Don't Leave Your Friends Behind

Description

Don’t Leave Your Friends Behind is a collection of concrete tips, suggestions, and narratives on ways that non-parents can support parents, children, and caregivers in their communities, social movements, and collective processes. Don’t Leave Your Friends Behind focuses on issues affecting children and caregivers within the larger framework of social justice, mutual aid, and collective liberation.

How do we create new, nonhierarchical structures of support and mutual aid, and include all ages in the struggle for social justice? There are many books on parenting, but few on being a good community member and a good ally to parents, caregivers, and children as we collectively build a strong all-ages culture of resistance. Any group of parents will tell you how hard their struggles are and how they are left out, but no book focuses on how allies can address issues of caretakers’ and children’s oppression. Many well-intentioned childless activists don’t interact with young people on a regular basis and don’t know how. Don’t Leave Your Friends Behind provides them with the resources and support to get started.

Contributors include: The Bay Area Childcare Collective, Ramsey Beyer, Rozalinda Borcilă, Mariah Boone, Marianne Bullock, Lindsey Campbell, Briana Cavanaugh, CRAP! Collective, a de la maza pérez tamayo, Ingrid DeLeon, Clayton Dewey, David Gilbert, A.S. Givens, Jason Gonzales, Tiny (aka Lisa Gray-Garcia), Jessica Hoffman, Heather Jackson, Rahula Janowski, Sine Hwang Jensen, Agnes Johnson, Simon Knaphus, Victoria Law, London Pro-Feminist Men’s Group, Amariah Love, Oluko Lumumba, mama raccoon, Mamas of Color Rising/Young Women United, China Martens, Noemi Martinez, Kathleen McIntyre, Stacey Milbern, Jessica Mills, Tomas Moniz, Coleen Murphy, Maegan ‘la Mamita Mala’ Ortiz, Traci Picard, Amanda Rich, Fabiola Sandoval, Cynthia Ann Schemmer, Mikaela Shafer, Mustafa Shakur, Kate Shapiro, Jennifer Silverman, Harriet Moon Smith, Mariahadessa Ekere Tallie, Darran White Tilghman, Jessica Trimbath, Max Ventura, and Mari Villaluna.

Sujets

• Childcare
• Self-help
• Zine
• Relationship
• Community

Informations

• Publié par: PM Press
• Date de parution: 05 octobre 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781604867954
• Langue: English

Extrait

Praise for Don’t Leave Your Friends Behind:
"These self-identified ‘radical mothers’ have produced a powerful mixture of self-help and literature, putting ‘family values’ in a new light and on the agenda of social justice movements. And it’s not just self-help for radicals who are parents but food for everyone who seeks to become their better, more compassionate selves."
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, activist, author, teacher
"This book is mind-blowing, brilliant, and urgently needed! It is full of useful models and strategies for creating resistance that breaks down barriers to participation for children and people caring for children, and integrates deeply transformative commitments to building radically different activist culture and practice. This is a must-read for anyone trying to build projects based in collective action."
Dean Spade, author of Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics, and the Limits of Law
"Here is required reading of the utmost importance: essays that will help us all to get it right. Because what we want is for our children, when asked where did the movement, the occupation, the resistance, the revolution go, to answer, after looking around them at the world we have so thoughtfully created, that it is right here, in ‘places like this.’"
Katherine Arnoldi, author of The Amazing True Story of a Teenage Single Mom
"Activist mothers Law and Martens propose that radical movements interested in winning must welcome parents and their children the youngest rabble-rousers. They have created a practical guide for us all to do just that, but with zero guilt trips and moralizing. Don’t Leave Your Friends Behind puts teeth into the slogan ‘Another World Is Possible’ by showing us what a healthy left might look like."
James Tracy coauthor of Hillbilly Nationalists, Urban Race Rebels, and Black Power: Community Organizing in Radical Times
"Don’t Leave Your Friends Behind is an essential resource for the interdependence revolution in progress. As a queer, chronically ill woman of color who loves and needs the parents and kids in my communities, I am hungry for these on-the-ground stories of how parents, allies, comrades, fam and friends are rewriting the world by refusing to hold mamas, papis, and kids anywhere but at the center of our movements and communities, where we’re supposed to be."
Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, coeditor of The Revolution Starts at Home: Confronting Intimate Violence in Activist Communities
"Finally! Don’t Leave Your Friends Behind is a resource we have long since needed to make the world we deserve which is full with love, and parents and kids and time and space and intentionally taking care of each other. Get ready for a cooler, more accessible, more possible and purposeful intergenerational movement. Get ready to win!"
Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Broken Beautiful Press, Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind, and Queer Black Mobile Home Coming Project.
"Activists talk about creating a better world for future generations yet often neglect the needs of children and parents in their midst. Don’t Leave Your Friends Behind is a poignant, powerful, and much-needed reminder of how movements can raise their own awareness and that crucial next generation of activists as well."
Randall Amster, author of Anarchism Today and executive director of the Peace and Justice Studies Association
"Don’t Leave Your Friends Behind is an inspiring call to action for social justice communities globally. It is shows us not only why but how we should not merely ‘tolerate’ children and parents in our activist communities, it shows, through honest and illuminating stories, that centering them in our communities and movements strengthens our work and our analysis. I cannot wait to be able to hand a copy of this book to many nonparent activist friends and say, ‘See, this is a vision of the future that is too beautiful not to struggle for.’"
Mai’a Williams, editor of Outlaw Midwives zine

Don’t Leave Your Friends Behind: Concrete Ways to Support Families in Social Justice Movements and Communities © 2012 by Victoria Law, China Martens, and the individual contributors
This edition © 2012 by PM Press
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be transmitted by any means without permission in writing from the publisher.
ISBN: 978-1-60486-396-3
Library of Congress Control Number: 2012945336
Interior design by Antumbra Design/Antumbradesign.org
Cover design by Josh MacPhee
Cover illustration by Melanie Cervantes
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
PM Press
PO Box 23912
Oakland, CA 94623
www.pmpress.org
Printed in the USA on recycled paper, by the Employee Owners of Thomson-Shore in Dexter, Michigan. www.thomsonshore.com
An earlier version of "Audacious Enough Mama" was originally published on the blog Fabulosa Mujer. "Fathering the World" first appeared in Rad Dad issue #2. "The Red Crayon" originally appeared in HipMama magazine #40. "How to Build Community That Involves Single Parents" was originally published on the blog Hermana Resist. "Mami vs. Mommy, Mami’hood vs. Motherhood: What Do Mami Movements Need?" was originally published on the blog Mamita Mala: One Bad Mami http://www.lamamitamala.com/blog/?p=401 . "A Message from Mamas of Color Rising" originally appeared on the Mamas of Color Rising blog: http://mamasofcolorrising.wordpress.com/2010/06/ . An earlier version of "Experiencing Critical Resistance 10 (CR10) Through the Children’s Program" originally appeared on the SPARK Reproductive Justice NOW website: http://www.sparkrj.org/ . "Whose City? KIDZ CITY!" originally appeared in the Indypendent Reader #12 (spring/summer 2009). "An Open Letter to Movement Men" was originally published on the website for the Bay Area Childcare collective. "Men Running Childcare" originally appeared on the London Pro-Feminist Men’s Group blog: http://londonprofeministmensgroup.blogspot.com/2009/04/men-running-childcare.html . "This Poem Is in Honor of Mothers," "Homefulness" and "Un Corazon separado por una frontera" originally appeared in Poor Magazine. "Accessibility" was first published in Cripchick’s Blog: http://blog.cripchick.com/archives/2910 .
Contents
Preface
Chapter 1: Challenging the Status Quo
Audacious Enough Mama by Fabiola Sandoval
Fathering the World by Tomas Moniz
We’re Here … We’re Queer … and That’s Not All by Rei
Doing It Together: An Interview with Diana Block on Childcare, Movement Support, and Parenting Underground by Victoria Law
Chapter 2: Building Blocks
The Red Crayon by Jessica Trimbath
La Casita Is Ours! A Conversation with Children in Struggle by Rozalinda Borcilã
New Kids on the Block by Ramsey Beyer
Lactivists Do It Better: What Radical Parents’ Allies Can Learn from La Leche League International by Mariah Boone
The Unfinished Universe by Darran White Tilghman
Chapter 3: What’s Gender, Race, and Class Got to Do with It?
This Poem Is in Honor of Mothers by Tiny a.k.a. Lisa Gray-Garcia
Is Everyone at the Table? An Interview with Noemi Martinez, Fabiola Sandoval, and Maegan "la Mamita Mala" Ortiz Three Single Mother of Color Media Makers by Victoria Law and China Martens
How to Build a Community That Involves Single Parents by Noemi Martinez
Mami vs. Mommy, Mami’hood vs. Motherhood: What Do Mami Movements Need? by Maegan "la Mamita Mala" Ortiz
Support Can Be Conditional When You’re Trans or Queer: An Interview with Katie Kaput and Jennifer Fichter by Victoria Law
Performing Allyship: Notes from a Queer Migrant Parent by a de la maza pérez tamayo
On Fear and Commitments by Mustafa Shukur
Chapter 4: Collective Action
A Message from Mamas of Color Rising and Young Women United: Mother’s Day, 2010
Reclaim the Commons by Maxina Ventura
Experiencing Critical Resistance 10 (CR10) Through the Children’s Program by Kate Shapiro
Whose City? KIDZ CITY! by Sine Hwang Jensen, Harriet Moon Smith, and China Martens
Homefulness by Tiny, a.k.a. Lisa Gray-Garcia
Mothers Among Us: The Prison Birth Project by Marianne Bullock
Organizing within an Anarcha-Feminist Childrearing Collective by CRAP! Collective
An Open Letter to Movement Men by David Gilbert
Men Running Childcare by London Pro-Feminist Men’s Group
Continuing the Struggle: Lessons Learned from Mothers and Children in Zapatista Communities by Victoria Law
Chapter 5: Lists, Lessons, and Concrete Tips for Supporting Children and Caregivers
Tips on How to Support Your Friend During Pregnancy by Jessica Hoffmann
Taking Care of Your Friends Postpartum by Clayton Dewey
Babyproofing for Punks by Clayton Dewey
Supporting Your Friend Who Lost Their Newborn Infant by Mikaela Shafer
Concrete Things You Can Do to Support Parents and Children in Your Scene: Suggestions Brainstormed at La Rivolta!, an Anarcha-Feminist Conference in Boston, 2006
Lessons from Planning Radical Childcare by China Martens
Radical Childcare Collective Start-Up Notes by Amariah Love
Wizards Around the Rainbow by Encian Pastel & the Bay Area Childcare Collective
Activities for Children by Rahula Janowski, China Martens, and Victoria Law
Creating Family Space by Jason Gonzales, Revolutionary Parenting Caucus, and a-parenting listserv
Don’t Forget Familiez on the Rez! by Mari Villaluna
Concrete Ways to Support Parents and C