talking about the idea of "tactical fursuit", I was asked why antifa wear black rather than camo. there's many reasons, some overt, some unconfessed, some good some bad.

first there's no good urban camo because urban environments are too diverse in colours and lines, if you do gray for concrete you stand out in a shopping mall or red bricks or park. the good urban camo in non-war situations is "gray man" camo—jeans and white T-shirt and a baseball cap, or whatever passes as "normal" to blend in the crowd. antifa often have these underneath their black clothes, or in a backpack to quickly change after a protest. I was once being pursued by a harasser (just annoying not dangerous) and went into a toilet, they stayed outside waiting for me, I walked out right next to them, they were still l waiting for me to come out and missed me completely. changing the vibe of your outfit can fuck up people's expectations.

then there's black bloc, which is where the idea of "antifa=black uniform" comes from. there's a lot of misunderstandings about how this works. it's not that you want clothes that will make you perfectly anonymous, this is more or less impossible in surveillance society. rather imagine there's a protest and the cops want to punish someone who burned a car. well cops can't be everywhere all the time so all they have is footage from a nearby security camera. if the person is isolated it may still be possible to identify them, if not by the specific black clothes they're wearing, then by stuff like DNA traces. but if there was a mass of black-clad bodies and one among dozen of hoodies lifts a hand to throw a molotov, the few underexposed pixels are really hard to pin on a specific person. the power of black bloc happens in groups, black is ideal for literal and metaphorical blurring of lines. therefore "black" "bloc", emphasis on "bloc".

black clothes can also be useful at night, of course, but less than one would think—it's never really dark in a city, and black outfits stand out. (think about it—if there's gray mottled buildings and you're wearing a gray mélange that matches it in tone, then at night when the buildings get darker, your sweater will also get darker to the same amount). if it's dark enough that there's a lot of shadows they become actually hard to see, but this is highly situational, usually you just draw attention in all black.

however that brings up another reason, one that people don't like to admit even though it's not necessarily bad: group identity, signalling, and intimidation. the State does the same thing, like reserving certain types of camo for certain special squads, which wouldn't make sense if it was the most effective camo—it's about a hit in morale. cops in the Americas use the "multicam black" specifically to project authority, it's not really camouflaging anything, it's social engineering. people _know_ that antifas are supposed to wear black, and we want the nazis to feel threatened when they see a gang of black hoodies turn the corner. can attest it works.

and finally black is just easy, almost everybody has black clothes lying around, if you want everyone who's going to the counterprotest to fork off money and time to dress in Phantomleaf WASPII Z4 you're going to have a bad time. punks and goths and metalheads all already wear black clothes anyway, Marie who has to dress exclusively fem-coded clothes for gender reasons has a whole range of choices, so does Josefine who doesn't wear animal fibres nor synthetics, Mohammed who is anti-consumerist and hasn't bought clothes since 1994, Asuman whose body shape is considered "non-standard" by the fashion industry, Vanessa who has clothing restrictions during Pessach, Dongmei who is new to the scene and only has party outfits—in every situation, it's much easier to procure black than any sort of specialised tactical thing. and remember we benefit from numbers.

1/2

Die Aktion ist beendet, alle Menschen wurden mittlerweile durch das Höheninterventionsteam aus Hamburg geräumt und wurden in die Gefangenensammelstelle (GESA) gefahren. Ihnen werden absurde Vorwürfe gemacht.

Nicht nur in Kiel gab es heute Protest in Solidarität mit Maja T.

#freethemall
#Freemaja
#Kiel
#Budapest
#Maja
#FreeAllAntifas

What do you love to do most—so much so that you'd gladly give away the results, if only you could spend your life doing it?

What if other people, by doing what they love, could enable you to do what you want to do?

That's the dream at the heart of the gift economy. 💝🏴

You can read more about it in our text revisiting the difference between mutual aid and charity:

https://crimethinc.com/RevolutionaryMutualAid

Wir sind heute hier auf dem Kieler Landtag aus Solidarität mit Maja!

Maja ist seit einem Jahr in Ungarn in Isolationshaft und hat gestern einen 40-tägigen Hungerstreik pausiert. Maja wurde, wie es das Bundesverfassungsgericht beschloss, rechtswidrig nach Ungarn ausgeliefert - in einen Staat, der Majas Identität als nicht binäre Person nicht anerkennt; in einen faschistischen Staat, der Maja als antifaschistische Person bereits vorverurteilt hat. Maja sitzt unter menschenunwürdigen Bedingungen in Haft, die Maja dazu gezwungen haben, in den Hungerstreik zu treten. Auch, wenn Maja den Hungerstreik pausiert hat, ist es wichtiger denn je, Druck aufzubauen und Maja endlich nach Hause zurück zu holen. Wir erwarten, dass sich die Politiker*innen dafür einsetzen diese Folter zu beenden und Majas Forderungen umzusetzen. Das ist nichts neues und auch nichts radikales. Wir erwarten die Einhaltung der Menschenrechte, mit denen sich deutsche Politiker*innen immer schmücken.

#freemaja #freeallantifas

Two of my close friends need your help! They have been partners for several years and are working on moving in together - they have a new apartment lined up and everything.

However: The current apartment complex one of them lives in (HUD disability housing) has a recurring bedbug problem that the owners don't seem particularly interested in properly treating - friend has been doing their own treatments at their own expense for a while now. My friends do not want to bring bedbugs to their new place. Thus, they are going to have to pay for thorough bedbug treatment, preventive measures for the new place, and replacement furniture out-of-pocket. They've been crunching to save up on their own, but they need help.

They have set up a gofundme to help close the last stretch of costs before their move-in date in August. As of this posting they're at $4527 / $6000 total - they're asking for help with the remaining $2000 $1430. (As of edit time, they are at $754!!)

Please boost and send your love, they've both been through very much and deserve to have a good clean peaceful place together!

https://www.gofundme.com/f/tara-nicoles-bedbugfree-journey

@mutualaid

#mutualaid #MutualAidRequest #transmutualaid #disabledmutualaid #housing #housingaid #gofundme #gofundmecampaign