before returning to me, And I realize that’s the trap they are setting. Hate for hate When I get the call to march, I know we’ll have the mo- “I’m a white, middle-aged woman with a union job and now until we all descend into hell together. mentum. The Nazis are blinded by their mythology and I feel the danger, Black Lives Matters faced.” can’t see how repellant murder is to the majority, regardless She looked at me, “It took so long.” Shame and fear and of it being framed as racial self-defense. Even so, we’ll be awareness, wrestled in her face. Yes, she was shielded by SOMETHING NEW attacked again. Even if we stay on guard, some of us will privilege. Yes, it cracked. Yes, she felt death brush her and get killed. was scared. I was scared too. I had blocked traffic on the “Glock 19, nine millimeter,” he says and pulls out another In our next march, I’ll look around and know we’re not Brooklyn Bridge, holding up my sign to lurching cars, I gun from a leg holster. I watch the white nationalist, damn alone. We carry the history of everyone killed by hate. We sighed and opened my eyes again. “You’re here now,” I said. near re-enact a scene from the Matrix, where guns are in try to redeem their loss with new freedom for the living and each nook and cranny of his body. The pile on his bed like the unborn. And as we write new signs and yell new chants, an armory. moving through the streets with us, will be Heather Heyer, THE GREAT FEAR I pause the video and lean back, knowing, he’d love to holding hands with Trayvon Martin and Eric Garner. Next aim those weapons at me. Especially, me. A college profes- to them, men and women, wearing yellow stars. Nearby, We all saw it. On our screens, we saw the car plow into a sor. A “cultural Marxist”, corrupting the minds of white slaves wearing shackles. In our march are the living and the march, activists thrown like rag dolls as it reversed, leaving youth. When I listen to him talk about Black savages and his dead, one carrying the other forward, saying, yes, of course broken bodies in its wake. Then the woman killed, Heather friends, earlier, rail against scheming Jews, it is clear that we are afraid. But that doesn’t matter anymore. Because Heyer, smiling in a photo. Her murderer, James Fields, grim they need caricatures to fight because the fight gives mean- we’re all here now. in a police mugshot. Fascists rallying to defend him outside a ing to their lives. They are arming themselves against an en- courthouse. Fascists carrying torches through a college. And emy that doesn’t exist. Me. You. then we closed the computer screens, terrified. The Race Warrior role play only works in a mythology They are rising. Angry white men, marching under the based on a lie. And that is our lives are determined by our black banner of fascism. Not in great numbers. Not with bodies. Buried deep in our DNA is the natural rank of hu- great political power, yet. They rise from the cracked Amer- manity that nothing can change. Blacks will be Blacks. ican landscape like molten lava, hot hate speech, burning Asians, Asian. Whites, white. To see yourself as guardian crosses, burning effigies, firing rounds of bullets at “running of civilization, manning the wall against the barbarians is to nigger targets”. admit you’ve lost connection to the world. They rose with the President. When he campaigned, he In the real world, all around is evidence of the dynamic spoke for them. When he held rallies, he stoked them like change driving history. I’ve seen my students come out of the smoldering coal. When he won, he promised to make Amer- closet, shyly and by next semester proudly kiss their same- ica great for them. And now, they step into the open, proud- sex lover in the hall. I’ve seen friends take off their hijab. ly, boasting of the coming race war. In the news reports, I I’ve seen families take in an addicted son and help him be- see their rows of helmets and “Heil” salutes and remember, come sober. I’ve seen interracial couples raise their child to tracing my fingers, along the panels at the Los Angeles Mu- speak three languages and watch him grow big enough to seum of the Holocaust. live above borders. Walking by the laminated newspaper copies from the Every day, I walk out into New York City, where count- 1930’s, I felt like they were mirrors of today. The same lib- less immigrants came and were Americanized in its relent- eral panic. The same self-righteous victimhood of the Nazis. less vortex. Here, masks are peeled off. Languages mix. The same ugly hate wearing a mythology of racial superi- Music is reinvented. Politics churn. Here we are forced to July/August 2017

ority. Synagogues burned. Shattered glass, sparkling in the acknowledge a humanist truth that is in stark contrast to street. racist mythology, which is that constant change throws us I thought I left the museum, but months later everyday life out of ourselves. If we are to live in the real world, we have has become an extended hall. Again the Nazi salutes. Again remake ourselves with others and in doing that rediscover, the shattered glass, now of holocaust memorials. Again the how open we are to the new. triumphant declaration of racism. I try telling myself, no, it’s

THE INDYPENDENT not the same. It’s not. America 2017 is not Germany 1930’s. 19 REVEREND BILLY’S REVELATIONS

TRUMP hook or by crook, I'm getting out. I'm DEPRESSION tired of its racism, its wealth inequali- HELPLINE ty, its crazy president. A citizenry that elects a man like that deserves to sink Dear Reverend Billy, into the ocean. You're a well-traveled A lot of folks are saying KKK and Na- man. Where I should move? zis should never have been allowed to march in Charlottesville, that lo- — Samantha, Greenpoint cal officials should have declared it hate speech and a threat to public Dear Samantha,

safety. But don't you think that many I’m writing from Belfast, Northern Ire- JOHN QUILTY thousands of us confronting the hat- land. The choir and I were invited by ers shows the world something? Isn't local activists who asked for our help the First Amendment working in this bridging the religious divide and ad- case? Surely, it encourages passionate dressing the political violence there. activism. Meanwhile, they teach us. We take in — Ben, in Bed Stuy each others’ struggles. One thing we’ve learned — we can’t escape Trump by Dear Ben, “pulling a geographic.” A big bunch of cowards from Trump You can try to find yourself a pri- on down to local politicians and cops vate Norway, but the political class in Cville let a torch-burning Klans- across the world is concocting differ- men and neo-Nazis parade before the ent combinations of surveillance, guns, world. It was psychological cruelty to debt, marketing, celebrity culture, people for whom lynchings are fresh in toxins, hunger, and fear. “Apocalypse mind. I'm thinking of African-Ameri- management” is the new leadership. can children most especially. Around the world people have the sen- If we could surround the KKK with sation that they are falling into chaos. thousands of peaceful people — that Go out into the place where you live. seems ideal. But let's be realistic, there Sit on your front stoop and really take a are some of us who will be suckered look at your neighborhood. That strug- into matching the self-righteous vio- gle to save the corner bodega from an- lence of the hard right we face. other Starbucks is the key to freedom. We should go in the other direction. Free your local park of pollutants, get Much of the 36 percent of the country to know a conservative neighbor, find that still supports Trump are probably your radical patience, plant a rooftop more complex than they seem. Nelson garden. Dig in! Mandela put it very much to the point: Earthalujah! “People must learn to hate, and if they learn to hate, they can be taught to love.” REVEREND BILLY IS AN ACTIVIST We need to engage them. We need to AND POLITICAL SHOUTER, A POST- learn to talk and listen with everyone RELIGIOUS PREACHER OF THE STREETS we can, and find a way to reverse our AND BANK LOBBIES. HE’S BEEN IN NEW fear of The Other — those with differ- YORK FOREVER WITH THE ACTIVIST ent religions and skin colors and cul- PERFORMANCE GROUP THE CHURCH tures, but also all the living beings of OF STOP SHOPPING. GOT A QUESTION the Earth. FOR REVEREND BILLY? JUST EMAIL The climate crisis tells us that we [email protected] AND can't waste time with unproductive an- UNBURDEN YOUR SOUL. ger. Not now. We need to self-cultivate a radical forgiveness that encourages the same in others. Learning to talk July/August 2017 July/August across class and race and gender, stand- ing at a front door with something bet- ter to offer than a Democratic candi- date to offer. Let's talk about saving each other. Let's talk survival. This is what the Earth is asking us to do with her fire and floods. INDYPENDENT THE Earthalujah!

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Dear Reverend Billy, I'm sick of this goddamn country. By