note to marquis
so.. reading marquis bey’s anarcho blackness.. and noting.. just in the intro (p 6).. how the undercommons ish it sounded.. and remembering resonating with that.. and fred moten and stefano harney..
then on p 16
16
What Black anarchists seek to do is to found a new society, not necessarily by bringing about the destruction of myriad edifices of terror, violence, circumscription, and normativity but *by cultivating the spaces and places that, by dint of their existence, instantiate the impossibility of the normative bastions that now surround us..t We might call this justice, might call this a non-utopic utopia, a sanctuary. We might call it the undercommons..t
*aka: the irrelevant ness of a nother way.. making all else cancerous distractions
How, then, to do this? Upon a re-reading of The Undercommons, I was drawn, obsessively, to one phrase, one that struck me at first as dangerously wrongheaded. But, then, the revolutionary will always be dangerous. The revolutionary call that Moten and Harney require and that I’ve been obsessed with is this: *they insist that our radical politics, our anarchic world-building must be “unconditional—the door swings open for refuge even though it may let in police agents and destruction.”..t As my grandmother might quip, what kind of foolishness is this? But it is not foolishness precisely because the only ethical call that could bring about the radical revolutionary overturning we seek is one that **does not discriminate or develop criteria for inclusion and, consequently, exclusion.
*huge huge huge.. the undercommons ness = (ish) the unconditional part of left to own devices ness.. huge..
**perhaps rather.. discrimination as equity.. via the idiosyncratic jargon ness of self-talk as data.. et al
If the door swings open *without a bouncer checking names,..t it means that whoever shows up will be let in, unconditionally, without conditions. The ethical demand here is to be monstrously inclusive, a lesson learned in the Black Radical Tradition, Black feminisms, and trans activism. Yes, the **Law might send agents to infiltrate our conspiratorial sessions. Or, even worse, as has happened, our enemy might show up and sit with us in prayer before gunning us down..t But, at the same time, a salvational figure might show up or, better yet, a fugitive might show up, asking us to provide her refuge and a safe harbor. And we must let her in—this is what is to be done—we must feed and shelter her, because this fugitive, any fugitive, might be the one we didn’t know we were doing all this insurgent conspiratorial work for.
*aka: inspectors of inspectors ness
**and that’s why we need to org around legit needs (2 that every soul already craves.. every soul).. otherwise we just keep perpetuating khan filling the gaps law.. et al
other reasons for ie: myth of tragedy and lord ness.. costello screen\service law and warning ness et al.. this is why we need nonjudgmental expo labeling so we can have a global detox leap.. for (blank)’s sake..
Answering *“What is to be done?” carries a deeply ethical valence..t The manner by which things get done and the result of the doing inflects to whom we owe allegiances, who is or is not on our minds, and most fundamentally for whom we wish to see the world changed. The doing we seek is committed to making a world for people we don’t yet know, people who might need a drastically different world, while understanding that even our idea of “worldness” might be predicated on the logics of normative regimes that limit our horizons. **It is imperative, then, to commit to the work without presuming to know who the work is for, only committing to the work because it might allow for those we did not know existed to finally live. When we volunteer at the soup kitchen we must turn no one away, even and especially when they look like they just ate a hearty bowl of soup; when we are faced with imminent violence we must refuse to proliferate violence, because we’ve come into being via a violation and this bestows upon us the ethical commitment to mitigate that violence; when we hear a knock at the door and someone asking for help because they are being chased we must let them in. Again, “the door swings open…” Each entity that crosses the threshold is another possible signatory on our missives for “the antipolitics of dissent.”
*something we’ve not yet tried/seen: the unconditional part of left to own devices ness ie: a sabbatical ish transition
and again to costello screen\service law and warning ness.. et al
**rather.. to me (warning ness et al).. commit to the work that is for everyone
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so.. writing him (marquis.bey@northwestern.edu.. but went ahead and used the form on his site to send.. and why am adding note here.. so i can remember what i wrote):
dear marquis
just started reading your anarcho blackness..
this is huge: ‘they insist that our radical politics, our anarchic world-building must be “unconditional..”‘
this is indeed something we’ve not yet tried/seen.. ie: the unconditional part of left-to-own-devices ness
[‘in undisturbed ecosystem ..the avg individual.. left to its own devices.. serve/stabilize the whole’ –dana meadows.. to me.. this dance won’t dance unless it’s all of us]
coupled with: ‘without a bouncer checking names..Law might send agents to infiltrate our conspiratorial sessions. Or, even worse, as has happened, our enemy might show up and sit with us in prayer before gunning us down.‘
why we need to ie: organize around legit needs (that every soul already craves).. otherwise we just keep perpetuating the myths of tragedy of the noncommons and lord of the flies.. et al
and then: ‘Answering “What is to be done?” carries a deeply ethical valence‘
today we have the means/mech to facil the seeming chaos of that unconditionality.. a global detox leap.. and we’re missing it..
more here if you like: note to marquis
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be you. 