Bringing Nov 4 To AFROPUNK Fest Brooklyn

It drew people, mainly black people, from all over the country and all over the world. It was an uplifting celebration grounded in the belief of “safety for all,” standing against transphobia, homophobia, sexism, racism, ableism and (one core value added on a t-shirt this year) “NO Trumpism.” There were people who had made their own anti-Trump T-shirts, and there was an incredible amount of creativity in people’s clothes, body paint and hair.

There was a talented lineup and people in attendance included Spike Lee, Anderson Paak, Michael Kiwanuka, Solange Knowles, Raphael Saadiq, Princess Nokia, Stacy Ann Chin and more. Stacy Ann Chin, a spoken word poet, did a powerful poem saying why Trump the white supremacist was not her president.

People ran up and grabbed stickers from us, sometimes asking for three or four. Many young people told us how depressed they have been feeling, how you get acclimated to the white supremacy and you begin feeling numb to it but then when they ran into us, a lot of outrage came out, “Why the hell is he still in office, we have to get him out.”  We posted up at a place where a lot of people were passing by — and were handing out the stickers and asking people for a donation.

Having the panel (which expose what the Trump/Pence regime has already done) made a big difference. People came by and took pictures of them. Some people wouldn’t take a flyer but after reading the panels, would change their mind and get one. They would stop and read it, or we would quote from different parts of it and people’s mouths would drop.  And even if they didn’t read all the facts, you get a sense from the scope of the indictments, both the detailed amount of text on them AND each of the categories — how quickly they are moving and what they have done. 

More than one person told us they can’t even watch T.V. anymore and they don’t want to have children because they are so scared of what might happen to them. And even though Obama wasn’t perfect, Trump is very different. There was a visceral hatred right below the surface and people were asking for flyers, not content just with the stickers because they wanted to know what we were about. People would often come run up to us in the crowd and say “where do I sign up?”

We were taking photos and videos and tagging people on Instagram — including the
people we were meeting and the artists that were performing. There was one woman who was very outspoken, a young black engineer who said she was worried to make a video because she was scared about what might happen to her parents who are immigrants. We talked about how during Nazi Germany — many Jewish people tried to keep their heads down, but the nazis came for them anyways. Another young high school student said she was worried her mom would see her and she didn’t want get in trouble. We then talked about the role of young people in any struggle for justice and how that meant sometimes rebelling and struggling with authority figures, including your parents if what you are doing is the right thing. A number people said, “Yeah, but isn’t Pence worse?” and then  we talked about the WHOLE regime AND HOW people were very open to this and said, “oh yeah, I am definitely down for that.”

A couple of people thought by November 4, we met voting.  One person was walking past and said, “yeah but then after November 4 then what?” A Refuse Fascism organizer responded, “Wait, I want you to stop & think about something….. Imagine for a second you are in Nazi Germany & somebody handed you a flyer that said Hitler Out. And then you said, yeah but what comes next?” He took a flyer after that.