We are an anti-racist, anti-imperialist, anti-fascist, and anti-capitalist autonomous group of individuals. The space that we have created here centers a lot of “anti’s.” We present these anti’s as a signal of our divestment from the oppressive existing systems, which shape so many of our lives. We gather without coercion and as a team who cares deeply for each other and for our broader community. We are coming to you from the bottom and from the left, seeking to leave “top-down” democracy in the past. We reject domination and hierarchy, valuing mutual aid and direct action that subverts a violent colonial empire. We embrace political pluralism and give a lot of fucks about you, no matter your ‘-isms’. We love love. When we collaborate to ensure our survival, joy, and wellbeing, the world is rosier and the fascists less powerful.

We’d like to welcome people interested in joining the organizing collective to be in touch with us, including and especially our BIPOC neighbors. The formation of the collective this year emerged from the Belfast Anarchist Book Club, and we failed to seek out collective members who weren’t white—this is something we wish to change. We are committed to investigating our whiteness and the implications of this on our behavior as community members.

Reach out to us for more. Our organizing model will feature a period of open meetings, when we welcome anyone considering participating in book fair planning, as well as a closed period, for collective member accountability and effective coordination.

The area known as Belfast, at the mouth of the Passagassawakeag River, is on the traditional homeland of the “People of the Dawn,” the Wabanaki Confederacy of Penobscot, Passamaquoddy, Maliseet, Mi’kmaq, and Abenaki nations. Indigenous communities continue to tend and honor this land, throughout ongoing struggles against colonization of water and territorial rights, right to self-governance, encroachment on sacred sites, and the attempted erasure of traditional culture and lifeways. We stand in solidarity with our indigenous neighbors.

Black Cat Book Fair
blackcatbookfair@proton.me
https://blackcatbookfair.noblogs.org/
https://radar.squat.net/en/blackcatbookfair