Hey Yall
I should have thought to do this a while ago, but better late than never I suppose. I no long blog at this website. I have a different one I blog on regularly, http://www.mokarnage.com so you can go there to find political essays, personal essays, poetry, art, and more! For political events in the Richmond area http://www.wingnutrva.org is still the place to go! Thank you so much for reading!
Mo Karnage
Reading All Aboard? by Ben Campbell brought up conflicting emotions for me.
I felt excited about a public transportation system that might be effective, affordable, and improve the lives of so many low income people in Richmond. I was also excited by Campbell’s accurate, historical look at the loss of good public transit in Richmond, and how he identified racism and bigotry as the reasons why we ended up with the terrible transit we currently eke by with,
So, to get a few things straight before I go into a slight critique-
1- I am for a larger, better thought out, more affordable, multi-jurisdictional public transit system for the Metro Richmond Area.
2- I am against racism, segregation, and policies, institutions and practices that reinforce racism.
The part of Campbell’s article that I think deserves challenging and a more in depth discussion, is the seeming underlying assumption that developing a better public transit system would be anti-racist, and a step towards changing Richmond’s long, dirty legacy of racism. Racism is complex. Racism is not a flag we can change out front of City Hall and move on. Racism is an issue that all Richmonders will have to do a lot of work around for us to take steps forward as a city.
The loss of public transit in Richmond was a symptom of the underlying disease of racism.
Treating the symptom is not enough to solve our problems.
There are some really great things about a better, less segregationist public transit system- the possibility for people to interact more outside of their race, better opportunities for jobs and recreational activities for low income people of color, and more.
But without a more holistic approach to the issue of racism in our city and society, we won’t be “solving” racism. One complicating factor I can think of is simply that a change in our City’s ranking, without a change in real estate practices, might just exacerbate issues of gentrification. As Richmond grows in popularity, low income people, many of whom are People of Color, are forced out of their homes and neighborhoods in response in increasing real estate values. Gentrification represents a systematic problem, out of any individual’s hands to stop. But until this process, poverty, and racism are actively being addressed, I don’t want to see Richmond’s ranking go up.
An improved public transit system would be a marked difference in City policy and programming. Many of the urban renewal projects over the years have been pretty clearly directed towards improving the desireability of Richmond to people who might visit or might one day move here. Consider the tourist aspects of many of the recent projects and events. First Fridays which attracts many people from surrounding counties, and has difficulty when low income youth of color from surrounding neighborhoods in the city start attending in mass. The Canal Walk, where I’ve only ever gone with my grandma (love you grandma). The Convention Center. The upcoming 2015 cycling event. Richmond’s urban planning efforts have been fairly pitiful, and seem to reflect the racism and classism of the City government.
Richmond does need to focus more on keeping current residents, helping current residents, and developing ways to make our daily lives better. Jobs, housing, access to healthy food, and transportation are some really great places to start.
Some questions Richmonders should be asking themselves in the mean time are:
What are we doing to make Richmond a better place for the people who are currently living here?
How can we make sure we take care of the current residents before visitors or potential new residents?
What do low income people want and need?
What do people of color want and need?
How can we listen to low income people and people of color more?
If Richmond really does want to shed our racist reputation we’ve got some work to do. Let’s get a better public transit system, but make sure we don’t lose sight of the whole disease of racism while we ride around on some buses.
“Homosexual Sex as Safer Sex”
Ladies, what kind of sex can you have that ensures you won’t get pregnant, even if they take away birth control? Sex with female-bodied people. Men, what kind of sex can you have that runs no risk of impregnating a woman with limited options to resolve it if she doesn’t want it? Sex with male-bodied people.
If you aren’t gay/lesbian/bisexual/queer we are also proposing a Sex Strike- where women in Virginia go on a sex strike until we make sure that our health, safety, and reproductive freedoms are going to avoid being totally crushed by a patriarchal government. Sex Strikes are a tactic that has been used with success before- see Lysistrata as one example. http://rogueclassicism.com/2011/06/25/latest-lysistrata-comparanda/
Some slogans to stand behind:
Keep from Harm- Use Your Arm!
Get Anal- Not Banal!
Resist! Use Your Fist!
“Out of the Closets and into the Streets”
“Two, Four, Six, Eight! How Do You Know Your Kids Are Straight?”
Ni dios, ni ley, ni marido. Under no god, no law, no husband.
The Virginia Legislature is coming close to passing a slew of new laws which would SEVERLY restrict the rights of women, their reproductive freedom, their safety, and their health. Sounds like all those boring old politicians want to discourage folks from having heterosexual sex- OK! Cool! Let’s have other types of sex! For more information about the proposed legislature and some upcoming events and responses to it, go here: http://wingnutrva.org/2012/02/14/fight-for-virginian-womens-rights/
To avoid the pitfalls of heterosexual sex, join the movement of QUEER SEX. Go on a Heterosexual Sex Strike!
From now….until these shitty pieces of legislation are dead.
~~~~~~
Worried about the idea of a “sex strike”? Think this is sexist? Gonna be sad if your partner won’t have sex with you for a little bit? We understand. Here are a few explanations that might help you understand where we are coming from with this Sex Strike/Turn Queer campaign:
It’s creative, and it’s not just about ‘good men’ v ‘bad men’ or whatever but raising awareness and making a point overall. I don’t think it matters whether your partner is supportive of your rights. If he’s supportive, he’ll support the sex strike. I enjoy sex, but I think women’s reproductive rights are more important and worth fighting for and I would support anyone who chose to fight this way.
From another person: I think the point is that none of our needs should be compromised by legislation. But they are. In the heterosexual male case, it’s a theoretical decrease in something that isn’t really guaranteed in the first place. In the case of women, it’s an extremely practical limitation on whether we get to have both sex lives and jobs and educations, or sex lives without significant risk of death if we get pregnant and something goes wrong, or just regular lives where, if we’re raped, we can have emergency contraception or an abortion and not spend the majority of that year being forced by the state to carry our rapist’s baby.
You might be thinking – “But wait, isn’t a Sex Strike sexist against men?”- Probably can’t get into it all online, but I would just say that in my POV, and that of a lot of folks, sexism is a one way street- because of the institutional powers that support patriarchy and prejudice towards women. Were women to act prejudiced towards men, it would be just that, prejudice. Because there is not an institutional backing in everything from the media, to school, to books, to wages, etc. supporting women.
You might also be thinking- “But wait, I’m in a happy healthy relationship with someone and I don’t want to stop having sex with them”- Then don’t! No pressure! Denying ourselves sex sucks, and can totally be unhealthy. We don’t want anyone to hurt a relationship or really hurt themselves by not having sex. We just want to bring home the idea that sex IS awesome, sex SHOULD be positive and fun, and that right now, in Virginia, that is all being put at serious risk. Refusing to have sex can help bring home that reality to folks who don’t get it yet. Having sex would be much more risky to women if all of these laws get passed, and more women might feel like they can’t have sex then due to the risks (which as some folks point out is probably half of what the religious right wants). And then there is the obvious- you can say you are going on Strike, but just lie. This is not a court of law. Not all of us are in the sort of relationships where a strike on sex would change our partner’s behavior, or be needed to, or be a useful tactic. But there are definitely women out there who have less than supportive partners when it comes to these issues, and having a larger movement that would support them and their push for rights could be useful.
* We would like to add that there are many MANY aspects to safe sex besides the potential for pregnancy. We strongly encourage folks engaging in any sort of sexual relationship to do so consensually, honestly, and with protection to help prevent any STDS/STIs from being transmitted. Queer sex does not mean total safety- there are still needs for condoms, dental dams, gloves, lube, toys, consent, and all kinds of other things to make sure that everyone participating is actually have safe sex- safe for their bodies and their emotions!
**Additionally, this is not meant to tokenize or trivialize queerness or any aspect of LGBTQI identities. There are more queers than you might have even dreamed of! And queerness is not just a choice made in response to the political realm. People are born into all kinds of bodies, with all kinds of genders, and with all kinds of sexual desires and lack of desires. Sometimes those identities and desires are more fluid than other times. We are encouraging people to come out of the closet, embrace their desires and needs, and identify with the identity they feel at home with.
***If you are upset, or offended by this (for reasons other than you being a misogynist or a patriarchical pro-life turd or a homophobe) we are sorry. This is not meant to upset you. Its meant to be part satire, part pushing the envelope, part pushing the fundies’ buttons, and part for real. This is not meant to be the most effective tactic, or the best tactic, or the coolest tactic, or the tactic for everyone. To successfully fight this legislation and a lot of the really oppressive shit that is going on in the world, we need a diversity of tactics. Do the things that you find to be effective, and comfortable to you given your risk level and any other personal considerations. For more on Diversity of tactics- check out the St. Paul Principles: http://wingnutrva.org/2011/11/04/organizing-with-large-coalitions-the-st-paul-principles/
The last thing intended by this concept is to create division in the movement for women in Virginia. If you don’t like it, we are sorry, but we are also not trying to make this feel like something anyone is obligated to be into. If you want to talk about it, lets do it. We’ve tried to make this as un-oppressive and fucked up as possible while still being interesting, but we might have made mistakes so please let us know. But mostly, lets all do what we can to protect our rights to reproductive freedom and sexual freedom and health!
****Turn Gay, Break Stuff!
Vegan Chocolate Train Cake Ada and I baked!
Ada making a delicious ginger lemon glaze
Jeremy rockin the Ramen
Stephen doing the dishes and earning the love
My mommy and daddy
I don't even know how these dogs got this cute!
It is fairly common knowledge that being an anarchist is fairly criminalized in the United States. So it comes as no surprise when the State tries to use one’s anarchist belief against them.
In this case, the Richmond City Police Department is using court proceedings to try and ‘compel’ me to give back some of the documents that we got using the Freedom of Information Act. I am the person named in the documents, because someone has to make the FOIA request. But the documents being requested was an idea that came from Richmond Copwatch. We wanted to get copies of the police protocols so we could know when the police are breaking their own rules.
We submitted our request, were informed that there were many different sets of protocols, so we asked for a list. Then we chose from the list. We got that information right before Christmas. We then scanned and uploaded all of the information onto the internet- to save others the trouble and expense of a FOIA request.
Today someone came to the Wingnut and hand delivered a package from the Office of the City Attorney of the City of Richmond. I opened up the envelope to find just 2 documents full of lawyer speak. No cover letter, no explanation. Just 2 documents not even addressed to me, but about me. Apparently the CITY OF RICHMOND POLICE CHIEF BRYAN NORWOOD and the CITY OF RICHMOND, VIRGINIA are filing a complaint against me, the defendant Mo Karn (not even my legal name you sillies). They want some of their FOIA Documents back. Because they say they shouldn’t have given them to me, and importantly, I am a known and admitted anarchist.
So the first I hear of this is court documents. No email, no letter, no phone call asking for them back. Just a copy of a complaint they filed.
The second document they sent me today was an “EMERGENCY MOTION FOR PROTECTIVE ORDER AND TO COMPEL THE RETURN OF TACTICAL INFORMATION AND TO PREVENT THE DISCLOSURE OF SAID INFORMATION”
Apparently they want their information back. I don’t think they understand the internet. You can’t really get that information back. We’ve got it, the internet has it, and hundreds of people have looked at it. The documents they specifically request back are Emergency Operations Plan Part 1 of 2 Emergency Operations Plan Part 2 of 2, Canine Unit Manual, Crowd Management Team, Focus Mission Team Property Crimes Detectives Operating Manual, Homeland Security Criminal Intelligence Unit, Mobile Command Center Operating Manual, Mounted Unit Operating Manual, Traffic Enforcement Unit, Police Cyclist Operating Manual, and Police Segway Operating Manual. These are just some of the almost 50 documents we have made available at http://www.wingnutrva.org under the tab Richmond Police Department Documents.
Who knows if these motions will be approved by a judge. They don’t have a case number on them, and they don’t have a court date or any useful information like that at all.
I don’t believe the information in these documents is classified or should be exempt from FOIA. Its not like it is manuals on how to drive their various vehicles or anything actually explicit. Beyond that I definitely believe this has a lot more to do with politics. Their FIRST point for their motion is that “1. Defendant Mo Karn is a known and admitted anarchist. See generally https://anarchymo.wordpress.com/2010/12/21/foia-rocks.” Yup. And that has what to do with FOIA? Freedom of Information Act Except for Anarchists would be FOIAEFA. I didn’t request shit through FOIAEFA.
In the spirit of FOIA and making RPD documents available online, here are copies of the documents they sent me in the mail today.
Emergency Motion for Protective Order by Richmond Police Department V. Mo Karn
Complaint by Chief of Police Bryan Norwood And The City of Richmond V. Mo Karn
For full disclosure and to save the haters some time, here is the same information on myself:
The Wingnut has a total real estate value of 127,000. Worth a lot more to me though! (And owning ANY property at all, regardless of its value still denotes a good amount of privilege)
Mailing Address: 2005 BARTON AVE, RICHMOND, VA 23222
The Esteemed Councilman coming in at a relatively modest 264,000 value on his property:
Owner: SAMUELS CHARLES R & KRISTA M
Mailing Address: 203 N MULBERRY ST, RICHMOND, VA 23220
And now for the MPAC members:
Next Time Alice Massie tries to pull the poor teacher card….her house is assessed at over 1.1 million dollars. Those Monument Avenue addresses sure are pricey- but you’d have to pay me to live that close to statues of dead confederate assholes:
Mailing Address: 1643 MONUMENT AVE, RICHMOND, VA 2322000000
Continue reading
For the past 3 years I have gone to New Orleans for the New Year. To see fri4ends who migrate there, to see friends who live there that I rarely catch up with, etc. This year, if I can find somewhere to stay I want to stay for the whole month of January.
I’ve always gone down with friends, but this year I am the one driving, because I want to take Flapjack and Grits with me. Not only because last year when I left them they ate over 100 dollars of library books, but also because Grits is from New Orleans and has never been back.
I’ll be headed down sometime after the 25th of December and before the 1st. If anyone wants to catch a ride with me and pitch in on gas that would be awesome. If you know of somewhere that my 2 dogs and I can stay that too would be awesome.
I am always excited for sping and summer when they come, but there is also something relaxing about getting all ready to nest for the winter. There seem to be fewer scheduled activities and more time for drinking coffee and tea and playing scrabble and other board games with friends.
We’ve also been doing some renovations and improvements around the Wingnut- including repainting the bathroom, repainting the kitchen, attaching the base board correctly in the bathroom, hanging a potrack in the kitchen, installing 4 doorknobs in the past month, installing a threshhold in the upstairs bathroom, building panel walls for the front porch and painting some baseboard that only had primer on it.
Upcoming projects might include painting a mural on the porch panels, building benches out of pallet wood, building a coat rack, making concrete countertops for the kitchen, moving the sink onto a concrete counter top in a better location, fixing the backyard fence, building bookshelves for our radical lending library, demo-ing a trailer in the backyard etc.
But right now, I just ate some waffles and I’m going to drink some coffee to wash them down. Then the post office and library!
This is a section in my upcoming book, The South is Still Rising. If it doesn’t totally make sense out of context it is because they are parter of a much larger piece about activism and anarchism in Richmond.
But I figured, given the current situation in Monroe Park, and the campaign to keep it open throughout renovations, it might be good to get the information out, and show people that the park has been occupied before.
Tent City
One of the bigger events organized by the General Strike Collective was a Tent City in Monroe Park in 1998. “It was in the late spring of ‘98 that the collective decided unanimously to propagandize and organize a four day takeover of Monroe Park in the form of a tent city aimed at exposing VCU’s ongoing meddling in the homeless community and rapidly increasing gentrification of the Carver Community just North of the main artery of the campus” (Wells 89). Tactics the group used in organizing involved planning sessions, alliance building, fliering campaigns, and street work. The entire summer gave the group time to organize and strategize.
The event was scheduled to start Friday August 28 at noon, and continue through until Monday morning, August 31 (DOC T). This event was radical, noteworthy, and combines many of the subjects which activists in Richmond have organized around. It shows the potential scope of radical activism in Richmond, and it also shows some of the potential pitfalls of such activism.
A Tent City is “where any large group of individuals gather in a single location and utilize it as a temporary living quarter in protest of an oppressive entity”(DOC T). Described by General Strike, the Tent City in this instance was “a non-violent, direct action approach to exposing injustice in this society” (General Strike Oct./Nov. 1998). Tent cities have occurred around the world. They are in some ways associated with the homeless in general. Some of them are more political in purpose, where as others are more survival based- people form tent cities because they have no where else to go. The Tent City in Richmond was of the more political variety, and less about providing a place for people to live for any significant amount of time.
General Strike advertised about the Tent City in a couple of ways. Word of mouth was important, and they talked to people in the park during Food Not Bombs on Sundays about the plan. A flier advertising the event was created, titled in “Monroe Park Tent City” (DOC T). It also featured a photo of a man in a business suit with a briefcase walking by the words “Smash Capitalism” spray painted on a wall. The content of the flier, including the image, show the political leanings of the event, and reveal the radicalism behind it. “Why does this concern you? It is quite simple really. It is the age-old theory of not waiting until the problem is upon your door and there is no one left to fight for youཀ V.C.U.’s ongoing development and gentrification has affected thousands of Richmond’s citizens and it is just a matter of time before you are all that is left…” ( DOC T).
If anyone in the Richmond area has an interest in helping to make banners for Food not Bombs or about the Monroe Campaign please let me know. If you have paint or banner material you want to donate to the cause that would be rad too.
I also want to work on the Wingnut’s collection of banners. We are trying to make a bunch that work for a variety of situations that way we are prepared for last minute protests etc.
Topics we are thinking about making multiuse banners for include:
Jail solidarity
Police Brutality
Anti-Death Penalty
Housing Justice
Gentrification
Environment
Worker Sollidarity
Indigenous Solidarity
Queer
Anti-War
Did we miss any big anarchist topics?
If you have ideas for any banners or want to help email me! xveganarchistrvax@gmail.com
Ideas from an Anarchist in Richmond, Virginia 
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