Welcome to the first antifa post of the blog! (I don’t care if you don’t like “antifa” as a name, it means anti-fascist and if you’re not against fascists, you don’t belong on this website.)

The title of this post is heavily inspired by “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House” by Audrey Lorde, a piece of anarchist literature that I HEAVILY recommend reading, that you can find for free online, at the Anarchist Library. These words are all my own though, and a seperate conversation from the book.

So, how do you “dismantle the Master’s house”, and what even is the “Master’s house” to begin with? Well, the “Master” in this case is a metaphor for the ruling class, the rich and powerful that own the world, and the poor folks living on “their” land. I’m talking governments, CEOs, billionaire yacht freaks; the ones at the top who decide who lives and who dies. The “Master’s house” is the system designed to oppress the working class: the two class law system, the once-public places bought out and basically rented back to the community, capitalism. I could go on about how awful capitalism is, but the gist of it is that we live in a society driven by the idea that “anyone can get rich if they try hard enough”, and that centers around the individual, promiting stepping on people’s heads to be at the top, when in reality the 1% are like a superhero telling a Make-a-wish kid that one day they could be super too. Except we’re the sickly Make-a-wish children, and the CEOs are only super in the way that Homelander is a superhero.

Anyways, there are a couple tools I want to give you, the reader, to help us all dismantle the Master’s house. I’ll list them here for organization sake.

• Anarchist calisthenics
• Intersectionality
• Community

We’ll start with the first item on the list, “Anarchist Calisthenics”.

So, what even are anarchist calisthenics? It’s a term coined by the book Two Cheers for Anarchism by James C. Scott, and it’s a simple idea. One day you will have to make a big decision, you will have to break a big law or rule to do what’s right, and you have to prepare for that day if you’re going to be ready. So, every day, break a small law, rule, or social norm that you don’t agree with, and exercise your critical thinking skills. It doesn’t have to be a big thing, it can be jaywalking, piracy, lane filtering. It can be dying your hair a really garrishly bright color, dancing in public, loitering at the grocery store. Small things, little tiny exercises that teach you to think about why you are or aren’t doing things. Remember, laws are a terrible guide for morality, so you need to be conscious of who’s telling you what to do, and why.

Anarchist calisthenics are cool, but fighting for and improving yourself is the first step. A very important one, but activism without intersectionality isn’t activism. So, what is intersectionality?? It’s a little more straightforward than the last tool I gave you, it’s quite literally just the overlap between groups, specifically in our case, marginalized groups. Are you fighting for women’s rights? Then you’re also fighting for gay and trans rights, because not fighting for those rights means giving your oppressors the tools to oppress you. If you let them come for your neighbors, friends, and family, they’ll come for you. It’s the same fight over and over again, so let’s fight to keep our rights, and not just earn them.

Finally, building off of intersectionality, we have the much wider concept of community. Community is your greatest tool, it’s the gun in your holster, the bullet in the chamber. Capitalism is built on individuality, seperating people from their communities and teaching them that it’s a dog eat dog world, and if you aren’t stepping on heads, you’re not making it in life. Do things for your community, reach out to your neighbors and make friends with strangers. Even if they aren’t on the exact same page as you, (as long as you’re safe) sometimes all it takes is for a bigot to meet the people they don’t understand. Only sometimes though, I’m not saying that we can fix everything with friendship and rainbows, but a little bit of community goes a long way, and a lot of community is how we dismantle the Master’s house.

Fight on for your friends, family, neighbors, community, and yourself. Don’t ever let them take away our rights, and remember that in these very very trying times, fascists are mortal, and dictators don’t last forever.