[Noisebridge-discuss] Parking meter at noisebride

[rachel lyra hospodar]

A significant portion of the noisebridge community views the police as
armed thugs-of-last-resort and I personally would strongly recommend
speaking directly with individuals over invoking the enforcement body of a
violent white supremacist system.

'Nobody' willing to step up is symptomatic of an ailing community. The
legality of the parking meter is actually functionally less important than
the fact that our community is ailing, and I'll tell you why.

Remember when someone called the city inspectors as part of the NoiseMeme
wars? This is symptomatic of social strife, but it is a very real threat to
our existence. Social strife, escalated, produces conditions that threaten
our existence. Our goal should be, where possible, not to escalate, but to
hold ground through our unity of purpose, and to achieve a safe and
comfortable space through the shared labor of implacably firm but kind
hands.

When our community relies on violent physical force and the authorities to
solve our internal conflicts, we *throughout the space and community*
reinforce class distinctions that inherently privilege some of us over
others. Class and race background heavily determine what your previous
interactions with the police might have been like, and also deeply
influence how the police treat you when they encounter you. Upon entering
the space, the police must determine who is 'legitimate', who to believe.
There are some members of our community who would not be viewed favorably
in this measure, because of who they are and the prejudices the police are
proven to hold. There are enough members of our community who have had
enough negative interactions with the authorities in the past (often, being
beaten, caged, or abused) that inviting the police into the space will
radically change the nature and accessibility of the space to others.

I want to be clear that I am not advocating for a lawless state, but rather
that anarchism, one of our founding notions, provides mechanisms far more
effective than force for achieving harmony. Additionally, this philosophy
informs us that a reliance on force will divide and destroy our community,
rather than uniting and healing the rifts that already exist.

If you are uncomfortable initiating a conversation, seek the support of
others. If others will not help you, and noisebridge feels filled with
methy tweaky thievery, think on this: without a community of people
dedicated to working to create the space we would like to see, there is no
way for external forces to create this for us. If there is a specific
highly violent or dangerous incident, where the police might be
appropriate, they will still eventually leave and the circumstances that
created that incident will continue to exist.

'Enforcing peace' is not possible. Only creating it is. What the police
enforce, my friends, is the status quo.
On Jun 9, 2014 10:12 AM, "Hannah Grimm" <dharlette at gmail.com> wrote:

> Next time something like that happens, I would suggest calling the police.
>
>
> On Mon, Jun 9, 2014 at 7:50 AM, girlgeek <girlgeek at wt.net> wrote:
>
>> If nobody was wanting to get rid of the perps that is a shame.  They are
>> unexcellent people who should not be allowed in the space as demonstrated
>> by this incident.
>> Claudia
>>
>>
>> On 6/9/2014 7:05 AM, Sergiusz 'q3k' Bazański wrote:
>>
>>> I'm not sure. When I left they were still there. It all turned into
>>> personal drama later on - I can't really say more about that, I don't
>>> really know people's names...
>>>
>>> But nobody was really wanting to get rid of the perpetrators, from what
>>> I've seen...
>>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Noisebridge-discuss mailing list
>> Noisebridge-discuss at lists.noisebridge.net
>> https://www.noisebridge.net/mailman/listinfo/noisebridge-discuss
>>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Noisebridge-discuss mailing list
> Noisebridge-discuss at lists.noisebridge.net
> https://www.noisebridge.net/mailman/listinfo/noisebridge-discuss
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.noisebridge.net/pipermail/noisebridge-discuss/attachments/20140609/e0f4e65b/attachment-0003.html>