[sudo-discuss] Ladders, tables, and other horizontal surfaces

[Patrick Schmidt]

Dear Rachel,
It is nice to hear from you and your farewell makes me sad as well.
You and me have similar motives,
My agenda was always to help Sudo open up to the community.
And for this I always brought my diverse friends.
It makes me sad that something made you fear to bring your friends,
But I can understand, especially in the beginning of sudo, we had this hard
grip
Of divisive and regulative spirits, but this is long gone.
A lot has changed since you don't come anymore, Sudo DID change socially
And we are as diverse as never before.
I wonder what triggered you to write the email.
Just in case it was a certain person contacting you and talking about a
divided community,
About Jenny and Mark conspiring for getting a grant and to have a non
profit,
Then I would love to speak up.
In any case, I hope you think about it, I hope you stick around, bring your
friends,
And help plant the seeds for a better future.
Much love,
Patrick

Am Dienstag, 19. November 2013 schrieb rachel lyra hospodar <
rachelyra at gmail.com>:
> It's good to know if there is a neighbor that a lot of people are having
scary interactions with. I have heard a lot of communities talk about how
to balance 'not talking trash' with 'naming names' as a way to balance the
safety of all. There is no absolute solution. In a diverse community some
members may have radically different experiences interacting with different
neighbors and it is good to share them. Sometimes I learn that someone who
was nice to me was mean to my friends, and then I have a decision to make.
Without that information I don't have the option of supporting that friend.
>
> The other email I mention was in response to gtwog's comment about crime,
to which rhodey had also responded.
>
> Thanks for sharing your experience around the community response to the
Zimmerman verdict. I also distinctly remember that there were a very few
vanguard anarchists holding up signs advocating violence, but most everyone
else had an entirely different and unified agenda. It was heartbreaking to
be in that march, affirming and rejuvenating but solemn as all get out. In
the moment it was easy for many of us to see that marching was the right
thing to do. But in the weeks, months, and years that follow, how do we
work within our own lives to subvert the status quo? Do we? How do we
prevent more senseless killings, like those of Renisha McBride and Trayvon
Martin and so many others? We can.
>
> I believe that the demonizing of criminal actors plays an insidious part
in reinforcing amerika's modern apartheid state, and while we are
encouraging open and inclusive space we need to work constantly to create
an environment that does not perpetuate toxic horrors like racial
segregation and class war.
>
> We need to work constantly towards this, and create an environment where
we call each other out. We need to be open to critique.
>
> R.
>
> On Nov 18, 2013 12:17 PM, "David Keenan" <dkeenan44 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi Rachel,
> That's a beautiful story about joining the Trayvon march. I marched
through west oakland the night of the verdict, and the next, and the next.
Watching people come out of their houses to join in, walking off the courts
and playing fields to join, was a pretty awesome thing.
> For the record since I guess we are naming names, the neighbor with the
menacing demeanor I was referring to was Robert with the dog, not Timon,
but whatevs.
> I'll look for your other email you mention, too.
> best,
> David
>
> On Mon, Nov 18, 2013 at 10:01 AM, rachel lyra hospodar <
rachelyra at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi david, thanks for your response! I will come by this week and retrieve
my objects.
>
> I am inferring a sort of farewell to Sudo, as I haven't been by in some
time and I find within myself a resistance to doing so. I don't mean to
impugn the best efforts of the many folks who work hard to continually feed
& grow this community. There are a lot of awesome things about Sudo, and
even though i have to break up with you I know we'll each go on to find the
happiness, with others, that we both deserve.
>
> I don't want to spend a bunch of time detailing negative things, naming
names and rehashing past events that I am not seeking resolution for. The
folks who touched and accosted me that I mentioned in particular, are not
landlord George or neighbor Timon, even though they both do yell a lot in a
manner that I find wildly inappropriate. My concerns about people and
culture are not so limited in scope here.
>
> Perhaps the other email I just sent to the list will help to illustrate
another cultural divide I feel exists between where I stand, and Sudo room.
I think that an organization like this, forming in the time and place that
it has, bears a great burden of responsibility towards the city & cultures
around it. I make no commentary on where each of you are on this journey.
>
> Here is an anecdote about my relationship with Oakland.
>
> I live right by West Oakland Bart. The house is owned by nameless Chinese
investors who bought it with cash after it was foreclosed on during the
single biggest extraction of wealth from the Black American community,
ever. Management is handled by a local company who routinely break the law.
They were excited to rent to my friend who has a lucrative software job,
and I live in the basement like some sort of loony art nut add-on. It's
pretty sweet if I don't think about that whole foreclosure thing or the
fact that the lease is written in such a way to be able to kick us out
whenever they want. I also don't think too much about the white friend who
bought a house down the street, who lamented how he couldn't buy this one
because the Chinese offered cash. He and I both deserve places to live,
after all.
>
> After George Zimmerman was freed, marches went past my house every day.
These were 'neighborhood' folks, a word many often use as a euphemism for
black. The marchers were overwhelmingly African-American. In a nation
marked by endemic and enduring anti-black racism and a constant narrative
of black violence and crime, in a city with a provedly violent and racist
police force, at a time with high tensions and no relief valve, I think the
racial makeup of a group performing political protest is an interesting
piece of data.
>
> I stood in my front yard, behind the stout gate that came with the place,
looking at the backs of phalanxes of mostly white officers who were
flanking this spontaneous-seeming march.  I wondered what would happen if I
joined it. I felt so much anger around that verdict!  It was not an angry
crowd but a solemn one, but still I wondered how anger might manifest to
others.  But I looked at the police, between me and that march, and I knew
I was on the wrong side. Whatever might happen within that crowd, they were
speaking opposition and for my voice to be counted I had to join them.
>
> I opened my gate and went outside. I pushed past the police.
>
> I joined my community.
>
> R.
>
> On Nov 13, 2013 8:04 AM, "David Keenan" <
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