We want to relive the days when “death shall have no dominion, and dead men naked they shall be one with the man in the wind and the west moon, and they shall break in the sun till the sun breaks down”
(paraphrased verses from a poem by Dylan Thomas).
Last month Greek anarchists called for an international month of autonomous, insurgent, and militant direct action in remembrance of our dead and imprisoned comrades, naming this call-to-action Black December. In the memory of all we lost which spurred the furious streetfighting of the past year, and in celebration of all we’ve each found with one another in these shared moments of insurrection, so beautiful and terrible all at once, we mean that this call-to-action not go un-answered in the greater StL-area.
Let’s shatter the banality of life in the river city, where we watch – as though we were helpless – as politicians and the gentrifying purveyors of progress, servants one and all to capital, build redundant sports arenas or an expensive aquarium to imprison animals for human amusement, rather than safe places for everyone in the city to sleep at night; a city that quietly bulldozes tent cities and casually plants anti-homeless spikes under overpasses, whose politicians pat themselves on the shoulder while professional activists line up to stroke the egos of city managers who claim to be “solving” the city’s homeless “problem”; where the biggest news of the year isn’t all the tears and hugs shared, the friendships & affinities forged and mental bondage broken by the explosion sparked by police’ coldblooded murder of Black youth, but rather, the fanfare surrounding the opening of a local Ikea.
There is no right or wrong way to do #BlackDecember, no instruction manual or actvist-y formula. We trust that the indominatable hearts of those inclined to act on this will guide them in the manner best suited to each individual. If you’re looking for inspiration, there’s plenty of recent, local examples of creative solutions to the immiseration of daily life in StL. Just think about it…
