This week we had the opportunity to connect with Ash Williams, who is the Volunteer Coordinator for the Carolina Abortion Fund, and is also one of the architects of the Charlotte Uprising which they’ve been on the show before to talk about. I felt very lucky to get to talk with them again about the work they’ve been doing with Carolina Abortion Fund, but also about abortion in general and about expanding the meaning of reproductive justice work to encompass de-colonial views on care and healthcare work, environmental racism such as is going on in Flint Michigan, climate catastrophe, how this topic fits into a broader scope of reproductive capabilities being stolen from people, and many other aspects.
They also spoke on how we talk about abortion from their own perspective as a Black trans person, and how transmisogyny, the erasure of transfeminine experience, and transphobia can play into how this issue is thought of. They also give suggestions for folks already doing reproductive justice work moving forward to create intentional access for all who need or want that.
Shout Your Abortion, this is a consciousness raising project which has a new book out which you can see at their website.
We Testify which is in collaboration with the National Network of Abortion Funds is a project that seeks to normalize abortions by helping folks tell their stories, can be found at we testify dot org
Here is an article on Marshae Jones, who is a woman in Alabama facing felonies for the termination by gunshot wound of her pregnancy. The shooter is not being charged with anything as of the writing of this post. Yellowhammer Fund is doing bail support for Marshae!
Were happy to bring you three segments in this weeks show. The first is Sean Swain, who hasn’t been heard on the airwaves for a few weeks. [2min 56sec]
Following this, we’ll hear from an anarchist from so-called Hamilton, Ontario, to talk about repression faced by queer folks and anarchists since Hamilton Pride and assess whats next. It should be noted that at the time of this recording, Cedar Hopperton was on hunger strike from their initial detention for 5 days. Were not sure where that stands. Also, three more people have been arrested. You can keep up on how to offer solidarity and whats happening by visiting North-Shore.Info. Also, support can be lobbed at The Tower social center. [9min 56sec]
Taking Down Racist Monuments and Growing New Worlds
Mandatory Credit: Photo by Gerry Broome/AP/REX/Shutterstock (9795696f) Download This Episode
This week on TFSR, we’re featuring two audios from affiliates of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Maya Little & Dwayne Dixon talking about resisting neo-Confederate monuments in the so-called U.S. south, in particular the statue called “Silent Sam” that was toppled August 20th, 2018.
Maya Little
First, we’ll hear graduate student worker and anti-racist activist Maya Little speak about their research into the racist history of the constructed landscape and neo-confederate symbols in and around Chapel Hill and Carrboro, North Carolina. Maya also speaks about the recent resistance to the the specific statue called Silent Sam at UNC Chapel Hill and the far right and cop repression faced by students and anti-racist activists to push for and eventually enact it’s removal. Maya can be found on twitter at @readkropotkin and contributes writing to the project @CuddlePotMag. Within a few days of the broadcast, we hope to have links to the pictures spoken about in Maya’s presentation and to integrate those into the youtube post of this episode. This audio was recorded at the 2019 North American Anarchist Studies Network conference in Atlanta.
Dwayne Dixon
Then, Dwayne Dixon, an adjunct professor of cultural anthropology at UNC and an anti-racist activist talks about personal experiences of coming up in a white, military family in the U.S., experiences of struggle against white supremacists and their symbols in the so-called US south in recent years and the inspirational strength of those struggles interlacing and expanding into ecological defense work, disaster response and the building of autonomous, anti-capitalist community infrastructures. Dwayne is also involved in the community defense group, Piedmont Redstrings, as well as Take Action Chapel Hill and @DefendUNC on twitter.
If you listened on the radio, you can find a longer version of the show (including Sean Swain’s segment and a few announcements) as a podcast up at our website and various streaming platforms.
Announcements
New Broadcasters in VT & OR!
We’re excited to announce that The Final Straw can now be heard on Fridays from 6-7am on WGDR, 91.1fm out of Goddard College in Plainfield, VT as well as in Eugene, OR on KEPW 97.3FM on Saturdays from 9-10pm local time. Hello, new listeners, we’re proud to be in your ears. Please reach out to us if you have concerns, critiques or suggestions.
* Radio 98fm in Athens, voices of subversive expression, with a round-up of news and information of interest from Greece.
* Dissident Island Radio, from London, UK, with a round-up of anarchist actions and news
* The Final Straw Radio, from southern Appalachia, with an update about nazi and police collaboration in harassment of anti-racists in the so-called US south.
This week, we’ll be featuring two segments, one on state repression against anti-racist organizers in rural Upstate South Carolina [10min 21sec] and on an upcoming documentary series on access/non access to mental health infrastructure for transgender people living in Appalachia [41min 39sec]. Plus, words from Sean Swain [3min 22sec]!
Facing Down FBI & Nazi Pressure in SC
First, Bursts shares a conversation with activists from the Scuffletown Anti-Repression Committee and the Michigan Anti-Repression Committee, left legal defense groups from vastly geographically distant areas of the so-called U.S. They are talking about the case of repression in what’s called the Upstate, or northern part of the state of South Carolina in the south eastern U.S., where anti-racist and anti-fascist activists have been surveilled, intimidated, harassed, detained while naked at home and arrested by local and Federal Law Enforcement, including the FBI, apparently on behalf of the local white supremacists. The agent having made such disclosures is named FBI Special Agent Tanya Evanina. You can learn more, keep up on the situation and donate to their legal support at norepressionsc.home.blog. A longer version of this chat will appear in the podcast edition, alongside Sean’s segment for this week, cut due to time concerns from the broadcast, alongside a couple of announcements.
Resources pointed to by the guests include BARC and the EFF.
Just a heads up that when the activist from STARC references A12, it’s short hand for the fight against white supremacists in the streets of Charlottesville, VA, on August 12th, 2017.
Trans Resiliency and Mental Healthcare access in Appalachia
For the second segment, I (William) had the chance to talk with Basil Soper, who is a writer, filmmaker, and a man of trans experience from the Appalachian region. He is the founder of the education and advocacy group Transilient (@wearetransilient on Instagram), which seeks to uplift trans voices and trans experiences, and to also connect folks with resources from a place of relative safety and understanding. This group is seeking to undertake a documentary series focusing on mental health resource access for trans people in Appalachia. They are in their very last push of fundraising currently, and if you would like to see more about this project and get in touch with them, you can go to wearetransilient.com , and you can also email them at wearetransilient@gmail.com. You can also go right to their Kickstarter for the best way to donate! The deadline is June 23rd, so smoke em if you got em. Also stay tuned for less money oriented ways to support this project!
In this interview, we got to talk about many different things, about the social construct of Appalachia and where that might have originated, the people who actually live here, mental health concerns that trans people can face, plus many other topics. This interview was a really nice experience for me because I got to talk with another trans person from a working class, rural background about things we both personally understand.
So I had some technical difficulties which I was unaware of in the moment, the result of which some of my audio sounds a bit static-y. This is something I’m working on correcting for future episodes, thanks for your patience!
Announcements
ICE Activity in WNC
If you’re in the Asheville area, be aware that Immigration officers were responsible for kidnapping four individuals in Henderson County to our south last week. They are changing their tactics to blend in better, sometimes using vehicles that look like work trucks with ladders on top or mimicking the appearance of anti-ice activists at times. If you’d like to get involved and join community resistance to ICE tearing apart our families and communities, consider checking our show notes for a link to get involved or reach out to CIMA via their website and click the “get involved” tab.
Donations
If you care to kick some dollars to our podcast, check out our donate/merch page which also features t-shirts and other items up for sale to support the show.
In this June 11th special, we’re releasing an interview with some anarchist prisoners in the so-called U.S. and some of the folks who support them. June 11th, for people who don’t know, is a day of solidarity with Marius Mason and other long term anarchist prisoners. You can find bits of the history of the importance of the date up at crimethinc.com and interviews with and about anarchist prisoners up at our website and at june11.org . The framing of this special is to focus on a publishing project currently being undertaken inside and outside of the prisons that many long-term anarchist prisoners in the so-called U.S. participate in called Fire Ant.
First up, Sean Swain shares his views on Fire Ant and prisoner support. [2min 20sec , followed by Surrounded by Matador from the album The Taking, Black Powder Records]
Then we hear Michael Kimble sharing his views on the publication and recent experiences in the Alabama prison in which he’s held, which was a part of the interview we aired with Michael a few weeks back. [10min 56sec, followed by The War On The Imagination by Sole from Let Them Eat Sand]
After Michael speaks, a supporter and partner of Eric King talks about their impressions of the impact of June 11 and Fire Ant on their partner’s life. We’ll be sharing more from Eric’s partner in coming weeks about his situation, changes coming in the BOP and about the types of support federal prisoners and their supporters need. [42min 52sec]
After the Eric section, we are happy to share a musical track by the project, Realicide, called “Decide Today = Free Marius Mason” about the long-standing Earth Liberation, anarchist, Animal Liberation prisoner. There’s a link to youtube for the audio in our show notes.
Finally Robcatt, one of the folks on the outside shares some of the history of Fire Ant zine, some of his past support experience and a provocation on how we as anarchists need to shift how we do support work. [52min 17sec]
You can find issues of Fire Ant, which are written and adorned by anarchist prisoners, at the website for Bloomington ABC and for a list of June 11 events around Turtle Island, check out https://itsgoingdown.org.
Today we air three segments. First, audio about Likhts’amisyu Summer Camp in so-called B.C., Canada [4min 50sec]. Then, two Palestinian activists talk about the project “Eye On Palestine” [14min 42sec]. Finally, we share audios from the A-Radio Network show, BADNews, with words from struggles in Serbia [49:42] and the UK [53:50]. Sean Swain’s segment for this week is available separately.
Eye On Palestine
Today we’re very pleased to present some audio from two Palestinian comrades, Iman Eloghonemi who is an Austrian born Palestinian living in Vienna, and S, who a prisoner rights advocate, about their work doing consciousness raising and advocacy. Because of time differences and schedules, we recorded our interview over text to voice prints about a month ago, so there will be some dated material in the interview but William believes it is relevant even now. In this interview we talk about their work and recent projects, the social media project Eye on Palestine (on Instagram and Facebook) which Iman co-runs, and issues such as how we talk about anti Zionism, anti Semitism, and apartheid as it could relate to Palestinians.
When we were first talking about doing this interview, there had just been a massive hunger strike of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails and prisons. It ended a couple of days before the interview took place, but the main demands of the strikers were: the institution of landline phones in prison, and releasing those held in solitary confinement (many of whom are children).
Some other issues in Israeli prison also come up in S’s segments, the use of electronic signal jammers is one which has been a central problem for some time. The prison puts these in place, ostensibly to prevent the use of so called contraband cell phones, even though prolonged exposure to these devices causes health problems from headaches to certain forms of cancer. It’s our understanding that these jammers have not yet been removed from facilities.
Another central issue that S brings up is the rationing of drinking water given to prisoners. It’s our understanding that prisoners don’t have access to tap water in Israeli facilities, and the land in question is characterized by its long, hot, dry summers. It’s common for prisons all around the world to not have any form of indoor climate control, and if you’re being held in a small room with many other people for long hours at a time, you could imagine why rationing water would turn into a huge issue.
Likhts’amisyu Summer Camp
Also as part of this episode, we’d like to present some words from the Likhts’amisyu Summer Camp. We hear from two people from the Likhts’amisyu clan about an autonomous camp and climate research center being constructed on Parrot Lake in Likhts’amisyu territory.
To keep up with this project, you can visit https://likhtsamisyu.com , email them at likhtsamisyu@gmail.com for more information. You can also visit our show notes for links, to the registration form for the summer camp, and also to the video that this audio was pulled from, with permission from the participants (links below).
Finally, we feature 10 minutes from the latest BADNews: Angry Voices From Around The World episode. More episodes, including one due out in the next week, up at https://a-radio-network.org
Announcements
On Tuesday, June 11th 2019, the day in solidarity with
Marius Mason and other longterm anarchist prisoners, Firestorm and Blue Ridge ABC will be showing a couple of films and a vegetarian potluck from 6pm til 8pm. We invite you to come by, eat, share, watch, chat and celebrate the fierceness of comrades the state fears so much they have to stick them in cages.
Also, if you’re looking for more audio, check out our episode released June 7th with an anarchist in Italy about the hunger strike of Silvia and Anna in L’Alquila prison against the torturous, solitary conditions there. Also, for June 11th, keep an ear out for a podcast special featuring Michael Kimble, Sean Swain, a song dedicated to Marius Mason, an anarchist supporter of Eric King and Robcatt, an editor of the journal Fire Ant, coming out in a few days. We interviewed all of these folks about Fire Ant, prisoner support and community. Both can be found at our website soon if not now at thefinalstrawradio.noblogs.org.
In this minisode special, Bursts spoke with an anarchist comrade in Rome about the hunger strike initiated on May 29th by Anna and Silvia, two anarchists rounded up in police actions (Anna in Operazione Scripta Manent and Silvia in Operazione Scintilla) and still facing trial for accusations of participating in direct action against the state and its borders. The hunger strike is against the solitary nature of their incarceration and it’s impacts on other prisoners.
Silvia Ruggeri and Anna Beniamino are being held in a prison condition called AS2 (High Security 2) at L’Alquila prison in the center Italy, the only two women in this section of the prison. Here is a link to a translated letter from them. As if the high security level weren’t harsh enough, the AS2 in L’Alquila in reality matches the application of what’s known as 41bis, invented by the Italian state during the Years of Lead (Italian civil war during the mid 70’s) and housing mostly accused political radicals, mafia foot-soldiers and jihadists.
41bis was implemented as an emergency measure and kept on the books, the kind of State of Emergency that Agamben writes about, staying on as a torture regime that now houses nearly 750 prisoners, tightens every year. 41bis has provoked protest from human rights groups, the European Court of Human Rights, the California legal system (which refused to extradite the mafioso Rosario Gambino to Italy for fear of subjecting him to torture under 41bis) and soliciting protest and solidarity on the outside. The twitter account of the @YPJInternational put out a statement of solidarity with Silvia and Anna and protests have occurred around Italy and in other countries, and comrades in Italy hope to hear about more solidarity.
Besides the links above, Round Robin is another site that will likely carry updates translated into English on the case of Silvia and Anna moving forward.
The musics heard in this minisode are:
Passione nera by Nerorgasmo (requested by Anna to be played at a demonstration outside of L’Alquila)
This week we had the chance to interview Matt Meyer, who, among many other pursuits, is a retired professor and an editor of A Soldier’s Story: Revolutionary Writings by a New Afrikan Anarchist, out from PM Press, which highlights the life and writings of Kwasi Balagoon. Balagoon was a defendant in the Panther 21 case in the late 1960s, in which 21 people were arrested and accused of planned coordinated bombing and long-range rifle attacks on two police stations and an education office in New York City. He was ultimately acquitted of this, but was caught up on charges related to a robbery some time later and passed in prison in 1986.
Sean Swain on food in prison 2:48
Matt Meyer on Kuwasi Balagoon 11:44
Support Matt Hinkston announcement 1:06:08
In this interview, Bursts and Matt discuss Balagoon’s life and writings and why this book is especially relevant right now. They’ll talk about his abiding love for his comrades, a things which seems to have driven much of his politics, and his queerness, an aspect of his life which seemed very important and also complex. Stay tuned to the end of the conversation for questions submitted to The Final Straw by imprisoned anarchist Michael Kimble, who has been a guest on this show and is an admirer of Kuwasi. To see more of Michael’s work and to write to him, you can visit anarchylive.noblogs.org
Support Matt Hinkston!
Police violence in Lucasville-Southern Ohio Correctional Facility. Call Monday in support of Matt Hinkston (A724969). Matt is the brother of Mustafa, who Bursts interviewed a few weeks back.
Matt Hinkston (A724969) is being retaliated against for filing a PREA (Prison Rape Elimination Act) grievance against a correctional officer and for having gone on hunger strikes in protest of human rights violations against himself and others in the past. One of the main officers who has been mistreating him is named Officer Lawless. They’ve put him in solitary confinement without a disciplinary ticket and restricted his access to communication. Although correctional officers claim that Matt has been put in solitary confinement for his protection, they’re also denying him access to his property and to technology for communicating with the outside world.
Incarcerated people’s lives and human rights matter. Nobody should be sent to solitary for filing a PREA report against a guard. Let’s call Lucasville this weekend and Monday at 740-259-5544 to:
-ask for a wellness check on Matthew Hinkston, A#724969
-tell officials in the Warden’s area and on Matt’s block that we support Matt’s demands and oppose continued retaliation against him for filing a PREA grievance.
Support Matt in this continued struggle against police violence, racism, and rape culture!
. … . ..
Finally, thank you to everyone who replied in response to our 9th anniversary podcast special in which me and Bursts interviewed each other about why we do what we do, some personal backstory for each of us, and opinions on media in general. We also used the opportunity to solicit listeners for another co host, to share the work load and extend the option in case there was anyone out there who was interested.
We got way more responses than we ever thought we would, and are working through to answer them in as complete and responsible a way as possible. If your interest is piqued and you wanna hear this episode, it’s up on our website along with all our other archived material.
. … . ..
Music at the beginning of the show was an instrumental version of Hip Hop by Dead Prez off of Let’s Get Free.
So for this episode, we tried something new. This show is in its 9th year of production, and we realized that we as hosts very rarely have interacted on the show. While this is a project that is one we do for reasons other than boosting our own personalities, we talked about it and felt it was time for us to interview each other and give some personal context for why we do what we do.
To that end, we are actively searching for another co-host! This would obvi be an unpaid position until we all get our $oros$ checks, but the responsibilities would be gently scaled up to. If you like what you hear here, and have always wanted to do something like this, or have done something like this in the past a wanna jump back in, holler at us!
