interview with two convergence organizers begins last half-hour

http://archives.ckut.ca/64/20120802.17.00-18.00.mp3

info:
nooneisillegal.org
www.twitter.com/nooneisillegal
www.facebook.com/NoOneIsIllegalMontreal
nooneisillegal@gmail.com

We had around 150 people show up; we feasted on vegan gumbo, partied (in a safer fashion), exchanged stories and strategies, toured the city and planned for the zombie apocalypse.

Do stay in touch! (And maybe there’ll be more such gatherings to come? Let us know!)

xoxo

APOCalypse 2012 organizers

Survival Strategies for the New Millennium
July 12th – 15th, 2012
New Orleans, Louisiana

Aah, it’s the moment we’ve all been waiting for: While current paradigms of social, political and economic oppression thrash against their imminent demise, taking the planet down with them, we have an opportunity to rise through the cracks and build a new future.

APOCalypse will gather people of color to discuss, build and share radical anti-authoritarian practices based on autonomy, egalitarian relationships, and justice. This July, we hope to bring together a couple hundred friends, comrades, family members and strangers to New Orleans, Louisiana, to celebrate, re-map, and craft our anti-authoritarian visions and skills for the years to come.

Through parties, plenaries, workshops, panels, roundtables and space for impromptu discussions, we hope to create space to discuss what it means to organize as anarchists; the future of indigenous solidarity; people-of-color movement history; science fiction; queerness; and conversations on racialization. We’ll have childcare, a kids’ track, an elders’ circle, and a healing justice center to stay sane and together for the long run.

We, as Anarchist People of Color (APOC), share a loose set of politics being anti-authoritarian and a common identity as people of color. We are not a formal organization, political party, non-profit, charity, committee, church group, dance troupe, etc…

We, the coordinators of this convergence, know each other either directly or indirectly from years of organizing, and through APOC connections. Many of us met almost 10 years ago at the first national APOC conference in Detroit, Michigan. We are excited to reconnect, reassess, reunite and meet new people. We aim for this convergence to not just be a reunion though but a multi-generational, multi-dimensional gathering that can offer something for almost every anarchist or politically radical person of color out there.

We hope that participants are looking for dialogues, methods, and theories that resist oppression by understanding the root causes of injustice – while developing strategies for ecologically, politically, socially, and economically sustainable communities. Not everyone coming will be or has to be an anarchist. We just hope that participants will want to build power in ways that are not hierarchical, racist, and heteropatriarchal, but are instead collaborative and horizontal.

We don’t intend this convergence to be a place to hammer out points of unity, build a formal anything or come close to representing all anarchist people of color. We hope that we’ll just get a chance to meet, dream, learn and make some amazing plans.

Please note that we are organizing with and inviting people of color only.

The convergence will be in downtown New Orleans, in the Marigny/7th Ward area. The registration point will be at 1024 Elysian Fields Ave, 70117.

GET INVOLVED! To participate in the convergence, please register at www.apocconvergence.info/registration so that we can prepare for your stay.

Feel free to email us with any questions at apocconvergence@gmail.com.

Thank you!