The Imagination Reclamation Resource Guide - General Prescriptions
This is a list of activities folks can do to develop practices of proactively responding to oppression. Mel went to town on this section, querying folks far and wide.
Vocabulary Korner
The following compendium of unexamined words and phrases are common in the mainstream U.S. lexicon. It is important to develop a practice of defining terms such as these, because there is truly no end to them. The ones below have been arranged under subject headings.
Some of them can be found in the dictionary. This is a good place to start forming definitions to words, for it can be relied upon to give you the most racist, classist, patriarchal meaning imaginable. From there, you break it up into lived experiences across the globe. How does “freedom” appear to a Palestinian refugee, to a polar bear, to a teenager whose parents are whacked on meth?
History books by historians who are not full of shit (such as Howard Zinn), the internet, and local libraries are also good resources. Some of these terms will require a considerable amount of digging and reading, but when you develop the practice of intimately defining unexamined terms, it just kinda starts happening all the time in your life.
Following each list of terms or phrases are interactive activities through which you can apply your new knowledge.
Freedom and Democracy
election, free election, vote, felon, democracy, at risk, nonlethal weapons, authorities, gang violence, militia, globalization, free market, outsource, global warming, global oil crisis, global water crisis, global food crisis, the race card, the economy, Independence Day, immigrant, illegal alien, prison industrial complex, military industrial complex, majority, representation, disenfranchisement, literacy tests, pure democracy, social democracy, nepotism, sweatshop, poverty, minimum wage, hunger, freedom.
- Write a short essay on freedom from the perspective of the tribe(s) who lived on the land that is presently underneath the pavement and sidewalks of your community. Send this essay as a letter to the editor of your local newspaper a couple weeks before July 4. An alternate short essay subject might be a comparison between “freedom” as associated with 1776 and “freedom” as associated with 1863 or 1865.
- Run for office. Get involved in local politics. Find ways to put all of your federal taxes into your state and city coffers until the federal government becomes a representational democracy. Shop locally. Support local farmers. Stand up to developers who wish to encroach upon the environment surrounding your community. Study urban planning, create an overview of how your community is run, and stick your nose in there. Hold politicians accountable. Attend civic events and give voice to political wrongdoing: For instance, say the city schools just got their music and art programs cut--you might feel compelled to attend the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the fancy-pants new school in the suburbs and let everyone know how you feel about this while the news cameras are rolling.
War and Revolution
war, terror, war on terror, war on drugs, terrorist, freedom fighter, death squad, insurgent, militia, dictator, 9/11, imperialism, colonize, collateral damage, smart bomb, Deacons for Defense, Black Panther Party, Black Liberation Army, Nat Turner, John Henry, Harpers Ferry, Attica prison uprising, labor union, Stonewall riot, protest, radical, activist, anarchist, socialist, communist, capitalist, Wounded Knee 1890, Wounded Knee 1973, organized resistance, unorganized resistance, the Zapatista Revolution, the Bolívarian Revolution.
- Teach the children in your family games to play. Instead of House, they can play Design a Banner to Hang on a Freeway Overpass. Instead of Cowboys and Indians, Cops ’n’ Robbers, or Vice Squad ’n’ Drug-Smuggling Terrorists Who Fuck Goats, they can play Alcatraz Takeover, Underground Railroad, or Community Uprising Against Wal-Mart.
- Read The Art of War, written in the sixth century b.c. by Sun Tzu. From the bookflap: “[E]verything necessary to deal with conflict wisely, honorably, victoriously, is right before us at all times. The key to skillful action in any situation is in knowing those things that make up the environment and arranging them so that their power becomes available to us. It is not necessary to change the nature of things to come to victory.”
Global Women’s Strike
Okay, this isn’t a common phrase in the mainstream lexicon, but the ANSWER Coalition recently sent out an email announcing this year’s Global Women’s Strike, and it contained so many issues worth examining, I figured I’d throw them all out here. The list has been edited for clarity in this context:
welfare and other payment for caring work, including the justice work of mothers, daughters, sisters, and partners; pay equity; youth and family members opposing military recruitment in schools; campaigning for subsidized housing and other resources; refusing the military as an alternative to prison or destitution; veterans’ rights; protecting Native lands; destruction of health and the environment; from Iraq to Haiti to Venezuela, no to U.S. war, occupation, rape, other torture, and destabilization anywhere; the criminalization of survival; locking up women for crimes of poverty, where they lose child custody; rape and other abuse; prison sweatshops, unfair trials, and uncaring lawyers; the death penalty; no resources for released prisoners; persecution and criminalization of single mothers, immigrants, communities of color, and youth; no to racist murder and violence by police, prison guards, and “la migra”; no more jails; no three strikes; money for mothers and communities, not Guantánamos and war.
