The People's Forum: Texas in violation of the National Voter Registration Act
Issue #6: Jacob Blake's family speaks, we reflect on right-wing violence Kenosha, a Houston urban garden, and an op-ed on presidential electoralism from one of our members!
Community Updates
TPLF will continue with our Free Food Program this Tuesday, September 1, and we are looking for volunteers! We want to keep this program going, which means we need your hands on deck! Sign up here.
[Image description: An olive-green flyer for TPLF’s free food program, which reads simply, “Volunteers needed!” On the left, discolored cartoon avocados, bananas and drumsticks. On the right, a cropped photo of two unidentified women with bags from the Black Panther Party’s People’s Free Food Program. Photo credit: Stephen Shames, 1972.]
P.U.R.P. Houston is holding a Labor Day weekend of demonstrations, called Black Lives More Than Matter, from Sep. 4-7. A series of marches will take place throughout the greater Houston area, with a collective march to City Hall on Sep. 7th. For more information, see this Instagram post.
Exchange To Change, the chic-est thrift store in Houston, is getting the ball rolling on a new community garden. Show up to volunteer on Sunday evenings! They've also recently hosted a self-defense class specifically for the girls. Check their Facebook or website for upcoming events.
[Image description: A flyer for Exchange To Change’s urban garden. It reads, “Volunteer every Sunday, 7 to 9pm,” and gives the address, which is 3801 N. MacGregor Way. The text is over an avocado lime green blob superimposed over an urban garden rig. The rig consists of range, blue, green and yellow PVC pipes in a hydroponic setup, with vegetation sprouting from the valves.]
Life may have been moved online, but the struggle for freedom, justice, and equality for Palestinians must continue. Students for Justice in Palestine, Houston, is excited to invite you to our virtual first Fall General Body Meeting! We will be meeting via Zoom on September 1 at 6pm. (Register in advance here.) We’re so excited to get started this fall, and look forward to continuing the fight with you all! Join us next Tuesday to discuss SJP’s work, current events in Palestine, and how you can get involved with Students for Justice in Palestine! If you can't make it to the meeting, but still want to be involved or have questions, email us at sjphouston@gmail.com.
Get involved with the Asian Pacific American Labor Association and their Weekly Census Phone Banks, every Thursday 6pm-7:30pm! APALA and AFL-CIO has done a great job in trying to increase the reach of this year's Census, which is crucial to local and regional allocation of resources for many underserved communities here and dear to our hearts. If you're in Houston and would like to get involved, please contact sunee@gcaflcio.org to receive the zoom link and information. Since we are pushing for more language accessibility in reaching immigrant communities, we'd love if you would participate especially if you are bilingual or have friends/family that would like to volunteer. However, even if you only speak English, your support is very much appreciated!
News Around the Nation
This week, we watched the Kenosha Police Department attempt to murder Jacob Blake as he walked away from them toward his car.
He was arrested and handcuffed to his Milwaukee hospital bed until Friday. [BBC] We won't use this space to get into the details of the shooting; there's enough discourse floating around about how unjustified and illegal the cops' attack was. Suffice it to say that Jacob Blake was found guilty of being criminally Black, subjected to police terrorism, and hospitalized with seven bullets in his back. Until we can hear from Mr. Blake, we can listen to and read his family's words.
Mr. Blake's father, whose name is also James Blake, says that his grandchildren are "stuck" after watching from the back seat of the car as police attempted to kill their parent. Mr. Blake, Sr., says the family has begun to search for child psychologists, and Julia Jackson, Jacob Blake's mother, says she prays for physical, emotional and spiritual healing for her son and to "all of the citizens, [her] black and brown sisters and brothers."
Letetra Widman, one of Mr. Blake's sisters, demands change and not pity. "This has been happening to my family for a long time," she said in a press conference. "Emmett Till is my family. Philando. Mike Brown. Sandra." [Milwaukee Journal Sentinel]
The Blake family also has direct roots in Wisconsin's Civil Rights struggle. Jacob Blake's grandfather, the late Rev. Jacob Blake, Sr., won victories against redlining in Evanston, and pastored the Ebenezer AME Church. [CNN]
[Image description: Letetra Widman speaks into a bouquet of media microphones at the Blake family’s press conference this week. She looks to her right with an earnest expression, mid-sentence. Standing behind her are her two sisters. Zietha Blake wipes her eyes, and Megan Belcher looks on, her lower face in a surgical mask.]
You can listen to the Blake family's full press conference via TMJ4 News on YouTube.
We've also seen uprisings in Wisconsin as people vent their rage. Here are a couple of key points we want to highlight.
The two people shot dead in Kenosha on Tuesday night have names. Rest in peace, Anthony Huber and Joseph Rosenbaum. [The Intercept]
Police and right-wing militias are operating together. On Tuesday, an informal militia called the Kenosha Guard, issued a public call to arms that garnered thousands of RSVP's. It's unclear how many militia members were mobilized this week, but it is clear that they were warmly welcomed and thanked by police. [Wisconsin Examiner] "We appreciate what you guys are doing. We really do," an officer told Kyle Rittenhouse and other militia members from the loudspeaker of an armored vehicle. [Bay News 9]. And, as many have pointed out, footage shows the killer walking away from the crowd and through advancing police, who were less than a block away the whole time.
Police have continued to disappear people in Wisconsin, even in broad daylight. This tried-and-true tactic of American law enforcement is being used with more and more impunity. It isn't new, though, and has been employed in Ferguson, Standing Rock, Portland, and wherever else people challenge the police state. One instance this week involved several unmarked cars carring an unidentified mix of officers and federal marshalls. They trapped a van full of volunteer mutual aid workers at an intersection, smashed the van's windows, extracted its passengers, and were driving away with the now-impounded van within 90 seconds. [Seattle Eater, footage on Twitter]
Rittenhouse isn't being widely identified as a terrorist, although he mobilized with militia members and killed two people, wounding a third, all with an illegally possessed rifle. The U.S. plays fast and loose with words like "terrorist," especially when it comes to violence against Black lives. So instead, Rittenhouse is being called a "vigilante," "police supporter," or "volunteer." [The Guardian]. In Representative Ayanna Pressley's words, "fix your damn headlines."
"Gun control" is out, apparently. We notice a stark contrast between this week's media frenzy around Kenosha and the usual talking points about background checks and constitutional amendments. And yet this summer has seen record highs for American gun purchases [The Trace], correlated with increased militia activity. The usual liberal pundits seem less eager to ridicule America's mass preoccupation with self-arming. That being said, leftists across the country weren't waiting for permission. The John Brown Gun Club and the Socialist Rifle Association, among many other smaller groups, are promoting the creation of an armed movement for collective liberation. [Flatland, Pacific Standard]
Texas has been violating the National Voter Registration Act, a federal judge reaffirmed on August 28.
The law, also known as the Motor Voter Act, requires states to offer voter registration simultaneously with driver's license applications. Texas's Department of Public Safety complies with the law at in-person offices, but not online. Instead, DPS's online portal redirects its 1.5 million annual users to another website, where they have to fill out a voter registration form, print it out, and mail it into the county. [Austin-American Statesman] In a pandemic election year where the postal service is already backed into a corner, the online system is the only safe option for many Texans. Judge Orlando Garcia ordered Texas to set up an online system of voter registration by September 23. Garcia pointed out that DPS funnels people toward the online license system because of its convenience, and so it "cannot, at the same time, deny simultaneous voter registration applications when those online services are used." [Texas Tribune] This is all taking place while the League of Women Voters of Texas sounds the alarm that U.S. post offices in the state are refusing to let them leave voter registration materials there. Texas Secretary of State Ruth Hughs has apparently ignored the League's notification. [Houston Public Media]
Let's be clear: Texas officials are engaged in a chronic effort to block the expansion of voting access. Leaders have doubled down on their resistance to an effective online voter registration option. Attorney General Ken Paxton, who has proudly prosecuted voters for alleged fraud, says that "virtual" signatures on registration paperwork are unacceptable. He says they need to be physically written on paper in order to avoid election fraud. [San Antonio Express] On a separate note, Paxton has also promised to prosecute voters for "fraudulently" using absentee ballots in 2020. He says that fear of contracting COVID-19 doesn't amount to a sickness or a physical condition, so it's a fraudulent reason to vote by mail. [NPR]
Regardless of whether or not Texas starts complying with federal law, ballots will not save us. We don't want to conflate electoralism with true people's democracy, or pretend to be excited about a blue wave. See J’s op-ed to read more about That being said, expanded voting access would unquestionably mean more Democrat electoral wins, so it's a "battleground issue" for partisans. Paxton and Governor Abbott give us a glimpse of their fear, and true priorities, when they put up such resistance to even the most toothless democratic reforms (i.e., letting the whole state vote without hassle). On that note, Texas is likely to appeal Judge Garcia's decision in an effort to avoid complying with the September 23 deadline. It's unclear how an online registration would fit into the current timeline, in which Texans are supposed to use the USPS to mail in their voter registration applications before October 3.
Hurricane Laura fortunately missed Houston for the most part, but we shouldn't be too relieved. The hurricane still caused destruction and the deaths of at least six people in Louisiana and east Texas. [CNN] Many people in these rural communities have still lost their homes because of the hurricane. Sadly, these small towns will likely not see the same levels of sympathy and aid as large cities like Houston and New Orleans do during natural disasters. If the hurricane had hit here, it would've caused immense damage as storm surges damage infrastructure in our ship channel and to oil refineries. [Houston Chronicle] A storm the scale of Laura hitting Houston is an inevitability, especially with global warming worsening the effects of natural disasters. Our politicians are all seemingly apathetic about preventing these upcoming disasters, as shown by Sylvester Turner going along with plans to bulldoze over primarily black neighborhoods to expand I 45, a move that will severely worsen flooding in houston due to the paving over of more land. [Houston Chronicle]
Open Your Purse
Donate to the Black Futures Collective bail fund. They are a collective of Black organizers living and working in land called Yanawana, Somi Se'k, Gííahii, or San Antonio. Their work pushes the state toward defunding the police and (re)building community. Their recent protest for Damien Daniels, a 30 year old Black man who was murdered by the police, ended last night in multiple arrests. Donate to their bail fund via Venmo (@Blackfuturescollective-SA) or Cashapp ($BlackfuturesSATX).
A community organizer in Austin, TX is requesting mutual aid for rent. Grant is a longtime student organizer behind the Austin Community College Juneteenth celebrations. You can donate via Cashapp ($AmbitiousChild).
Local Houstonian Disha Khakheria is fundraising for their father's funeral. You can donate via GoFundMe, Venmo (@Disha-Khakheria), or Cashapp ($DishaKhakheria). If you can't donate, share it with your friends and family.
Lesser Evil, Same Empire
Check out The People’s Forum’s first ever op-ed, written by J! It’ll hit your inbox just like our weekly issues do.
Revolutionary Recs
Hearing a lot about Marx lately? Wishing you knew where to fucking start with Marxist-Leninist theory? Rius's Marx for Beginners distills and propagates Marx's life and thought in a graphic novel format. Read it for free here.
[Image description: Cover art for Anohni’s album HOPELESSNESS. A tight greyscale portrait of a model’s face and hair. They gaze into the camera, reflecting the studio light in their eyes. Their hair is windswept, black, and mullet-y. The image is seemingly out of focus, as if seen through two unfocused eyes. Photo credit: Inez van Lamsweerde & Vinoodh Matadin.]
Anohni's 2016 album HOPELESSNESS takes electro-pop catharsis and injects the fury of 21st century geopolitics. Her lyrics range from narrative to elegy, and deal with violence from a dozen different angles.
Thinking about gun ownership? Read James Pogue's longform essay "Good Guys with Guns," which details the author's experience joining the Socialist Rifle Association, and the nuances that come with stepping into the vicinity of right-wing American gun culture, while maintaining leftist politics.
Capitalist Realism by Mark Fisher: Much of the world we live in reflects a framework known as "Capitalist Realism", describing that it is often easier to "imagine the end of the world than to imagine the end of capitalism". Contemporary cultural products such as television and movies make it seem like the current economic structure has existed since premordial times, and in doing so make it difficult to imagine an alternative or to remember the histories of real-existing-alternative experiments that were tried in the past. The phrase "Capitalist Realism" was made popular by Mark Fisher/k-punk, a British cultural theorist and philosopher who described the concept in his book Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative?. What is often less-known however is that he was also a blogger who wrote extensively on radical politics and the events of his time. Although he is no longer alive to commentate on the looming destruction of capitalism wrought upon the world around us, his blog offers us insight on parallel events that happened relatively recently and might provide us some insight on what is unfolding before our eyes. Tap in here. We personally recommend his commentary how empire crafts atrocity propaganda to justify intervention in countries where it seeks to launch a regime chance as well as his occasional references to hauntology and Twin Peaks.