Felony Charges

state repression is real and it happens to your friends :/

Well I wish I had better news, but:

I am one of a group of 15 folks in Asheville facing felony charges in connection to a December art-based demonstration against the city’s inhumane treatment of unhoused folks here. Here is an article that lays it all out and my number one request of you is that you read and share it. The situation is BANANAS. Did you know *felony littering* was a charge that police could reach for when they want to harass people?? Wow!

“acting in concert” means “conspiracy” so that’s really something

A pretty big thing I hope you’ll note in the article is that this group of 15 is almost all people who actively organize with a local mutual aid project, either doing “streetside” sharing of food and gear and books and sitting in sunshine in the park, or operating a “free store” which offers and delivers free groceries. (Here is a good primer on the history of mutual aid which has both been around a long time and has long been criminalized when practiced by the BIPOC communities in which it’s rooted.)

For my part, I can say I am mostly angry. I am more worried for other people than myself (I’m not saying I’m right to do that, it’s just what I am doing). I am using brashness and flippancy as coping mechanisms and those are pretty effective; sometimes I get nauseous and sad anyway, but god some very funny jokes come out of this bullshit every day and that is very important.

This is likely to be a very long process and we’re gonna need support, I’m gonna need support, in different ways at different times. If you would like to offer some right now, here are two concrete ways that would mean a lot to me:

1. Spreading the word about how bananas this is. That article lays it out; here also is our very rudimentary-for-now website, and you can follow @avlsurvival on instagram. More press is coming and I’ll send it all along. I also think having real conversations with people you know about this is powerful; this is happening to us this way in Asheville but state repression happens in so many ways all over and needs talking about! Share share share, please, and if you have access to a platform or person with national reach and would be willing to talk to them/put us in touch, do it!

2. There are a few young BIPOC organizers in our group of co-defendants. We have already seen the racist carceral system we are now caught up in be more brutal to them and that will continue; we also know they are already discriminated against in housing and employment and beyond in ways that affect their material resources to weather all this. White folks in the group are committed to having their backs in every way, including financially. It's our collective plan to pay all their legal fees and as many of their bills as we can for as long as we can. If you can contribute anything at all, truly nothing too small but my suggestion is between $50-$250 depending on your own class experience, please venmo me @sarahwbean (pic is of person with tiny cabbage plants) and comment "BIPOC organizers." Or if you don’t use venmo but still want to contribute just email me and I’ll help <3

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If you have questions for me about any of this, I also really encourage you to be in touch! That is a support too, because it acts against the isolation that is this system’s goal for us right now. I am not embarrassed to talk about it, I am not afraid of people knowing, we NEED people to know what is afoot in this supposedly progressive city. The whole thing is so ludicrous, and of course at times really disheartening, but the solidarity and care for one another in our group, the beautiful, supportive indignation of everyone we talk to about it in Asheville and beyond…it’s been really something to be part of, and I would talk to you about that too.

with love,

Sarah