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Spitshine Spotlight

The 2018 CUPSI team

Autonomous Student Media: Gestures Towards the Ungovernable

Ask a room full of organizers about the things that inspired and radicalized them, and you’ll probably end up with a good number of people. A few may specifically mention slam poetry & spoken word, a form of expression that often attracts radical and revolutionary thinkers because of its ability to give voice to experiences and ideas that are typically silenced. At UT, you may find some of these creative radicals in a local group called Spitshine Poetry. Founded in 2012, Spitshine hosts weekly writing workshops and regular open mic nights, where students may collaborate on and present their work.

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¡Viva La Huelga! Report-back from San Antonio’s Cesar Chavez March

This is a report-back submitted to us by The Autonomous Brown Berets de TejAztlan, SATX chapter.

 

Editor’s note: On Saturday, March 24th, The Autonomous Brown Berets de TejAztlan, SATX chapter, attempted to disrupt the local Cesar Chavez march, which had become nothing more than a liberal parade that failed to uphold Cesar’s politics. In particular, they were protesting the parade’s collaboration with the police (i.e. the strikebreakers of the ruling classes) and their refusal to endorse a boycott of an exploitative agricultural corporation, a direct affront to everything Cesar Chavez fought for.

 

We are republishing this report back in order to break the media silence around what happened yesterday. Despite numerous journalists with cameras taking photos of the disruption and the police repression it encountered, not a single news outlet even mentioned the protest or its content in their articles. We in Austin know too well how the police will silence stories and keep their media contacts in line, so that nothing that serves as bad press for the cops will make it onto a story. We encourage all who read this to share this article, spread the word, to recognize who the cop collaborators & enemies of the people are, and to discredit those who would seek to use Cesar Chavez’s image in service of exploitation and oppression.

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Words from Texas Prisoners: Excerpt from “Prisons are Plantations”

Austin Anarchist Black Cross demo in solidarity with striking prisoners in 2016

Anonymously published document. Full document here. Originally spotted on Revolutionary Horizon‘s facebook page.

 We are republishing a collection of excerpts from a larger piece composed of interviews with incarcerated and formerly incarcerated folks from Texas, Illinois, and Florida. The original document uses interviews and case studies with prisoners, guards, and historical analysis to demonstrate how prisons are extensions of the plantation system and mirror pre-1865 slave codes. We’ve highlighted passages that reflect the experiences and conditions of inmates in Texas prisons. We hope this will give students and other non-incarcerated folks a better idea of the conditions and struggles of prisoners, and expose students to some of the worlds that we are isolated from. In particular, students should recognize the complicity of their own schools in this system. UT’s Investment Management Corporation indirectly invests in two of the largest private prison companies, Corrections Corporation of America and the GEO group [1]. The prison has long been the hidden underside of the University. While the University produces new citizens & professionals, the prison strips away citizenship and produces captivity. We hope the following excerpts will inspire greater awareness and energy for anti-prison organizing.

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Marielle Franco: Local Reflections on Transnational Anti-Blackness

Autonomous Student Media: Gestures Towards the Ungovernable

On Tuesday, March 20th, the Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies hosted a Foro Urgente–a regular series of panels & discussions on important recent events in Latin America–to discuss the assassination of Marielle Franco. Marielle Franco was a councilwoman in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil who was a black woman from the favelas, a lesbian, and a socialist. Marielle frequently spoke out against the police genocide against black people and the military occupation of the city. She was shot to death in what many are calling a police assassination, as the bullets were the same kind used by the federal police.

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The Call–Issue Archive

Autonomous Student Media: Gestures Towards the Ungovernable

To help make our publications more accessible, we are archiving previous publications of The Call, the zine published by the Autonomous Student Media collective. Originally published on May Day 2017, The Call has been a perennial feature of our organizing efforts. You can often find editions in stock at Monkeywrench Books, an anarchist bookstore & social space on North Loop (if you like their project, consider volunteering). 

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Blackshirt Alert! Far-right TPUSA Invades UT

Autonomous Student Media: Gestures Towards the Ungovernable

Note: address info listed here is likely outdated

Over the past semester, we have been alerted to the occasional presence of an individual (always the same one) tabling for an organization called Turning Point USA–you may have seen them around with their big posters reading “socialism sucks” “free speech zone” and “I <3 Capitalism.” Upon investigation we discovered they were not a Registered Student Organization–the person tabling isn’t even a student–and so technically have no right to be on campus. Yet we know from recent history that Dean of Students doesn’t really care about that unless you’re a leftist organization! We decided to do some more sleuthing, and we’ve found some interesting information.

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UT Employs White Supremacists!

Dustin Ray Hamby is an employee of UT. He’s a vocal white supremacist who participated in the Neo-Nazi “White Lives Matter” rally back in November of 2016. After more local fascists were exposed, Dustin upped his security and removed more of his information–deleting/hiding social media accounts and address. The address listed below is his last known address as of 2016, and may be inaccurate. However, he still works at UT–and was recently promoted to cook!

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Your ID is an Apparatus

By Kazi Nazrul, a member of ASN

On August 2nd, the University administration released new aspects of its plans to modernize the University for “security” purposes. These plans include restricted hours for building access and new surveillance systems with proximity card readers and video cameras. To raise awareness, the administration has adopted the cutesy slogan “Your ID is Your Key,” to encourage students to have their UT IDs on them at all times, in order to have access to buildings during restricted hours.

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Anti-Politics Radio — Spring 2017

Recordings of the Anti-Politics radio show, an anarchist talk show hosted by members of the Autonomous Student Network. Premiering on UT’s KVRX station on January 23rd, 2017, Anti-Politics Radio aired weekly, reporting back on recent events, analyzing local and global political issues, and having a good time while doing it. These represent a small sampling of the episodes and content covered in the show.

 

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Barbarians at the Gates: A Statement From the Vandals (2017)

In April 2017, a wave of vandalism struck frats across West Campus over the course of three nights. Frats were tagged with “racist” and “rapist,” among other slogans. Fiji, which was targeted the first two nights, held a racist “border patrol” party in 2015. A study published in March of 2017 found that 15% of undergraduate women on UT campus reported being raped. Actual statistics are believed to be much higher. 

The anonymous statement republished here was originally sent to It’s Going Down, which made the acts even more notorious across the country. The graffiti came near the end of a year marked by student struggles against fascist activity on campus, the University’s failure to address racism, and other issues. The University, ironically, tried to make use of its (at the time) new hate & bias incident policy to investigate the vandalism. Shortly afterwards, the piece was again thrust into the spotlight as fraternities and the alt-right tried to connect the May 1st, 2017 stabbings at UT with the vandalisms (and by association all “antifa” and leftists). 

Three years later, almost to the day, the Kappa Alpha Theta sorority was tagged with “Eat the Rich.” We host this article to keep alive the memory and intergenerational spirit of insurgency against Greek Life. You can find online readable and printable zine versions of this statement HERE.

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