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In proofing my way through my next anthology, “Constellations of Care: Anarcha-Feminism in Practice” (Pluto Press, April 2024), while the powers-that-be so uncaringly go about the business-as-usual of genocide, I’m trying hard(er) to listen to the big, little ways that the contributors speak to what it looks like to make feministic space to humanize each other, in a world that sees most of us as disposable.

In “Tarps and Gossip: Existing as Resisting,”
@raanibegum notes,

“I wanted to extract some deeper organizing wisdom gained from our gatherings on a poly tarp in our designated spot in a park. The truth of the matter is, we are just some whores stubbornly carving out something in a space wrecked by unimaginable hostility. As sex workers and drug users, we are not seen as people able to manage ourselves and our lives. Institutional violence deems us as ‘not human,’ and this translates palpably in the ways we are treated. Rather than being stymied by it, it gives our organizing more freedom. … [We are] not goal oriented [but] instead oriented toward friendship and rest. Some of my favorite Nightshade memories are of people coming to nap. Not only do we build relational trust that allows napping to happen, but we model community naps and community rest.”

In “Brown Girl Rise: How We Take Care of Our Own,” @tlalcihuatlx describes an organizational “emphasis on the fierceness of our love for each other … a militant resistance to the ways that the culture of white supremacy constantly tries to worm its way into our work and relationships. As Dani [in BGR] defines it, ‘Fierce love is loving people authentically and as they show up, and really loving people to the point where you allow them to be their full self around you and make that love a priority over everything else. I think in our work we are constantly dealing with deadlines and having to present to the world in a certain way to make the work that we’re doing seem legitimate. And I think the way that we really fight against that is with fierce love. No deadline matters as much as the needs of people within this collective.’”

For more on the book or to preorder, see:

https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745349954/constellationsofcare/

#ConstellationsOfCare
#AnarchaFeminismInPractice

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