8mo ago

Being able to recognise, and willing to act on red flags WITHIN a community or organisation is vital to its success

ID: From a Comrade posted:

"In the coming year, things will pop off. When they do, someone will volunteer to do security. They will possibly show up with a lot of battle rattle and a take-charge, can-do attitude.

Do not let them do security. Ask them to read some bell hooks. Ask them how many women they know trust them. Ask them to do some reproductive labor first, like working in a kitchen. Talk to them in depth about political theory. Understand their motivations and their relationship to violence and power.

Over half of people who want to do security, are people who should never do security. The biggest red flag for weeding out bad security people, is that they are eager to do security."

42 comments

This is definitely a conundrum. To some degree, everyone should have a mind to physical defense, but there's a lot of value to relieving most people from that being their primary concern by making physical defense some people's primary concern.
There will always be some risk, especially when people who don't know each other very well are coming together to try to achieve similar goals.
Ideas:
Rotate individuals in and out of security duties on a regular basis, like hourly. This reduces the risk that "wild cards" present, as well as helping everyone get experience doing different tasks and working with different people.
Designate physical security roles at events which don't necessarily neeed it. The lower stakes allow room for adjustment, practice, and experience without "mistakes" creating a huge impact.
- If you'd made this comment in a vacuum, I'd generally agree, but as it relates to this post, I don't.
  To some degree, everyone should have a mind to physical defense,
  For starters, we're talking about security, not self defence. So while yes, everyone who is able should learn some degree of self defence, not everyone can, or should not only be armed, but be given the power over others that comes with being armed.
  Rotate individuals
  A rotation doesn't solve the problem of violent and or power hungry misogynists (or racists, or queerphobes or so on, all of which exist on the left just like they do everywhere else in society) having a weapon and the power that comes with it.
  Not everyone should be given a weapon, it's as simple as that, and putting other members of the group at risk for the sake of superficial inclusion (read: soothing the fragile egos of power hungry people who refuse to even acknowledge their privilege, let alone check it) is not the solution.
  
  I don't think we're really that far apart here.
  At the end of the day, security is physical defense, use of force. That's the level to which conflicts can escalate.
  There's always risk, and depending on the circumstances, the participants present may see the risk of weaker security as greater than Specified Person standing guard. The ideas I put forward - rotation, low stakes "practice runs" - are not intended to eliminate risk, only to reduce it. Hell, security doesn't have to mean wieliding a firearm. Just a strong physical presence of multiple people can be enough. Batons, pepper spray, simple physical strength can all be put to use before firearms are.
  Definitely - someone you don't know shows up to your event with a bunch of tacticool gear and a rifle and says "I'll run security" - the fuck you will, pick up a shovel and start filling sandbags. But in cases where it's not so clear cut, and where there's a clear need for security, decisions would need to be made on the fly. Already having some ideas in mind about how to minimize risk wouldn't hurt.
- ¡Not It!
  <youHaveBeenMadeAnInstanceAdmin>
  ¡¡¡NOOOOOOOOO!!!!
'Ask them how many women they know trust them' Strange sort of question to go around asking people, maybe not the soundest vetting process
- Strange sort of question to go around asking people
  Not if you're prioritising the safety of women ¯(ツ)_/¯
  
  How would you even answer that? Guess? Say "hang on, let me go and ask all the women I know if they trust me"? By trust I'm assuming we mean 'feel safe around'. It's dumb to rely on self reported answers, particularly if you don't trust the interviewee in the first place (which the post clearly doesn't)
  
  If someone's coming in to be a bad actor, they'll just lie about how many women trust them. I can't think of a way to vet that sort of thing online.
- Yeah, expecting misogynists to self-report is pretty unlikely to work.
  
  You're missing the point - they are self reporting, even though they don't mean to. As you can see happening here - simply asking the question is enough for the worst types to weed themselves out by instantly getting defensive and prioritising their own feelings (which are at most of mild discomfort, but to them feel like violent oppression because they're used to always being centred and catered for) over the safety and equity of everyone in the group.
  The ones who pass this most superficial questioning without throwing a complete tantrum are automatically much more likely to fit the task at hand, and even if they aren't, at least they've proven to be capable of facing the most mild and indirect kind of criticism that exists, making them significantly more likely to be open to learning and improving.
- @scholar
  "‘Ask them how many women they know trust them’ Strange sort of question to go around asking people, maybe not the soundest vetting process"
  Yeah
  Really
  I mean, women only make up -- what is it now? -- one half of the human race?
  What would they know, and who would care?
  cc @ShareMySims
  
  It's (almost) funny how they think they're here taking some sort of brave stand against oppression, when in reality all they're doing is telling the rest of us that they don't see women as people. ¯(ツ)_/¯
  
  Go on then, how many women you know trust you?
Ask them to read some bell hooks
I don't think putting people through a "re-education" process is going to have the results you think it will.
However, this is an important point - having certain people monopolize the security function IS a pretty dangerous security risk in itself, and it would be a far better strategy to make this a perfectly understood and non-negotiable paradigm within the group than trying to subtly psyop certain individuals who may simply be too enthusiastic for their own good.
- Imagine turning "here, read this book" in to a "re-education" bogeyman to justify rejecting learning about intersectionality, in an anarchist community.
  You definitely shouldn't be allowed to work security.
  And thus, the mere suggestion has done its job.
  
  Imagine turning “here, read this book”
  Oh, look, it's the standard "read my fave Beardy McDeadguy's book" answer edgelords that are completely out of touch with the people they (purportedly) wish to liberate offers to those they assume to be too ideologically "impure" for their glorified counter-culture club they mistake for a political movement.
  Do you seriously think the CNT-FAI was built this way? Or the movements in Chiappas, or Rojava?
  bell hooks wrote her books to inform - not to be used as a way to purity test people because you don't know how to democratically normalize common-sense security measures in organizations.
- It's pretty obvious the point is to get an idea of what they think they are securing, and also their personal philosophy on things.
  
  A personal philosophy is a fine and dandy thing to have - but it's not much of a security measure to protect against the very thing OP says they are concerned about, is it now?
- some roles are always going to be more prone to exploitation than others, it's easier to monitor the police when you know who they are.
I'm in this post and I ~~don't like it~~ (jk) completely understand.
This isn't fantasizing about an unfamiliar future. We experienced this in 2020. The Boogaloo Boys and Rittenhouse were "security". Even the allies in the CHAZ made some bad calls.
I'm one of those who would like to be a protector, but no one should trust a stranger, and that is what I am.
In my experience, it is better to silently do good from the background without recognition than to proudly stand in front where people can try to bait you into a mistake, or misrepresent your good deeds.
Security personnel should have an attitude of service, not of leadership.
- In my experience, it is better to silently do good from the background without recognition than to proudly stand in front where people can try to bait you into a mistake, or misrepresent your good deeds.
  Security personnel should have an attitude of service, not of leadership.
  This is how it should be, unfortunately you're in the minority, and those who refuse to acknowledge that a revolution/community/society depends on all its members working together for the benefit of everyone, rather than a hero-focused action movie led by a single all-powerful "leader", out number you by quite a bit.
  Which is incredibly ironic in this specific community considering how the most basic idea of anarchism is to abolish hierarchy, yet all these men want to do is secure and maintain their position at the top of one.
  ETA: this is all why it's vital to fight all oppressive systems and view how they intersect (aka intersectionality), not just capitalism, and why class reductionism is so counterproductive and even dangerous for the marginalised members of the community/society at large.
One of the most basic reasons revolutions fail is that people love to be agreed with.

42 comments