For individuals who want to join our collective
We are an affinity group of individuals who came together and started to work with each other since the 2022 UC grad strike. Throughout the past year, we have built a community of deep care and mutual trust, which we treasure immensely. Therefore, for folks interested in joining, we would like to clarify how this group works in terms of organizing principles.
First thing first, we ask you to decenter the fetishism of big numbers, mass, and feel-good performance in social movements, and instead tapping more into the slow, small, patient, and long-term spadework needed in this. We want you to be prepared and be ok with feeling alone sometimes, with the tedious and sometimes boring aspect of political collective liberation work, with being misunderstood and left out by social normality, with confusion about your own emotions, and with feeling like the “weird” one. We want you to ground yourself with this brief speech by James Baldwin, on how love has never been a popular movement:
Second, we came together mostly as complete strangers to each other, and with the sole purpose to bring in marginalized voices, foster a community of mutual aid, collective learning and critical analysis, critique career union staffs’ conservative bargaining tactic and undemocratic procedure, designing and taking collective direct actions against the military-prison-academic industrial complex, and building larger campaigns together with other groups. This means that we don’t define affinity groups as individuals being lovey-dovey and uncritically loyal with each other. We center the issues at hand, not our egos. We honor radical friendships and actions, not relationships and work as addictive coping mechanisms.
Third, we are a group of misfits in our own departments, families, classes, disciplines, etc. This means that we adopt each other and prioritize characteristics that the society and the state wage constant psychological warfares against. With this in mind, we recommend the list of traits to be prioritized in friendship according to the @abolishtheusa account in this post.
“It can be important to prioritize friends who:
1). access their capacities and show up in all or possible ways they can; 2). take risks and do not let security fear immobilize them – but instead strengthen their operation security (OPSEC); 3). support armed & militant resistance; 4). ask their comrades for help in developing effective strategies”
Fourth, we honor the making and continuous conversations of our community agreements, as a way to respect and care for one another, as well as communicating our needs, conditions, capacities, comfortability, boundaries, concerns, histories, conflict resolution styles, cultures, and more. We are committed to continuously learning about each other and how to work with each other intimately, instead of designing universalizable rules and impose on each other. Let us know if you would like to look at what our current agreements look like.
Fifth, we have a vetting & onboarding process for new members. This means that new folks will be brought to our collective through a word of mouth and slow introduction process. We value existing members’ safety and want to ensure that everyone in the group is okay with you joining. Once the vetting process is done, you will be welcome to the group through our onboarding events, in which you will be introduced to other group members, our current projects, and discuss things, skills, and ideas you want to bring to this group.
Sixth, a list of red lines we would like you to honor:
1). We do not reward or tolerate any forms of gatekeeping, or claims to “expertise.” We are all always learning and unlearning, and we do not see knowledge as something that anyone “owns.” For example, dismissing someone’s points or arguments as less valid because they are not “empirically-based,” or use so-called “incorrect grammar,” has absolutely no place in this group. [[We do, however, love us an oxford comma]].
2). While we are indeed committed to constant collective learning and knowledge sharing, our commitments do not include coddling folks with “liberal” politics and tendencies, or expending our collective efforts and energy on “teaching” folks who are committed to engaging with the State. Respectfully, if you are interested in solutions that rely on State and institutional structures (e.g., voting, seeking institutional validation, or using “respected” and “legitimate” channels)—or if you believe in the salvageability of the US, the UC, or any other imperial enterprise—then this space is simply not for you.
3). if your visions and definitions of safety and accountability are tied to the police and State structures, this space is not for you. We do not call on or coordinate with the police, for safety or anything else. We also do not make decisions or moves, as individuals, that would in any way predispose other members of the collective to contact with the police or other State/university agents. Confidentiality and accountability to one another is of utmost importance; this means no snitching, no gossiping, and no spreading information about our collective to/through institutional channels, including UCI faculty (unless explicitly decided upon by the collective).
4). Racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, fatphobia, casteism, colorism, Islamophobia, xenophobia, and antisemitism [see above] and other forms of violence and hate have no place in this collective. (Likewise, If you believe that anti-Zionism is anti-semitism, this space is not for you). We understand that each of these ideological systems are deeply entrenched in our society, and emerge in numerous, and at times unintended or unconscious ways. Because we also reject carceral logics of disposability, we hold each other accountable in ways that attempt to transform the systemic roots of harm as they emerge in our intimate relationships and everyday lives (see community agreements); in other words, we will not throw you away for honest mistakes. However, folks who demonstrate an unwillingness to be held accountable will be asked to leave the collective. Because we do not rely on the police and other State structures, it is imperative that we keep us safe.
For groups that might be interested in working together with us
If you are a group on UCI campus, in the UC system, in OC, and/or elsewhere, who wants to connect with us based on the principles we stated in our mission statement and the projects we engage in, please read the following.
First of all, we have a set of red lines and boundaries that we would like you to respect. This will be the foundation of any continuous conversations between us, and we encourage you to communicate yours as well. These include but are not limited to:
- respect our red lines and boundaries
- do not police our politics
- telling us what’s more respectable to the system, which of our action is out of line,
- and/or literally working with the police against us
- or buying into the carceral counter-terrorist logic of the state, etc.
- do not platform people who have been proven extremely harmful to our communities, especially BIPOC on our campus
- such as (liberal and conservative) zionists,
- union admin caucus,
- the UC administration,
- and the UCPD
- do not parachute our existing campaigns and projects to
- take credits
- or perform insincere solidarity
- do not project hierarchical structures and transactional logics onto your relationship with us, including
- condescending lecturing,
- expecting submissiveness,
- demanding gratitude,
- tokenizing our identities,
- disproportionate risk-taking
Rank and File Irvine 