Okay, y’all, our blog was admittedly dead on arrival when our website went up. We had grand aspirations of regular posts, gorgeous plant pics, silly class photos, and all kinds of stuff. But we haven’t done that yet, and there’s no reason to believe we’ll start.
BUT! This can become a spot for us to park some cool links and articles that we’d like to get out to the world. And with that intention in mind, I’d like to share an article that I wrote at the request of Perspectives, the journal of the Institute for Anarchist Studies.
Here in Portland, as in many other U.S. cities, the summer of 2020 saw prolonged and brutal state repression when the Black Lives Matter uprising took to the streets. We were tear gassed nightly, in large amounts and in all kinds of settings — from downtown Portland to residential side streets. Not only protesters, but workers and residents and unwitting bystanders got subjected to chemical weapons in their daily lives.
So many folks stepped up to provide support to protesters and others who were impacted by these tactics! It was heartwarming. But, inevitably, some not-awesome (though well-intended) advice spread as to how to handle chemical weapons exposure. This piece was my attempt to put out some do-no-harm ideas for chemical weapons aftercare. If you ever need a presentation with content like this for a group that’s out in the streets, reach out! This knowledge is for sharing.
All props to my mentors and friends in the (now defunct) affinity group I was part of, the Black Cross Health Collective, for their knowledge and teaching and courage and care. Big thanks to my fellow volunteers for the first ever pepper spray trials back in the day. And a huge shout out to the Rosehip Medic Collective for furthering my knowledge and doing great work.
Anyway, here’s the article! (Please ignore accompanying illustrations, which I did not have any input into.) If you find it useful, pass it on!