RESOURCE(S)
Mike: connect [at] kolanutcollab [dot] org
Tenants United: tenantsunited.hpwl [at] gmail [dot] com
Citizens Police Data Project by the Invisible Institute https://data.cpdp.co/data/AG6622/citizens-police-data-project
FEATURED TIME STAMPS
*Time stamps may be slightly off since they are adapted for YouTube.*
45:22 Where friendly people can continue this conversation in real life if they wish to do the same
51:46 Citizens Police Data Project shared with neighbors
56:30 Gratitude to Citizens Police Data Project by the Invisible Institute
TIME STAMPS
*Time stamps may be slightly off since they are adapted for YouTube.*
00:00 Introduction
00:39 If there were a title to this interview, what would you call it?
00:53 Are there any characteristics about your community that could help give context?
05:04 How did the neighborhood association get started?
06:41 Mike gets involved
09:28 Community Councils Working Group
10:36 Do you see an autonomous commune in the making? Are there federative relationships? Is there a seed of something?
12:56 Chris on the sentiments of self-determination that grew in a homeowners association in the past
15:29 Is the ‘paradise of association’ slowly unfurling among neighbors?
20:01 Chris on experiences of doing neighborhood watch in the homeowners association
22:31 Is there a long-term vision that you or your neighbors have for the community, the association, or both?
25:14 ‘Increasing housing stock in the community’ defined
28:23 Do you know the motivations of elderly neighbors to participate in the association? People have deep roots that are not always apparent.
34:45 How anarcho-tenant unionism and liberatory neighborhood associations could catalyze each other
37:54 If there were tenants or people looking to live in your community and participate in what you’re doing, do you think they should move in your neighborhood?
41:40 How could radical homeowners do something similar in their communities?
45:22 Where friendly people can continue this conversation in real life if they wish to do the same
*Interview winds down*
46:26 The significance of organizing among homeowners and what a future interview could look like
50:00 Whom you might encounter and positions you may have to engage in such relationships
54:30 boring SCAFFOLDING
55:34 Neighborhood watch clarification
56:30 Gratitude to Citizens Police Data Project by the Invisible Institute
58:27 End/Help The Blast Ⓐ
* * * * * *
The following is a January 24th 2022 interview between The Blast Anarchy and Mike Tekh Strode, a fellow anarchist and friend. Mike discussed how the process of community empowerment is developing through the local neighborhood association he has been participating in in south Chicago. We hope this interview inspires people to see the different types of seeds of anarchism that are possible to sow through developing liberatory neighborhood associations across Chicagoland and Illinois and connecting them to the effort for universal emancipation.
The Blast: If there were a title to this interview, what would you call it?
Mike: Start where you are.
The Blast: Start where you are. Nice, nice. Yeah so we’re gonna talk about what’s going on in the neighborhood association but before we get into the actual neighborhood association, are there any characteristics about your community that could help give context to what’s going on? You don’t have to get deep into your neighborhood if you have like safety concerns or whatever. I don’t plan on showing any video if that helps to provide you with some useful information. If anything, I might just use the audio track but that’s based on consent along the way okay.
Mike: So I’m fine with naming the sort of neighborhood of South Deering — specifically that’s the 77 community area — and then Jeffery Manor is the neighborhood name. But some characteristics of this community is that it’s an elder community — more it’s a community of elders. Young people who do well from this community tend to move away which has meant that we have a lot of a lot of elders who remain in our community; these are 50 and 60-year families so if young people do less well. They do tend to stay but effectively that means they just kind of hand down the house that’s in the family. So there’s a lot of neighborhood and communal pride of people who have been long-time residents of this community; there is a lot of deep investment in maintaining this community.
The historical character of is that this is a World War II community — a community that was developed for returning soldiers. So it used to be a white community which went through the changes that many communities in Chicago have gone through, changing from white to to Black.
It is an environmental justice community; it is only two miles or three miles west of the Calumet river, lake michigan. We are in the arena of the port. So there are all sorts of environmental justice concerns that are around. We are one of the communities that is serviced by the southeast environmental task force in terms of you know the environmental stewardship of the different areas, and that’s another characteristic that’s really important. The environmental areas, the natural areas of this neighborhood are things that are very very important to the community. Because we don’t have many gathering spaces so the natural areas become a place of congregation, a place of community; we’ve got some really great parks around the community. So these are all characteristics that I find valuable and meaningful. And also it’s a relatively quiet community; there has historically been gang activity and other forms of social violence in the area but it’s been tamped down as of recently. But I feel safe walking my community. I feel comfortable in my community, and I’ve been here 13 years so I want to continue improving upon it.
The Blast: Nice. So let’s talk about the neighborhood association. How it got started, how you got involved, and why this is ferment for a revolutionary process or the process itself.
Mike: The neighborhood association — I want to say it got started around either 2010 or 2011. Before the neighborhood association existed there have historically been block clubs in the community, right? So you had some very prominent block club on 103rd and on other sort of internal interior blocks of particular in Jeffery Manor. And there was also a historical organization called the Jeffery Manor revitalization council which also was part of the founding of this neighborhood association, and so the the association comes into being as a continuation of some of those historical entities, organizations, block clubs, councils. It’s a convergence right? Multiple block clubs coming together, becoming one council, becoming one association. Basically for the improvement and and protection of the community and then effectively this neighborhood association blooms out of that, again somewhere around 2011 or 2010-2011. My involvement I moved to the community around 2008, and I had been doing other types of organizing and community work around the city, and I was looking to do some of that work inside of my neighborhood but I hadn’t really found a place of input — a place or an outlet. The block that I live on didn’t necessarily have an active block club. So I was you know kind of lost for for how to get engaged. When I did learn about the association — probably somewhere around maybe 2013-2014 or so — I started attending some of their meetings. They were meeting at a church at the time, and I started going to a few their meetings — just kind of sitting in on their meetings over the course of about two years.
So I was the youngest person in the meeting. Again, there are a lot of elders in the community so I was a young person in the community, and there was one time where a young couple came in and they came in and kind of went to came to a couple of meetings and then disappeared. That means that I got taken seriously to the extent that I was willing to participate and offer ideas and provide feedback. But a lot of times they were ready to move forward and so I didn’t really have an outlet for maybe some of the more radical ideas. I mean basically that’s what i’m trying to get: I wanted to propose some things that were more more radical related to my time banking work and the cooperatives but it wasn’t time for that yet.
So I continued to participate well into the present, and it was probably around 2019 when I was invited to a conversation with the one of the members of the executive team. They they said that they wanted to um engage me as a board governance advisor, mostly because I had been there, right? I had been present. I had been participatory. I had shown up to some of the gatherings, shown up to some of the events. That’s a long time commitment. That’s — at that point — five years. But hey — I’m already in the neighborhood, and I’m going to be here anyway. So that’s how I got involved
The Blast: I’m wondering how this relates to when we were getting together back in the day — I know there was a time where a few of us decided “okay, let’s try to build a tenant union or some tenant unions”. Were you doing that around that time — like around the time we’re going more frequently to the harold washington library?
Mike: So around the time that the colonet collaborative launches in 2017. Solidarity economy working group launches soon after. Community council working group launches around the same time. So I was engaged with the neighborhood association at the time that we launched that community council’s working group, and I certainly saw my relationship to the neighborhood association as a great experimental and practice space for some of the things that the working group wanted to endeavor to do.
The Blast: Cool. Do you see an autonomous commune in the making? Like are there federative relationships among people — even if it’s just the relationships of people who participate? It doesn’t have to be an autonomous commune, you know if there’s another endearing term that you prefer to use, let’s use that. What do you see, is there a seat of something that’s going on in the neighborhood association?
Mike: Yeah, so let’s talk about what it is already. It is a federation of block clubs effectively, right? The reason that the association comes into being is because the block clubs wanted to exert more influence over the goings-ons in the neighborhood. So people who feel like their block clubs are beginning to dissolve or beginning to lack the the necessary participation or gravitas — they naturally wanted to come together to have more capacity, have more influence, have more more power to be self-determining in their neighborhood. So I mean it’s not — I definitely wouldn’t necessarily use the phrase “autonomous commune”. Mostly because that maybe not necessarily how they would describe themselves. But it is a community of people who want to improve their neighborhood in marked and marginal ways or over time. So they are banding together to advocate for those improvements, then to organize for those improvements, and then endeavoring to draw in additional resources to fund those improvements. So I do see a community in the making that is beginning to be more invested in its own agency and in its own desire for self-determination. So to the extent that those qualities exist in an autonomous commune? Yes, then that that might be something that might be present here.
The Blast: Yeah I noticed when I participated in a homeowners association a few years ago, that was something — the spirit of self-determination growing — it seemed to be something that began to come out the more that the group had more people sharing, sharing the work, and more people coming together to share their experiences.
I had told you a few weeks ago that one of the things that we began to realize when we started to do a neighborhood watch was — and in this situation the origin of it was the home owners association wanted people to help the neighborhood watch. Part of that came from the fact that there was some cops that lived in the neighborhood, and they just threw their hands up saying that what what problems that we have in this community — we can’t solve them. It has to be neighbors to get together and figure out how to do this. So in the process of dealing with some of the harms that were going on to what I call peaceful society — which were not that big you know. I grew up in the poorest zip code in San Antonio, Texas, and in this area the crimes that were happening, that people were aware of, they weren’t a big deal — just like kids being kids, some desperate people. But along the way, once those issues were resolved, people began to realize that really the biggest concern in the community was the sheriff’s department — the way that they bullied neighbors. As neighbors began to get together and generalize their experiences, they began to see the pattern of where the more serious harm was coming. Of course that stuff is not possible until people start getting together and are able to even trust each other with admitting stuff like that. And it was it was fun which brings me to my next question which is: Is the paradise of association slowly unfurling? Is it there? And by that, I just basically mean: do you like joining with your neighbors? Do you like seeing your neighbors? And do you feel maybe vice versa?
Mike: Yeah, so maybe I’ll revisit the invitation that was offered to me to be the board governance advisor. The question that prompted that was, “Hey, tell me about our meetings. How’s your experience of our meetings?”. Up until that point, there were for me a lot of rough meetings. As someone who facilitates, and as someone who came to facilitation because I was having a real problem with rough meetings, I have a lot of feedback when there are rough meetings. I don’t like to offer that feedback before someone ready. So I was excited when they were ready for feedback on their meetings, and I had a lot of it. I didn’t anticipate that they were going to invite me to be the the board governance advisor. I was just giving meeting feedback, and I said “Hey, like I would love to maybe facilitate some of your meetings and help you kind of improve the process there.” They said “bet, yeah of course. This that feels like a great thing.” So for me, I do enjoy going to the meetings now because we have now a practice and we have a template agenda. We have a skeletal agenda and all we have to do now before meeting is plug the sort of updates and activities into there, add some additional reports. And so we have an agenda, we know what’s going to happen every single meeting. And it’s allowed us to be definitely more efficient and more effective in our meetings but also I think that the participants in our meetings are getting more out of those meetings. So yeah I am loving this aspect of the the association that we are becoming. Because now when they ask me to present on something, one: I know the shape of the container that I’m going to need to present in, and also I know that people are prepared when I do present that “oh, they always have a section in the meeting where they do new updates, and somebody’s going to bring some new information. And so therefore I need to be at the meetings because this is where some new detail is going to come out about what is possible within this community.”
The Blast: Does that does that spill over to better friendships or new friendships with your neighbors? Has it gotten to that to that point? If yeah, is there anything that comes to mind about how that might be positively manifesting and maybe even any challenges to that?
Mike: Yeah, I do certainly get a lot of compliments from the members of the association about the meeting process and the meeting style. So the fact that I used to just kind of show up and be the young person in the chair with the bike helmet and now I actually am a participant — yeah, people want to ask different questions. If you see someone in the store, or if you see someone on the street, they’re more inclined to ask you how you’re doing ‘cause like “oh I know you. You’re from the association” or “I see you at the meetings.” So there is the possibility that maybe it’s an encounterism right? You know we are having these encounters in this association meeting space and therefore we become acquainted, we become friendly. And therefore, we are we’re better able to relate when we’re in the neighborhood. If we need to call on one another, we’re better able to call on one another and know that I might have your back if you call on me because I know that you are part of the civic fabric that holds my neighborhood together.
The Blast: When I was doing the neighborhood watch, it was cool getting to know people because inevitably you learn about a lot of people doing something like that. I did go to some homeowner meetings to check in on stuff, and I don’t recall much from that because that stuff was a little more difficult. Neighborhood watch is fun. It kind of felt like a club. I remember one of the last times, I went I was trying chew and I got sick to my stomach but — because I went to cigar lounge recently and my friend got sick, and I remember oh the last time I got sick from tobacco was chew, and I was on neighborhood watch. That process was fun; it was interesting. I remember one of my neighbors was like, “what are you a Democrat or a Republican?” I go, “I’m an anarchist,” and he goes “huh, well probably a democrat.” And I was like “no, no, not either. Totally different.” He’s like, “all right well tell me what it’s about.” And I explained to him and he’s like, “yeah probably a Democrat.”
You run into stuff like that but it’s really nice to come across people who actually do care. It’s like right now we’re socialized to believe that deep down we actually don’t care. But when people are presented with encounters in which they’re given like opportunities to care, I found people actually do care. Even some of the more conservative neighbors, I found a lot of positive experiences. So I hope to to hear more about stuff like that developing in the association and outside of it as a result of the work.
The Blast: So is there a long-term vision that you or your neighbors have for the community, for the association, or both?
Mike: So long term for the community, it’s really just a revitalization. So this community suffers the the sort of blighted properties. It suffers from absentee investors and absentee landlords that are buying up low-cost cheap properties. We are not a community that is rapidly gentrified and we’re not a community that is in imminent danger of having skyrocketing value. So effectively what that allows for is that people can come in and buy up cheap properties and either sit on empty properties or they can just not have a great concern with how they integrate people into sort of the property and care about the fabric of the community. So I mean we we are looking for in in the association — I think, or at least from my perspective — this level of of of deep engagement and revitalization that builds the capacity of the community to have political self-determination have economic self-determination, be engaged in the planning and design of the the spaces around the community. I mean just real community control and real economic autonomy. At least that’s my view. That’s my vision. I think if I translate from from what I’ve heard from my neighbors, they have a similar view. They might not use the same language as me but all of them are looking to have improvement of the housing stock, and get to know their neighbors, and feel like they have real safety in their community, feel like people care about investing in their community in a way that respects the the people who are already there, right? So I think those are things that are the long-term vision that I’ve heard in the course of these association meetings. And they they align you know in some ways with the long-term vision of the association for a self-determined community.
The Blast: I remember in the community that I was in where I participated in the homeowners association and in the neighborhood watch, one of the things that kind of brought me down was how on the various social media the neighbors connected to, it seemed like the thing that people cared about about most was property value. Like “what are we doing in the neighborhood that is — or what are others doing in the neighborhood that’s increasing or decreasing our property value?” It sounds like your neighborhoods very different from that. So when y’all are talking about increasing the housing stock, what are y’all thinking about?
Mike: Yeah I mean I’ve never heard anyone talk about their property values. Sort of uh the allegory I’ll give for that or the story i’ll tell of that is that when I bought my house in 2008, I bought it at 114,000. Two years later, I think it went down to probably 37,000 or something like that — in the valuation of the speculative property market. No one lives in Jeffery Manor necessarily because they are concerned about having a stable property value. They live here because they love the community, or because they have been here for a long time, or because they want quiet out of the way community in the city. So I don’t really hear that that type of conversation. When we’re talking about revitalizing the housing stock, I mean: two houses down for me is a house that’s been abandoned since 2009. In some cases, eventually they just kind of knock the house down because it’s been empty so long that it’s uninhabitable. But you know I would love to imagine the possibility that those things could exist inside of a community land trust for this neighborhood and for this community so that they are protected from speculative investment. And so that they are protected from just ongoing deterioration. When when we talk about revitalizing the housing stock, I think we are on the same page there; we would love to see families and people move in and engage in the homes that are are vacant and that we would love to see a thriving community. In fact, I think I would land right there: we want to see this community thrive, and thriving looks like people who are going to participate in building up a community that gathers together, that sings together, that plays together, that congregates together, right?
The Blast: It’s interesting that people who are of an elderly composition are interested in these things, right? I feel like when I was younger I had more exposure to elderly folks who were more involved. I feel like I see more — just in my experiences, i’m not generalizing. I’m sure that generally this is not the case — but unfortunately as I grow older I see more elderly folks who are just not as engaged or almost cynical, apathetic. Do you do you happen to know of any of the motivations of your elderly neighbors in doing this? I know that one thing that comes to mind is you know when I was younger I used to go to some environmental spaces more more often; I noticed there’s a lot of elderly folks, and I one time I asked, “why are there a lot of elderly folks here?” And a few people spoke up and and basically there’s this consensus where it’s like “we’ve been here. We’ve lived our life, and we’re almost gone but as you get older, you begin to care more about what you’re leaving behind and for future generations.” That was pretty nice to hear because I didn’t grow up with any sort of like outlook like that that was spoken . So I’m curious to hear what is the motivation. It’s okay if you don’t know but it could be a good conversation for your neighbors in the future.
Mike: Absolutely. It could be a great conversation. I’m reading *i’ve got the light of freedom* right now. In there you I’m in a particular chapter where they’re talking about civil rights families. Where effectively they begin to look at a particular person who was very active in the direct action civil rights movement and how they got to where they got to. So how did this person become so active? And when they trace it back they’re like, “oh, because their parents were active” or “because their grandparents were active.” So similarly the elders that are present in the neighborhood association now are people whose families were active participants in this neighborhood. In particular, one of our executive committee members — her father was was very active in the association and when the association was established, he came and he gave the history of the other councils and block clubs that led up to this association. So the people who participate as elders are people who are longtime civic engaged folks. There is one particular elder who is the sort of long time steward of the the the block level 103rd, and there’s a bridge over there, right? And the state representative knows her by name. Because when there’s a problem on that bridge — when there’s bad truck traffic, or when it’s not being repaired properly or when there’s a question about what’s going to happen with this bridge, this person is on the phone to the representatives. I mean that that’s the type of reason that elders engage — because they’ve been engaged for a long time, because they know the people who are engaged. It’s not like we are busting open the doors with participation. It’s not like everybody in the neighborhood is here and present but we have enough of the capacity that we can reach potentially all parts of the neighborhood through the people that we have in the room.
The Blast: That’s really cool to hear. We had one neighbor who we worked closely with in the tenant union — tenants united — and one time I asked her to “hey, what’s your what’s your motivation because you look particularly serious about this stuff.” And she was like “well, it boiled down to my grandma was a Black Panther.” Umm, you know, like, “oh that’s awesome, yeah.” “you know it’s all this stuff, this the boring stuff that’s not on the the front cover of a lot of things. But this is the stuff that a lot of,” she said “yeah this is the stuff that doesn’t receive all the accolades but it’s this boring stuff that that was really important” for her ancestors. So that was pretty pretty cool to find out. And this neighbor — I don’t think you’re gonna find them in a chapter of something radical but there are a lot of people out there who are connected to serious things that happened in the recent past or further further in the past; they’re busy at work. So it’s great to hear that y’all want to see a thriving community and that y’all have an issue with this idea of the absentee landlords. In the tenant organizing that we’ve done — or community building. I like to think of it as community building. I feel like organizing? organizing what? I don’t know what that means.
Mike: Yeah, absolutely.
The Blast: I like to think that we’re building communities but one thing that we see a lot is it’s a really ugly situation to be in conflict with someone in your sanctuary. And there’s times where it’s really common where tenants could stay in the building because they’ve won, but it’s just such an ugly experience that they just want to go. So one thing that I do, and I try to encourage others to do is to try to find out and coordinate where they’re going to move to next. That way they’ll be among friends or neighbors who care, who are gonna be there to prevent things from getting to that point. Because a lot of people, they don’t wanna move. They want roots. They want to stay in place. And that’s also what’s needed for us to develop strong communities: giving people that real choice to stay.
I just see what y’all are building here is so important, I think. For helping to turn a lot of these losses in tenant union community building into victories. Because there are tenants who sometimes the experience is so messed up, and they don’t have anybody. Some tenants they’ll flee to another state to go to a support system. But sometimes tenants don’t have anything. They don’t have anyone — locally or in the country. If there were more neighborhood associations like this who had this pro-tenant stance, I think that would be a really important asset for for community building. Because there are tenants who the idea of “oh, there are people who might have my back” — that’s a new new idea. “They might be there when I get there.” My goal is to make that a general thing — not a new idea.
If there were tenants or people looking to live in in your community and participate in what you’re doing, do you think they should move into your hood? If yeah, what should people be mindful of to not harm the community that you’re part of?
Mike: One thing I would say is that we are not beyond the homeowners association dynamic. There’s still language that shows up in the meeting where folks are like “those renters” and “the homeowners and their renters.” And I personally have to actively push back for myself right. So I want to reiterate and reaffirm that it’s important to recognize that these are political spaces just as any space. So if you are going to participate in them, just be prepared to advocate for your political view. And also recognize that we are all evolving at different different paces to different opinions, to different perspectives. So you you want to go into these spaces just being prepared to wrestle with the political dynamics of that space. So it’s taken me time to build a level of trust where I could introduce the dynamic that, “hey, you know we sometimes use anti-renter language in this meeting. We should probably rethink that because if someone was in this meeting who wanted to participate in building this community and improving this community and they heard that anti-renter language, they would just walk out. And if they walk out it weakens the association, right? It weakens the power for all of us to advocate for our community.” So I encourage the tendency that we are in solidarity here; we are all in a neighborhood that people actively prevent from accessing resources so if we, as homeowners or as renters, come together, then we can we can improve the the possibilities of self-determination for all of us. And so if folks are looking to to live in such a community and participate, then I would say that one important thing is, and we’re trying to be better at the introduction but just get engaged with the association. It’s one thing to drop into the association, participate in the association. I am actively advocating for an intake process for membership that asks the question — to the effect that people are comfortable — if you’re moving into the community and you are renting, would you like to provide the name of your landlord just so that if there is a challenge, if there is an issue with the building — we can make sure that we are providing pressure at the appropriate places. We don’t necessarily want to be pressing on you and you’re someone who’s renting and is not responsible for the space. But because we are trying to improve conditions for everybody in the neighborhood — and that includes people who are renting — that’s the position that I take in the neighborhood association.
The Blast: How can people do something similar in their communities? If they find themselves to be in the position of being home buyers in Chicago, in Illinois? I think we’ve talked about this a little bit. What are other things to maybe help people get over? So I’m aiming this question at leftist, anarchist, abolitionists — especially those who don’t want to talk to a neighbor who’s not on the level or whatever. How do you think people should do that? How might they start and what are some ways to overcome certain inevitable obstacles? I might say a thing or two here as well but go ahead.
Mike: I guess it’s researching the organizing challenge you want to take. Now I’m not gonna pretend that like I did deep research on this neighborhood before I moved in. I moved here because it was the place that I could afford when I wanted to purchase a home. I took the same steps that that any other organizer might take to learn the landscape that I was within, right?
So you know once you’re here: “okay this is where I am.” Well what’s around here? What are the resources? What are the assets? What are the institutions that are important? You can either do that stuff after the fact, or you can do that stuff before the fact — but either way you’re going to have to do the research about the terrain that you are organizing upon. Now if you are trying to do this in — and you know I only know the landscape here because I did the redistricting work — but if you are organizing in say Jefferson Park and you are trying to advocate for a pro-tenant, anti-absentee landlord stance. Well one I don’t know if they’re absentee landlords there but if you’re advocating for a pro-renter stance then you probably are just going to be running water up a hill. And I mean if that’s where you want to live then you know you just need to wrestle with the fact that that’s the work you’re going to be involved in and either you’re committed to trying to change that and finding people who are allies who are going to help you change that. Or you are not, and you’re going to move. So I mean I guess that it’s just really about people deciding what type of work they want to be involved in, and if they want to be involved in a process that’s easier, they need to research beforehand before they move so that they can try to move the tendency of an organization that already that isn’t so recalcitrant, or isn’t filled with people who are worried about their property values. Or they’re going to have to move an organization that is actively fighting against affordable housing in one of these other neighborhoods you know on the sort of periphery of Chicago.
The Blast: Yeah and what do you think? Because I know I could talk about this stuff — like ongoing help. If anybody’s curious about how to approach this, how to mobilize or work in their nearest neighborhood association or homeowners association, reach out to Tenants United, Solidaridad Inquilina.] I’m willing to talk about this stuff. I can talk about my experiences in this stuff. Is there any space where you’re willing to talk about this stuff? If somebody wanted to continue the conversation about trying to see what’s up in their local homeowners association?
Mike: Yeah, yeah they can certainly. I’m trying to figure out the sort of well — in any case whatever. There’s a bunch of information out there, but they can email connect [at] kolanutcollab [dot] org. That’s fine.
The Blast: Cool, yeah I just wanted to make sure I didn’t forget about how to help people help people connect. But yeah like you know I feel like I’m reaching the age where a lot of my peers are accumulating property. They’re becoming home buyers, and they’re going to be in these situations, if they’re not already. And this kind of stuff is really overlooked. Right now I know that that tenant organizing is considered to be one of the popular ways that a lot of radicals are trying to have a big impact. But I think that based on years of of doing this — of doing tenant community building — I think that stuff like this is just as important. And I remember two or three years ago where there was — I think it was somewhere in Florida — where some organizers they basically started participating in a local homeowners association more because the homeowners association was key in evicting getting tenants thrown out of the community. Because these these can be terrible places — homeowner associations. So they organized in there, and they put an end to that. And based on my experience in a different homeowner association, I could see something like that actually being really effective too — yo help out um people who are in terrible situations.
So yeah I really hope to see more people thinking about this stuff more — about how important it is to to get to know your neighbors, to try to consider going into some of these spaces, and finding potential allies. And I know that some people might be concerned especially if they’re white. You know, they’re going to come into like all these whack people. But depending on the neighborhood, you know your white person discomfort with coming across like other whack people might be less of an issue than the effect that that association can have on vulnerable people nearby; that they they might be assisting in and making their lives worse, or they could be in a position to help them out. And it looks like your neighborhood association has so much promise in being able to help out people who are super vulnerable. But also I think y’all just plain need it for yourselves. Because just because you’re a homebuyer doesn’t mean that that you’re totally safe. There’s so many people just ready to dispossess you.
But yeah I don’t have much more I’m hoping that in the future we could talk about the bylaws that y’all are thinking about. Because that’s something that seems so boring, but a lot of the work that we’re doing is boring. The the boring stuff is important. Yeah, I dunno.
Mike: Well so I’ll make one comment and then I’ll just comment on the bylaws. The one comment I want to make about your previous point around you know whom you might encounter and what positions you might have to engage — so when I entered the association or in fact still to this day, one really prominent relationship that is really important to the elders in this association is their relationship to the fourth district police department. They report out on our community safety report right as part of that committee right, and one of the more prominent meetings that I facilitated — it was effectively: there were three officers from the fourth district on that call.
Now, I’ve been very clear about my abolitionist politic in that space. But during that particular meeting, those officers said “hey, this was one of the best facilitated meetings i’ve ever attended.”
There are, and I’m saying this to say, right you know? I mean just really to answer the contradiction of like, “oh wait you know you got this abolitionist politic but your facility needs meetings where these police officers are” I’m doing what I need to do to build the relationships that I need to build to introduce other positions. And the opportunity that that afforded me was that the fourth district has recently announced a new police commander. And this was one of the members of the executive committee threw a note onto our our groupme about this announcement. And I just really casually responded like, “hey, i just wanted you to see uh this person’s jacket from the citizens police data project” Now I think the percentage was like 86% more violations than most most other officers on the force. I don’t know; it was it was some crazy percentage, right? And folks were responding like, “whoa that’s who we got? One of them…” So these are not necessarily folks who have an abolitionist politic but you can introduce elements of abolitionism into the conversation just really by informing people that this is data that’s out there. This is important information that we should know, and we can determine what our strategy is collectively. And that’s the other side of it right? This is consensus right? Consensus isn’t like “I got an abolitionist politic; let me go into this room and let me change your mind.” Consensus is, “I got an abolitionist politic; I’m in a room and in an association with people who don’t have the same politic. How can I make sure that they are aware of what the context of this is, or the constraints of this is?” So that’s just one really small event that occurred that’s really important to me. Because it’s about me being in a relationship with people and continuing to share information into the the container that introduces my politics to this space. Because I am a member of this community too, and my opinions and my politics actually matter too — even if they are different from yours. So you just got to be prepared to engage that. And over time, I can introduce aspects of community safety that I think will be more valuable than continuing to deepen this relationship with fourth district. What are the other things that we can do that can make us feel safe, that can make us feel whole, that can make us feel protected and defended in our community that don’t necessarily involve deepening that relationship?
The Blast: Neighborhood watch. I’m going to get back to it at some point. It’s fun man; It’s fun!
Mike: Yeah, right. Yeah. And on the bylaws thing, the bylaws did get approved but yeah to your point: it’s boring. But it’s scaffolding, right? This is scaffolding for an organization that has a succession plan — which is that the original bylaws were you know assembled by the original body and they were just kind of you know relatively basic. This is saying this is an organization now that has a structure, that if every one of us disappears, people can hold that structure and continue the organization if they want. And for me, that’s that’s the real importance of bylaws. It’s just establishing this has continuity and this is how it can continue — by your participation and there’s a voting provision in there now. There wasn’t a voting provision in the original bylaws to vote for the board of directors.
The Blast: We’re gonna have that bylaws conversation. I got some good stuff. But for for clarification — neighborhood watch when when I did it: we kept the cops out. And I was working with neighbors to learn how to deal with our problems without inviting a pistol to your face. Because that’s what the cops tend to do. And inevitably it turns into child rearing and all that stuff if you don’t go on a power trip. Essentially, if you think about how can how can we do this within a way that’s about love and care and giving people their freedom, or allowing people their freedom.
You brought up the the that database. Could we take some time out to to just identify it? And it’s a moment to show some gratitude for the people who put that work up. Because you mentioned a really good moment where that database is really useful. And it’s a tool that we could be using in our communities. But I just want to make sure that I put that in in the article as a resource. Because some people might not know it or they they might be like me — where I don’t consult it enough to be able to remember it when I need it.
Mike: Yeah, yeah absolutely. The Citizens Police Data Project, developed by Invisible Institute, and it’s to their word, their tagline: it’s a tool for holding police accountable to the public they serve. Basically taking a record of all of those police interactions with the public and combining those things in one database so that on any particular officer on the force, you can search the search their name and it will feed you back their jacket, their record. And and let you know what the stats are right. I mean the CPD baseball card as it were. Who knows? That’s actually an art project right? Like you know what if you actually have baseball cards printed for every single person? Okay I’m thinking there right? I’m getting the strategy.
The Blast: hey I don’t I don’t um thank you for uh thank you for doing this uh we’re at like an hour nine minutes i’m curious do you have any time to talk about dual power…
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