It Could Happen Here - Stopping the Sweeps in Dallas

Episode Date: July 29, 2022

We talk to Dallas activists from Say It With Your Chest and the John Brown Gun Clubs who have been there to protect the unhoused community.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You should probably keep your lights on for Nocturnal Tales from the Shadowbride. Join me, Danny Trejo, and step into the flames of fright. An anthology podcast of modern-day horror stories inspired by the most terrifying legends and lore of Latin America. Listen to Nocturnal on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into tech's elite and how they've turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech

brought to you by an industry veteran with nothing to lose. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts from. On Thanksgiving Day 1999, five-year-old Cuban boy Elian Gonzalez was found off the coast of Florida. And the question was, should the boy go back to his father in Cuba? Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or stay with his relatives in Miami? Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Jacqueline Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series, Black Lit.

The podcast for diving deep into the rich world of Black literature. Black Lit is for the page turners, for those who listen to audio books while running errands or at the end of a busy day. From thought provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Listen to Black Lit on the Black Effect podcast network, iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. AT&T. Connecting changes everything. Hey, it's It Could Happen Here, a podcast about usually bad things happening, all the bad things that are happening everywhere, but occasionally about good things happening and people doing cool stuff to make a better world. And this, lucky you, lucky all of us, happens to be one of the latter kinds

of episodes where we talk about good things happening. With me in the studio, which is more of an ephemeral concept than a physical studio because there's a plague going on, is James Stout and Garrison Davis co-hosting the podcast. Hello, fellas. Greetings. Hi, Robert. Now, today, the thing that we're talking about, we had about a week or so, two weeks ago, a couple of representatives from the Elm Fork John Brown Gun Club in Dallas, Texas come in.

A couple of representatives from the Elm Fork John Brown Gun Club in Dallas, Texas, come in. And they had been providing armed security at a couple of different Dallas area protests against Christian nationalists. I do recommend checking out those episodes. This week, we have one representative from that organization back on. And what we'll be talking about is there have been a series of attempted sweeps in Dallas at a homeless camp. And if you're not familiar with the concept, basically people who are experiencing homelessness set up encampments in order to live with some degree of comfort and have their stuff with them. These are generally in places like parks, under overpasses, that kind of situation. And periodically the city will come through and sweep them. The city's language is always very much focused towards we're trying to help them,

you know, get into some sort of situation where they can find help. But what usually winds up happening is the city takes a bunch of people's stuff and throws it in the trash, often before extreme weather events. It's a really gnarly thing to experience. And activists in a number of cities have experimented with different tactics to try and stop and delay sweeps. And what we've had happening lately over the last week in Dallas is representatives of the Elm Fork John Brown Gun Club have been showing up armed alongside activists with Say It With Your Chest Dallas.

And the kind of thing that's been spreading on Twitter is, of course, the fact that activists have shown up with guns to stop the sweeps, and the Dallas police have not shown up to do the sweeps. The thing that often gets missed in this kind of Twitter-level discourse, although is covered in a pretty good Dallas Morning News article on the subject, is that there have also been activists, as I said, from the Say It With Your Chest movement who have been showing up to help people to provide laundry service, transportation, food and water. And essentially what they've been doing is trying to help people get things together and organized to move to a new location in a manner that allows them to do so with like dignity and comfort and not

get their stuff thrown out by the city or experience violence from the police while it's happening. So that is the broad situation. I'm not going to say any more myself. I want to introduce Danny from say it with your chest, Dallas and bubble from the Elm Fork, John Brown gun club. Thank you both for being on the show.

Thanks for having me. Thank you for having us. Was that a broadly accurate summary of events? Yeah, for the most part. The city has actually been sweeping several, they're cracking down on houselessness right now. Very, very aggressive. And so it's not just that one camp that we were defending the other day but um the monday before we were defending another camp and um i've never seen this many sweeps happen at one time and i've been doing this for a little over two years now i want to actually go a little bit

into how your organization formed but before that do you have any kind of can you posit why the city has suddenly ramped up sweeps so aggressively in dallas so uh normally i'm talking to the residents um i've never i've never seen it happen like multiple times in a week usually they'll do one uh wait a little bit we'll hear a notice upon a couple months later or something but uh multiple in a week at different spots is definitely um definitely new to us um as for why the typical reasons are like you know the state fair comes up in october so they'll try to sweep then um or they'll do it um usually before like a housing development um and things like that where like the land is bought up or you know something but recently um the motivations have been a little bit more

unclear with the aggression um it's kind of the the city in terms of um how they execute sweeps it used to be that code compliance could not touch people's belongings recently it has shifted to take everything throw away everything um but yeah we still don't know why all this is happening yet. It is certainly like part of a nationwide trend because we're having the same things happen in Portland increasingly. And obviously, Portland and Dallas aren't the only cities where sweeps have been ramped up. And of course, you also have, oh gosh, I just ran across the article today that like there's discussion in certain cities about like, yeah, somewhere in Florida about like putting houseless people in like essentially an island compound and whatnot like basically an encamp like a concentration camp right yeah that's been also mentioned by uh people affiliated with like uh the portland city council and the mayor's office yes like a base essentially getting a concentrated collection of homeless people in one closed off area. And you're like, huh, I wonder I wonder what they mean by that.

so far. I wanted to talk a little bit about how your organization, because we chatted with the John Brown Gun Club folks a couple of weeks ago about how they started organizing. How did Say It With Your Chest get off the ground? So that was interesting. Say It With Your Chest originally started along with a lot of orgs and mutual aid orgs in Dallas after George Floyd was murdered back in June of like 2020. We started, I was in Plano at the time, which is like a suburb. That's where I grew up. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was in Plano at the time. And, you know, I, me and my friends were kind of like, these suburban people can turn off their TVs and not really have to worry about the protests going on downtown and things like that. So we would protest on street corners and just yell at, you know, white people in their Mercedes and, you know,

make them uncomfortable on purpose. Then we started linking up with other mutual aid orgs in Dallas and, you know, was distributing food, trying to carry that stuff up North. Um, and then, uh, then we, um, well, I started going to Camp Rhonda, um, which was like, uh, probably the first and like, it was a very solid example of a self-sustaining houseless encampment where people were just allowed to be and left alone we're helping people a lot of them are in recovery and things like that and um everyone looked out for each other it was a really great community uh before that that was such a rad project um not to derail it too much, but I want to tell you guys about Camp Rhonda. Yeah. Like politically organized, unhoused camp.

The organizers, the outside organizers were there every day helping. The camp itself was organized amongst themselves. They had political theory meetings. They had community meetings to solve issues and resolve interpersonal problems. Fucking rad. And it stayed together for nine months. It was, it lasted for a minute. I know it was approximate.

It was over six, I believe, but it lasted for a while at one location and then it had to move. And then the next location, we ended had to move. And then, um, the next location we ended up moving all the people to, they stayed there for a solid 10 months before, um, the city sold the land in like some under the table deal and showed up and swept everybody. It reminds me quite a bit of a place I, I, I worked at in Seattle for a while, uh, Nicholsville,

which was a plot of land, a couple of acres large where houseless people had set up, basically built like a tiny home village for themselves. They provided solar power. They had arranged their own like trash pickup. It was safe and very well organized and very comfortable, like an actual fairly high standard of living. Good level, like good, good wastewater treatment actual fairly high standard of living, good level, like good, good wastewater treatment and all that kind of stuff, which existed for a couple of years before the city came in and swept it and destroyed everybody's houses and forced

them, you know, into, again, kind of a series of camping situations. Yeah. Yeah. Which is, you know, you get these, it's very frustrating because there's this understanding that like, well, we want them in, and part of the understanding you get from a number of cities is like, well, we do want them in one place and we want them in something that's more permanent than, you know, a bunch of tents. But if they set that up on their own and have autonomy and have the ability to like exist with any kind of personal freedom, then we don't want that. And we will send armed men in to break it up. Yeah, like the city is like, oh, yeah, well, I don't, I genuinely do not think the city of Dallas wants to house people. Otherwise, the Office of Homeless Solutions simply would not exist.

Otherwise, the Office of Homeless Solutions simply would not exist and they wouldn't have a way to just have money sitting around. And all those people would lose their jobs, you know, because it's not housing people, you know, people like, how do you do that? It's not hard. It's not difficult. The city is spending, what, two billion dollars on renovating the convention center that could house every houseless person in dallas for years you know but but then we wouldn't be able to have all of the wonderful things someone who lived in dallas 15 years i can remember one maybe even two times when i went to the convention center what would we do yeah i think maybe one time yeah what's wrong with it to where we have like it's dallas prioritizes developers over anything else and that is more than um apparent in how they treat the houseless population um they're definitely because it's like my my problem

right okay if the city the city is going to do sweeps that's something that i can't really necessarily stop them from doing on my own right but we can make and alleviate some of the effects of you know um but when the city is sweeping people in the heat like this, we're in the cold, elderly, disabled people, it's like y'all really are just telling them to die. Yeah. And the least you could do, and I emailed Marcy Jackson, who's the community outreach chair for OHS. You know, she's been like, like well they can go to the shelter it's about it's within three miles and I'm like you you're gonna walk three miles you're telling somebody who's elderly and disabled to walk three miles in 107 degree heat to get to a cooling station that is only open to

like five yeah well uh there's a lot of cognitive dissonance in the city. Welcome. I'm Danny Thrill. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter? Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora. An anthology of modern-day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters

to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Jack Peace Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series, Black Lit, the podcast for diving deep into the rich world of Black literature. I'm Jack Peace Thomas, and I'm inviting you to join me

in a vibrant community of literary enthusiasts dedicated to protecting and celebrating our stories. Black Lit is for the page turners, for those who listen to audiobooks while commuting or running errands, for those who find themselves seeking solace, wisdom, and refuge between the chapters. From thought-provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Together, we'll dissect classics and contemporary works while uncovering the stories of the brilliant writers behind them.

Black Lit is here to amplify the voices of Black writers and to bring their words to life. Listen to Black Lit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into how tech's elite has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech from an industry veteran with nothing to lose. This season I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel winning economists to the leading journalists in the field and I'll be digging into why the products you love keep getting

worse and naming and shaming those responsible. Don't get me wrong, though. I love technology. I just hate the people in charge and want them to get back to building things that actually do things to help real people. I swear to God things can change if we're loud enough. So join me every week to understand what's happening in the tech industry and what could be done to make things better. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com. On Thanksgiving Day 1999, a five-year-old boy floated alone in the ocean.

He had lost his mother trying to reach Florida from Cuba. He looked like a little angel. I mean, he looked so fresh. And his name, Elian Gonzalez, will make headlines everywhere. Elian Gonzalez. Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian Gonzalez. At the heart of the story is a young boy and the question of who he belongs with. His father in Cuba. Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. At the heart of it all is still this painful family separation.

Something that as a Cuban, I know all too well. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian González story, as part of the My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Just for a little bit of reference too, because like we have cooling stations and stuff up in Portland, and you have similar problems.

One thing that is a benefit to folks in a place like Oregon is that after 5, 6 p.m. when this cooling station starts to cool down, it actually does cool down here. It gets cool at night even when it's 100 outside. That doesn't happen in Dallas during the summer. No, it's 99 at night. Yeah, I've literally had it be triple digits at midnight in fucking Dallas, Texas. That's the place it is. doesn't cool down no so you're still it's still a threat to life and

limb even when the sun's not beating down on you yeah sometimes there's cooling shelters i know certainly like here we have a bunch of issues with shelters and cooling shelters and stuff like you don't have privacy you can't bring your pets they want you to lock all your possessions up somewhere else um there are like a number of other things that really limit people's ability to feel safe accessing i don't know if it's the same there but like it's not like there's necessarily a place where someone would feel safe and they're not going there i just want to make that clear pets are a big issue and this is something that again when i was at nickelsville people would point out that like folks would accuse them of being like abusive because they had a cat or a dog, you know, that was living with them in the encampment. And they'd be like, well, number one, like it's OK for me to live this way, but it's not OK for like a cat or a dog to live this way.

And also just like, do I not deserve companionship and love in my life? Like this is what this animal is. One of the is one of the things that helps keep me. And I talked to a number of folks who got back into housing who were like, if we had not had our cat with us, like, I don't know that we would have made it because just having that animal with us like helped like it's it's for the same reason everybody has animals, right? Like, every single houseless person that has a pet has a service animal has a that is a service animal as far as i'm concerned would you separate somebody who is disabled from their wheelchair or would

you separate somebody from their like their service animal their dog that they need you know and it's like when you're out there um i know a lot of people have dogs for comfort but also dogs are protection they are security in such a dangerous environment um where people are always you know like it's just it's just it is unfathomable how much trauma um goes into being houseless, especially in Dallas, in places like Dallas. So I'd like to ask you a little bit. So you have been, is this kind of the first collaboration this last week or so that Say It With Your Chest has had with the Elm Fork John Brown Gun Club? Had you guys been working together prior to this? Yeah, yeah. Like we, I originally met members of Elm Fork when, um, Camp Rhonda

first started, uh, back in 2020. Um, and we were collaborating on like getting people supplies, um, tents and things like that. I would run laundry, um, with my org, uh, and like, yeah, we were, we just, you know, always collaborated to make sure like the people could get what they need. If somebody had supplies, someone was able to show up and we couldn't, you know, just working together. Yeah. And I'm curious, could you kind of walk us through sort of how the, what you see is the benefit of having folks who are visibly armed for this kind of for these kind of actions? Like how did how did number one sweep defense tend to work before y'all were doing that? And how has that altered kind of the way in which you're seeing

this activism like take effect? like take effect um as far as i know people from members of elm fork have always shown up with um firearms in some capacity whether it's concealed or open but um there was a noticeable difference with the open carry um i know that back in febru February when one of our other camps was getting swept and they showed up, like afterwards we had a meeting with the director of homeless solutions, Christine Crosley. She sucks. And she was like, people were like, we were hearing reports of people that were openly armed and we want to we really care about the safety of like the unhoused residents out there and I was like they were more afraid of the cops than of the five people out here with rifles and that's that's something it's like if you're to show up with 12 dudes with guns, what's the problem with some of us showing up with like a little something just in case?

You know, the state should not be the only one to have access to firearms. That is very dangerous. But also, I don't mean that in a two-way kind of way, if that makes sense enough. Yeah, that does kind of bring up an interesting point, which is if you're showing, as you're showing up kind of in this capacity with both activists to kind of help folks with their stuff, with laundry and other needs, but also people who are carrying AR-15s and wearing plate carriers. I imagine there's like a degree to which you are trying to give people a heads up before just so they don't be like, oh, suddenly there's folks with guns. What's going on, right? Can you kind of walk us through the community outreach explaining sort of like how you actually go about letting people know what's going to be happening and stuff and what the folks showing up we're doing well when it comes to sweeps um and normally i focus a lot on just making sure the

people are okay and defending them um when i i do not necessarily like ask for um work to show up with guns i'm just more like i assume if y'all are going to be there there are going to be sure um you know and sometimes there was usually the residents are like the residents have some of the residents have firearms themselves you know so they're like well aware um there are some cases where like people will get a little bit anxious about it and you know we kind of have to be like if you really don't want the guns here then that's fine we can move them but in the past with this track record like usually the city kind of backs off a little bit when they know that y'all are actually protected you know because

um the city is the city's a bully they really do like picking on people who the most vulnerable of us you know um and so lately the guns have been seeming to like have them back off a little bit i know when they pulled up like when elm fork pulled up and hopped out the car with the rifles all of the cops literally squatted up into like a little bit i know when they pulled up like when elm fork pulled up and hopped out the car with the rifles all of the cops literally squatted up into like a little little i don't know pig circle and they started talking uh and they were genuinely like what do we do hold on yeah and it's i mean that's kind of the that's kind of the story as we're coming into it right now, which is there was supposed to be a sweep. What is it? Five days ago now? Friday. Yeah, almost a week.

And y'all have been showing up a couple of times in that period to help people get their get things together and whatnot and get get moved, which is an important the fact that you're helping them kind of move and, and doing it more in kind of their own timeframe, as opposed to the city shows up and you've got to like grab what you can or lose everything is important. Cause you're also, you're not just showing up with activists with guns and saying like the, the city, we're not going to let any, like the, no one's going to move and we're like, we're, we're drawing a line in the sand, which is not, would not be a particularly safe call i wouldn't think yeah my um my main priority out there because there's a lot of black

and brown bodies out there yeah people is making sure they are safe and um even before this last one like a lot of us were concerned about the guns because like we didn't want things to escalate. And we never know with police. Sometimes they get really excited. And then sometimes they back off. It's really we really don't know. So we were also taking that into consideration. And I was kind of like, you know on fork now like listen there's a lot of black and brown people out here and we don't want to escalate anything and you know put people in danger um and it seems like this time the city didn't really want to mess with that so that's

good but it's always important to keep that in mind anytime you have firearms. Oh, yes. For the vulnerable population. And I'm curious, Bubble, can you talk a little bit about how this kind of organizing is sort of different than the stuff you've been doing at counter-protesting events? Like, what are kind of the different things that y'all are keeping in mind as you as you make action plans for days like this compared to when you're showing up to at a protest to kind of counter groups of Proud Boys or whatever? for marches or um you know protecting pride events uh it's not like a direct confrontation with the government so it's it's a bit it's a bit different it's a little bit more high stakes um when we do stop the sweep things you know we want to we want to push back but at the same time, you know, not be the first to cross any lines.

So it is, you know, it is a more sensitive situation. I think it requires different kind of planning. And of course, there's all these bystanders. There's all the residents there who were there to help that we don't want to endanger in any way. Like Danny was saying, I actually had what ended up being a pretty cool conversation with a resident afterward. But he was kind of an organizer in the camp. And he was talking to me and he said, you know, I don't think we want the guns. Like we don't want any trouble. And I leaned over to him and I whispered to him, trouble. And I leaned over to him and I whispered to him, look, we're just here with guns to try to get the cops to back off. I think they're actually backing off now because we had actually just heard the cops were going to leave. I said, I think they're backing off. We're gone. Don't worry

about it. And he said, wait, wait, you know, don't leave yet. Wait till they leave. wait, don't leave yet. Wait till they leave. And now that's, I am interested like as the actual folks showing up armed bubble, do you guys have kind of a like standard set of responses and stuff that you work through ahead of time

to kind of explain things to people and make sure everyone's on the same page in terms of how they're doing it? Yeah, we have some of that worked out. That's an evolving thing where we're trying to standardize. We've worked a long time with a core group of people that knows each other really well. So we have seen each other at dozens of these things. And we know how each other operates.

With some newer people coming in, you know, we are working now on kind of standardizing those responses and, you know, sharing our past experiences and our thinking and all that. Now, question for both slash either of you. As you've gotten more into doing sweep defenses, what have been some of kind of the lessons learned things that have been like, Oh, okay. We went into it thinking like, this was a good idea. And it turned out that like, that doesn't work very well. So we've had to do this, like just things that have kind of, um,

best practices that have kind of evolved over time doing this. Um, honestly, a lot of it, a lot, when when when tensions are really high like that um because usually when it comes to sweeps like i'm the one kind of like dealing with um a lot of like overseeing and stuff like that and when tensions are really high like that, honestly, the best thing is harm reduction. Harm reduction is at the pinnacle of, it's at the core of like whatever we do. And part of that is meeting people where they're at and making sure that we help the people. I show up, I shit you not. One of the best things that we started doing is showing up with packs of new ports on God. It makes it a lot. Um, you know, when you're going through trauma like that, um, and someone hands you a cigarette, that's something that not only

helps you kind of regulate yourself when you're experiencing this high stress situation where you're being evicted from your home and you're going to lose your stuff and you're afraid people are going to steal things and it's a whole lot that helps bring people back and it makes it a lot easier for us to um work with people and um still maintain the bonds that we've created and maintain the levels of trust that we have with the community. Literally some simple things like handing out cigarettes during, because that's a way that we're like, hey, we're here for you. We know what you need. Yeah. And we're not, we're also, we're not here to like judge what's best for you, you know, and do some like nanny state shit.

Like you need a cigarette right now. Right. Like it's stressful. Yeah. Not really. Like, hell, I would need a cigarette, too. You know, at that point, there was somebody who was like, you're asking people for Newport. You need to stop doing that. Like, that's really unhealthy. And I thought you were trying to save these people. And it's like, I'm not trying to save them, for starters. We're not Captain America. We're not no Avengers, okay? We are regular people fulfilling a responsibility.

And that responsibility is to be there for our neighbors. That's how movements happen. That's how anything happens. And all of that is rooted in, you know, indigenous communalism and theory and stuff like that, that I think is really important, is just fulfilling that responsibility and being there for people. And when it comes to, because, you know, we always try to provide folks listening in other towns and stuff who may be like inspired by this with options for

how they might move forward on trying to replicate some of y'all's successes. If people are looking at, okay, I would like to help do sweep defensive, I would like to do, you know, work kind of like this in my own community. How do you recommend, because obviously there's, you know, how to build organizations is another matter, but like if you've got a group together to help folks how do you recommend kind of starting the process of introducing yourself because you can't just like show up and be like hey like just show up with guns and be like hey we're gonna certainly not with guns but yeah that's what cops do and it doesn't work um you have to develop a really really strong rapport with your community first and you also need to make sure that it's your community like you know um i i spent a really long time curating um

relationships with the unhoused populations of south d. And that took literal years, you know, expecting people to trust you off the bat and expecting people to just like, be like, oh, you're one of the good guys, it's not going to happen, especially if you're white, like, honestly, if we be in if we keeping it a buck, because like, there's a whole lot of black and brown people out there in these vulnerable communities. And usually the white people that they see are the white people who are talking down to them and not treating them as human beings. The main thing that the people out there need most is consistency from you. Even if you don't, even if one day you don't have anything and you can just hand out water there with them and developing community that way,

you know, and one of the things that people tell me a lot is that just it was it's been very shocking to me how much I've heard it is people are like you don't talk to us like how other people talk to us you talk to us like we're people and the sheer amount of time I was really shocked by how many times I've actually heard that because I'm like, you know, I don't really think I talk much differently from anybody else. But then when I go out there and see other people, just random people handing out McGriddles or whatever, you know, there's definitely a switch.

Like if you were talking to a pet or to a child, you know, like you pity something. or to a child, you know, like you pity something. People will not want you around because honestly, they don't want your pity. What they want is bottles of water. You know, if you're just only showing up when shit's going down, you don't actually have the people's trust.

And I think if anything, that hurts it a little bit because it's like, oh, I am only here to make you feel good about yourself. You want to be the one saving everybody. It's like, you got to dismantle your savior complex first before you do anything. And I think it's good to talk about kind of how this actually, how these actions actually look on the ground, because again, the thing that sort of has gone semi-viral on Twitter has been the fact that like, you know, people with guns

stood off the cops, but if you're imagining some sort of like big armed standoff, like that's not how this has looked, which is the thing I liked about the Dallas Morning News article, which we will... Do you mean the article or the opinion piece? Sorry, yes. What's the you mean the article or the opinion piece? Sorry, yes. What's the title of the article?

I am pulling it up right now just to have that. We'll have it... There's an opinion piece already? Oh, any time unhoused people pop up in the discourse, someone is ready to write an opinion piece. The article, Armed activists block Dallas workers from cleaning a homeless camp. Someone is ready to write. Yeah, it's the article, Armed Activists Block Dallas Workers from Cleaning a Homeless Camp.

That's an acceptable opinion. Yeah, that's not the one I was talking about. The one I'm talking about is titled, and it is a news article, Dallas Delays Moving Homeless Camp After Activists Show Up, which did a good job of not kind of overemphasizing the armed part

and talking about the actual work y'all were doing in the community. I was kind of impressed with it, especially given the Dallas morning news is most recent, like general trends, shall we say? And considering their opinion piece they published yesterday. Yeah. I hadn't seen that one.

Welcome. I'm Danny Thrill. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter Nocturnum, Tales from the Shadows presented by iHeart and Sonora. An anthology

of modern day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of my Cultura podcast network available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. me and a vibrant community of literary enthusiasts dedicated to protecting and celebrating our stories. Blacklit is for the page turners, for those who listen to audiobooks while commuting

or running errands, for those who find themselves seeking solace, wisdom, and refuge between the chapters. From thought-provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Together, we'll dissect classics and contemporary works while uncovering the stories of the brilliant writers behind them. Blacklit is here to amplify the voices of Black writers and to bring their words to life. Listen to Blacklit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into how tech's elite has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires.

From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech from an industry veteran with nothing to lose. This season I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel winning economists to leading journalists in the field and I'll be digging into why the products you love keep getting worse and naming and shaming those responsible. Don't get me wrong though, I love technology. I just hate the people in charge and want them to get back to building things that actually do things to help real people. I swear to God things can change if we're loud enough. So join me every week to understand what's happening in the tech industry and what could be done to make things better.

Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com. On Thanksgiving Day 1999, a five-year-old boy floated alone in the ocean. He had lost his mother trying to reach Florida from Cuba. He looked like a little angel. I mean, he looked so fresh. And his name, Elian Gonzalez, will make headlines everywhere. Elian Gonzalez. Elian.

Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian Gonzalez. Elian Gonzalez. Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian Gonzalez. At the heart of the story is a young boy and the question of who he belongs with. His father in Cuba. Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him.

Or his relatives in Miami. Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. At the heart of it all is still this painful family separation. Something that as a Cuban, I know all too well. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story, as part of the My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Could you talk a little bit about how these actions have actually looked on the ground during the day of? Yeah, so on the ground, some people arrived very early, and you really never know when the cops in the city are going to show up.

So, uh, Elm Fork showed up, uh, close to nine and, uh, there were already like four cops there. Um, and that, you know, that's unfortunate. We probably should have shown up earlier. We, you know, if, if we're going to go to protect the other activists, you know, you don't want to leave the unarmed activists exposed to police violence. But either way, you know, we formed up. It was maybe two unarmed activists for every armed activist. And we discussed what to do. Some people decided to block off the streets with their vehicles. some people decided to block off the streets with their vehicles. The cops were there for a solid hour and a half before Homeless Solution or Office of Homeless Solutions and Code Compliance started arriving.

So by that time, a good number of armed activists were there and the cops had been discussing amongst themselves, you know, whatever it is that they were talking about. But when OHS and code got there, they talked with the cops for about 30 minutes and then they started leaving. During that time, the unarmed activists were packing things up, you know, getting people ready to move if those people wanted to move. One thing to kind of go back a little bit, one thing that we've learned carrying is it's very difficult to do the same things that we were doing as unarmed activists. things that we were doing as unarmed activists. You know, we don't really want to be carrying tents and stuff while also trying to negotiate, you know, having a rifle in our arms. So, you know, there's kind of a division of labor there. But, you know, before two hours had even passed, basically, the sweep was called off, the city and the cops left, and the mutual aid work continued throughout the rest of the day. Elm Fork had some members switching out. Some

people had to go to work. Some people arrived around noon. That was kind of the main switch out point. And a lesser number of people, but still a significant amount stayed there until 4 or 5 p.m. Whenever UNFOR comes with guns, the main thing that I like to have them do is surveillance and be watching. So that way we can focus on having other volunteers actually help people, you know, and like have them help them move and stuff. And the surveillance definitely helps because what happens when the cops leave and when the city leaves is that they'll still have people like watching and driving around and trying to surveil us.

And so having more eyes on that situation and having them know like, yeah, we're still here is really helpful. Great. Thank you. Did anybody else have additional questions to ask James? You had one or two more things. Yeah, I'm like, I'm interested in maybe asking bubble this because I'm just looking at the pictures on the on the Dallas Morning News story. Incredibly, they didn't lead with a picture of you all sort of suited and booted and full battle rattle, which I think is good on their part. But how do you present an event like this? Obviously, I think we should

probably mention that I'm guessing it's legal to open carry where you are, so you're not immediately criming and therefore provoking a violent confrontation with the police. Although, obviously, the police are always turning up armed um and that always brings violence into the equation uh but are you like masked are you full like this person i'm seeing is like masked helmet goggles plate carrier uh is that generally how you present or is that just left up to individuals i wonder um we try to be pretty uniform but it definitely varies by action i think the last time we came out armed um we were not in um helmets and plate carriers um but you know everyone has one now and uh we discussed it beforehand we decided to go that way. We try not to park directly where we're going to get seen, you know, if at all possible, because we do need to get out,

gear up, you know, walk over in all our stuff. But yeah, I think, you know, for a lot of actions now, including security, that's kind of been our, uh, go-to way of presenting the full masks are very important. We've moved from like, you know, medical style masks to all the clava style masks just to get more skin coverage, protect our identities better. Yeah, it makes sense. protect our identities better yeah it makes sense um one other thing i just wanted to ask and perhaps like explain in in a context that might might not be relevant in texas i don't know um in california at least you need two proofs of address to earn a firearm right um uh and if you're unhoused you might not have those and therefore people are alienated from what is theoretically their right

um whether you want to see that as a universal right or constitutional right uh is is that the and therefore people are alienated from what is theoretically their right, whether you want to see that as a universal right or a constitutional right. Is that the case there? Or are these people able if they wanted to? Texas doesn't give a fuck. No, no. Texas, you don't have to file a 4473 to buy a gun in the state of Texas. My gun literally was just given to me by somebody.

I didn't have to do a title transfer or nothing. Like guns are so easy to get in Texas. It's actually really scary. Yeah. Um, private sale. You can basically do whatever you want. Yeah. It is hard not to wind up owning a gun in the state.

Right. Easier than owning a place to stay. Definitely. Way easier. Yeah. What a country man. And a house to stay. Definitely. Way easier. Yeah. What a country, man. You're getting a house. Okay.

Magnificent. Okay. Well, yeah. Not the case in other states. No. I guess to... No. And nothing that we've said here should be taken as legal advice,

R.E., how to protest or partake in armed activism, because that can vary. That varies wildly based on your zip code. And everything we've talked about today is a massive series of felonies in a number of other parts of the United States. Like you're not, you're not going to be providing sweep defense in New York City in this manner, you know? Yeah, yeah. You do this where I live and Bortak will show up with a drone. Yeah. Into consideration. Yeah. So take, obviously, I mean, that's a big part of what you're saying, though, is you have

to take the situation on the ground. You have to take the situation with these people as individuals into, you can't just go in and impose, like, this is how we're going to do sweep defense. You have to go in there, like, being willing to learn and adapt because this is not, you know, your day-to-day life and it is life for folks there. And you have to come in willing to learn and understand what they need rather than like what you think they need. Yeah.

We never know what the city is going to show up with each time. Like the Monday suite before this past one, it was all marshals. It wasn't even act like regular DPD. it was all marshals it wasn't even act like regular dpd it was all marshals they were ready to arrest they had bulldozers and cranes and all types of shit um and that was also that was kind of off-putting because i was like wow y'all are being mad aggressive this time i think we just pissed them off too much to the point where they were like we have to be you know meaner about it um I mean but we ain't been arrested yet so yeah fingers crossed um I do want to I do want to

mention one more thing I know we've talked about how this kind of pertains to Dallas and you know had similar you know situations on similar, you know, situations on increasing sweeps across the country in Portland. Like I think last month there was an episode on this show about a homeless encampment in Ohio. And in terms of like similar stuff that has happened to kind of demonstrate this is like, you know, this is a thing going on all across the country. demonstrate this is like, you know, this is a thing going on all across the country. There was a really interesting situation in Boise, Idaho earlier this year that we may want to cover more in depth in the future. But in January, when it was freezing outside, protesters and homeless people launched an encampment in front of the Boise State Capitol to kind of both provide,

you know, some type of shelter and community to help keep each other warm, but also in front of the Boise State Capitol to kind of both provide, you know, some type of shelter and community to help keep each other warm, but also in front of the Capitol as like a protest to demand access to shelter, you know, while in the middle of like a pretty bad housing crisis and as it's freezing outside. People at the camp faced a lot of basically nonstop harassment from the state, whether that's police or like state police. They also faced a lot of problems from far right militia groups. The Idaho Liberty Dogs showed up to harass people. There was, you know, militia showing up with guns. showing up with guns um so you can see like another instance where something that you know arm where another instance where armed community defense could be uh could be a part in trying to

keep of situations like that from not escalating if done properly obviously if done improperly that can escalate the situation so it's up to you know you have to make sure that you're with people who are you who you know who you trust and who are responsible but it's just it's up to, you know, you have to make sure that you're with people who you know, who you trust, and who are responsible. But it's another instance of stuff like this happening. Anti-fascists and other activists were able to keep conflicts from these militia groups to be relatively low at the encampment and after a few months and like courts were trying to shut down the protest that was unsuccessful because of certain laws around camping on on like uh capital grounds for protests but after a few months the protest was able to end and the city is now uh been pushed by the protest to open up possibly hundreds of units of shelter in the near future.

So you see other instances of these types of protests that, you know, rely on a lot of like radical mutual aid, a lot of resistance to the state violence, a lot of resistance to far-right violence actually being semi-successful. So there's a lot of places to learn from in this type of thing around homeless encampments and countering state violence. I would recommend It's Going Down. It has a lot of good coverage of the Boise, Idaho thing. So yeah, that's just a whole other angle to this sort of trend that we've been seeing the past year. I would like to say that you are not Fidel Castro, you know, you are not the revolutionary leader, you are not the one, you know, like, and you need to keep that in mind when you're moving in these spaces and doing this type of work is, if your goal is to try and be

like the guy, you know, that does way more harm than good. And that's really important to keep in mind. And dismantling your savior complex is part of that. Of course, in that case, you know, the houseless people, residents were, you know, consenting to it and things like that. But please do take into account the amount of danger that you are putting very the most vulnerable populations into um it is not necessarily a good idea or a morally okay idea to uh make houseless people into your people's army you that was not, and I want to make sure that

everybody, you know, listening is also well aware of like, that is the wrong way to go about this. The people's army should be people like us, not the most vulnerable of us because they are already fighting very hard. So that means that's like, it's the same thing, like saying white people should be at the front lines, protecting black and brown people during protests. It's the same exact concept. You protect the most vulnerable of the group. You do not make them, you know, your army and try to convert them into something and be the leader of that either. That is not the way to go about that. Yeah. If you're entering into this relationship with the plan that this is a way for us to build

power for whatever end as opposed to we're here to help these people, then you're putting them second to whatever your political goals are, which is bad, broadly speaking. I mean, and I know at least in the case of the

Idaho, in the case of the idaho of in the ohio encampment that we talked about earlier this month um and the idaho one as well a large number of people who are like leading up that project and in prominent organization roles were houses people who were living at those camps like it is very important to have people who are like you don't want to go in as someone with stable housing and be like, okay, I'm in charge of this thing now. No,

it's like the people who are actually experiencing it need to be the like critical role in actually how it functions. Yeah. And there we've had not we, but like there was somebody who tried to do that. And it definitely did more harm than good. Like there was somebody who tried to do that and it definitely did more harm than good. Putting your political goals over just the people is always going to fail every single time.

Yeah. Listen to the people. If they're not leading it, don't do it. You know, like at that point, your only priority should be getting them what they need and defending them if necessary, trying to lead stuff and, you know, have them putting them into more vulnerable situations than they're already at without like fully being transparent with people or, uh, being transparent with all the risks involved, you know, like it's, that's real grimy, real not okay behavior. So that's just something I also want to caution people against. And all of that definitely roots back to dismantling your savior complex. And there's a lot of good

resources out there for starting with that process if you have not already some of them are on maybe your chest instagram i'll just peek it out and follow us or something yeah yeah do you want to i think i mean i'm i'm i'm at out of questions personally do we want to um uh end with kind of yeah how folks can follow you and and stay in touch with what y'all are doing or potentially even support you yeah um we are uh at say it with your chest dtx on instagram um i also organize with the dallas movement, which is a bigger org that mobilizes across the 9,000 square miles of DFW. Um, I run that with three of my good friends and organizers. Uh,

and so you can follow us at Dallas liberation, MBMT on Instagram. Um, Oh, if you're willing, able and financially stable, throw us some cash, please. And listen to black women, listen to black and indigenous women. That's all I got. All right. Bubble, did you have anything to add? I think it's important to have a diverse collection of groups. You know, Danny's a hero.

She's out there almost every day. For Elm Fork, we do a lot of trainings. We do a lot of classes that take up our resources, but we have these longstanding relationships so that we can support each other when need be. You know, take care of your, take care of your spaces, take care of your communities. Like Dani said, focus on the people in those spaces, whether that be unhoused people or your own organizers and activists.

You know, you got to keep you got to keep things safe. It's hot out here. There's been a lot of stress and conflicts and you always have to practice, um, restorative justice and, and accountability. Um, and, you know, just keep fighting, keep, keep loving each other.

All right. Uh, well, that's going to do it for everybody here at it could happen here today. Uh, yeah, go, go,

go do something good. here today. Yeah, go do something good. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

You can find sources for It Could Happen Here updated monthly at coolzonemedia.com. Thanks for listening. An anthology podcast of modern day horror stories inspired by the most terrifying legends and lore of Latin America. Listen to Nocturnal on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast. And we're kicking off our second season digging into Tex Elite and how they've turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech brought to you by an industry veteran with nothing to lose. Listen to Better Offline

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts from. On Thanksgiving Day, 1999, five-year-old Cuban boy Elian Gonzalez was found off the coast of Florida. And the question was, should the boy go back to his father in Cuba? Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or stay with his relatives in Miami? Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. hey i'm jack lease thomas the host of a brand new black effect original series black lit the podcast for diving deep into the rich world of black literature black lit is for the page turners for those who listen to audiobooks while running errands or at the end of a busy day

from thought-provoking novels to powerful poetry we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Listen to Black Lit on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. AT&T, connecting changes everything.