Apoc

[abbielives!]

http://illvox.org/

[YSR]

Good folks doing good things. Nice to see these folks still organizing.

[bcbm]

Meh, I find a lot of what APOC does to be rooted in pretty bad identity politics. I know at the Bash Back! Convergence in Chicago, they derailed the planning session for multiple hours to bring up what amounts to a load of horse shit. Beyond that, they aren't very good in engaging people in discussion on controversial issues; it seems like if they critique you they basically want you to tow the line and shut up.

Not to mention they support national liberation struggles.

[YSR]

A lot of the stuff on illvox is really good. That's not to say that some of it isn't totally shitty. I have no experience with people who are part of "APOC" as a group so I don't know anything about that.

[bcbm]

Yes, there is some good stuff on illvox, but a lot of garbage too and I think APOC's politics in general are pretty crappy. I haven't had a terrible many experiences with them, but those I have had have not been positive. There was a major issue with some images for the RNC stuff they brought up at Bash Back! in Chicago and I have tried to discuss the issue with them, with no response at all.

[decolonize]

Some responses seem to muddle what APOC is and how it is conceived to many of its supporters.

APOC is a political tendency that emerged in 2001 and is not a group or formalized set of politics. Some basic tenets are posted at the illvox site:

APOC is an autonomous set of politics. Recurring themes in APOC’s politics include, but are not limited to:


Grassroots organizing and agitating with/among communities of color around relevant issues.
Building a revolutionary autonomous politics inspired by people of color, with respect to our voices, experiences and perspectives.
Advocating global self-determination for people of color, including cultural respect in the context of anti-authoritarian ideals, and confrontation of white supremacy and white privilege.
Supporting creation of organizing and political space for people of color, including people of color-only spaces.
Demanding that political movements must sincerely and actively serve the needs of communities of color and impart anti-authoritarian politics in the process.

APOC supporters like Ashanti Alston openly support revolutionary nationalism, but contextualize it a little more intelligently than "they support national liberation struggles." Alston's widely circulated piece, "Beyond Nationalism But Not Without It" lays it out this way:
Nationalism and statism are different in that nationalism can be anti-state. But they can have commonalities in that nationalism may only be against a particular kind of state, such as a Racist State, or a Fascist State. Anarchism and nationalism are similar in that they are both anti-statist, but what does it mean when the specific anarchist movements within a specific country are racist and dismissive of any and all nationalism, be it reactionary or revolutionary???? For me, even the nationalism of a Louis Farrakhan is about saving my people, though it is also thoroughly sexist, capitalist, homophobic and potentially fascist. Yet, it has played an important part in keeping a certain black pride and resistance going. Their "on the ground" work is very important in keeping an anti-racist mentality going. As a black anarchist, that's MY issue to deal with cuz they'se MY FOLKS. But it points to where anarchism and nationalism have differences, and that is in anarchists having NO understanding of what it means to be BLACK in this fucked up society. We do not have the luxury of being so intellectual about this excruciating boot on our collective neck, this modern-day middle-passage into the Prison Industrial Complex, this…that…this…that.

As a postmodernist anarchist, identity politics is important to me. Go back to Audre Lorde's quote. Every time I hear someone talk about my people as if we are just some "working class" or "proletariat" I wanna get as far away from that person or group as possible, anarchist, Marxist, whatever. As a postmodernist anarchist I also find my people's experience the font from which we will find our way to liberation and power. That's what I get from being the "insurrection of subjugated knowledges." My nationalism gave me that kind of pride because it was such a rejection of White thinking or at least a decentering of the primacy of white thought, capitalist, socialist, whatever. I say this to say that folks outside of our experience need to respect that they aint got no monopoly on revolutionary thinking and dam sure aint got none on revolutionary practice. It is easy to sit back and intellectualize about our nationalism from the modernist, eurocentric framework of rational, scientific, materialist models. While one does that, it is our nationalism which constantly rally our people come together, remember our history, love ourselves, dream on and fight back. Black anarchists and anti-authoritarian revolutionaries understand the limitations of nationalism in terms of its historical sexism, hierarchy, or its modernist trappings in general. But we also recognize anarchism modernist trappings in the form of American racist privilege when it comes to people of color.
There have been a number of conflicts in the recent past between some whites and APOC supporters related to complaints of cultural/racial appropriation and awareness. Not knowing the details, I can't say who was right or wrong, though I would certainly encourage fairness, e.g. one person's "load of horse shit" is another's important matter regarding racism or said appropriation. Even when we don't agree, dealing with things in a way that encourages rather than squelches dialog seems to be a better way of demonstrating our anti-authoritarian solidarity. :D