Host Ejeris Dixon welcomes Che Johnson-Long and Ken Montenegro, two longtime community security and safety practitioners.
Che Johnson-Long and Ken Montenegro, two longtime community security and safety practitioners, join Ejeris Dixon on the Fascism Barometer to discuss how to increase our safety in the face of rising fascism. Ejeris, Che, and Ken discuss safety planning tips for individuals and organizations, including resistance and survival strategies that can be combined to make us safer in the short and long term.
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Podcast production by Phil Surkis
Intro Music by Meklit Hadero
The Fascism Barometer Podcast is an Ejerie Labs Project. Thank you for joining the movement.
Hi, friends. Welcome to the Fascism Barometer. I'm Ejeris Dixon, your movement meteorologist, and the barometer is an educational project where we learn together what fascism is, how to stay safe, and how to create democracy and liberation for us all. As a Black queer feminist, I exist at the intersection of communities that fascists see as the enemy.
And for years, I've deeply desired a way for us to understand and measure the threat of fascism and how it impacts all of us. [00:01:00] In each episode, we work to learn what fascism is and what we can learn about it from the perspectives of our guests. And as barometers measure pressure, we unpack the pressure that fascism puts on all of us.
So I'm looking at the fascism barometer today, and its reading is right between medium and high. The initial shock of the election is fading, and we're beginning to get used to a series of terrible developments around rising fascism in the U. S. This is called normalization, and it's an intentional tactic where fascists and authoritarians bombard our systems with alarming anti democratic practices and with threats to undermine our safety.
And it's through this process that they expand what's acceptable and reduce public outcry. As each week becomes more outrageous, psychologically we acclimate, and the outrageous progressively becomes normal. But in the midst of normalization, we're also getting into formation and pushing back on fascism.[00:02:00]
People are organizing to counter the targeting of non profits. People are also organizing deportation defense plans and committees. Trans communities have been organizing in order to defend trans healthcare access and against their dehumanization. And all of these efforts are strengthening. Now as we say here, fascism is best fought with massive amounts of people power.
And this power is building and by listening, you're joining the movement. Now, before we get to today's guests, the safety and security geniuses, Che Johnson Long and Ken Montenegro, here are the latest updates on fascism and what to watch out for.
Welcome to the Fascism Roundup. In this segment, we talk about current trends in fascism in the United States. So Trump has recently named Kash Patel as his appointment for the director of the [00:03:00] FBI. Patel is known as a Trump loyalist. has been connected to QAnon, a right wing cult like movement. And Patel also has a book where he's made a 60 person list of what he calls government conspirators.
Many journalists are calling this Patel's enemies list. Now in a speech last year at CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference, Patel called the media the most powerful enemy the United States has ever seen. And on Steve Bannon's podcast, Patel pledged to go after members of the media stating, civilly or criminally, we'll figure that out.
Now Trump has already been speaking about how the U. S. has enemies within. So Patel's appointment seems to be how he's going to go after his opponents. I know that this is chilling. Control and persecution of the media is central. to how fascist leaders manage, direct, and grow the power of fascist movements and fascist governments.
And this is [00:04:00] in addition to the fact that the FBI has a long history of targeting social justice activists, from blackmailing Martin Luther King to their involvement in the planning and execution of Black Panther leader Fred Hampton. Or there's the surveillance of Muslim communities, their surveillance of Black Lives Matter activists, Occupy movements, anti deportation activists, environmentalists, and so many more.
We'll keep monitoring Patel's appointment and whether or not he gets confirmed and what this means for the repression of our communities, the media, and activism. In more hopeful news, this week a critical case was argued at the Supreme Court and it highlights how trans communities are pushing back against fascists and fighting for gender affirming care.
In a historic moment, Chase Strangio, the co director of the LGBTQ and HIV Project at the ACLU, was the first openly trans lawyer to argue at the Supreme Court. Go ahead, Chase. [00:05:00] So the case, United States v. Scarametti, is challenging a Tennessee law that bans certain healthcare treatments when they're provided to trans youth.
The case argues that this law is discriminatory, and it's constitutional because it's targeting trans young people, their parents, and their doctors from making these decisions. And this law only outlaws these healthcare treatments when they're provided to trans young people, but it keeps them available to all other young people.
Now these laws are not just in Tennessee, but they're happening in 24 other states. And so no matter what the decision is, I'm grateful for the legal team in pushing back on fascism. Fascists are often proponents of strict gender roles. They have a long history of controlling people's bodies and genders.
Whether we want to consider the treatment of trans, queer, and disabled communities under Nazi Germany and many other fascist regimes, and the fact that fascists historically target feminists and work to outlaw abortion and trans healthcare. A dear [00:06:00] friend and fascism researcher, Shane Burnley, often states that fascists endgame is not to rule the state, But to rule our lives, so we have to keep that in mind and stop them from doing it.
And finally, South Korea shows us how it's done. So South Korea pushed back against rising authoritarianism this week in a way that's hopeful. The president, Yoon Suk yool, declared martial law on television. And he accused the main opposition party of anti state activities and that the opposition party was connected to and sympathized with North Korea.
So within this martial law action, he censored the media, banned political activity, and shuttered the National Assembly, which is the South Korean parliament. In addition, he forbade mass gatherings. In response, the press and social media activists defied the censorship bans, sharing the details of martial law.
And then many South Koreans in the middle of the night [00:07:00] went to protest, also defying martial law. Then legislators from both parties ignored the order. Some climbing over fences and confronting the military directly. And they made their way back into the National Assembly and voted to lift martial law.
So this shows us multiple things. It shows us the necessity of swift action. It also shows us the interconnection between people power, protests, independent media, and all of these in combination to bolster elected officials in stopping a coup and authoritarian rule. Fascists and authoritarians can be defeated all and South Korea is showing us how, which means I know that we can face what's coming.
I am so excited. to have some dear, dear friends and collaborators on the Fascism Barometer today. [00:08:00] I'd like to introduce Che Johnson Long and Ken Montenegro. So Che and I are practically family. We've organized and worked in the same communities for the past 15 years. She's sharp, compassionate, accountable, dedicated, wildly talented, hilarious, and fabulous.
She's one of the best community safety and security trainers I know, and I'm really excited to have her here. Welcome, Chae.
Che Johnson-Long: It's so great
Ejeris Dixon: to be
Che Johnson-Long: here. Thank you for having me.
Ejeris Dixon: And then Ken and I have collaborated quietly in my work around safety and security for a few years as well. And whenever I get really stuck on an organization's issue, I go to Ken.
He knows so much it's daunting. He's a longtime digital security practitioner and technologist and lawyer and so many other things. And I really want to welcome you as well, Ken.
Ken Montenegro: Thank you. I'm so delighted and flattered to be with you and Che today.
Ejeris Dixon: [00:09:00] So the goal of this podcast is for us to talk about fascism, and we're going to talk about fascism and safety and security and kind of all the weight that so many of us are feeling in these times.
But the other goal is a conversation about fascism. That we would have with like our cousins, our family members who may care about politics but may not follow politics all the time. So Chae, I'm really interested in how you talk about fascism with your people and who are your people?
Che Johnson-Long: This question makes me think about my 17 year old nippling who lives in Atlanta.
And he has just been introduced to Octavia Butler. And so he's in this, like, post apocalyptic kind of obsession. So everyone in his life has told him to read Parable of the Sower. And so for me, the entry point is really talking about these [00:10:00] stories, these post apocalyptic stories. And really kind of zooming in on the political movements inside of these stories, specifically like the far right movement that claims to like be able to fix all the problems in this country or sort of uses some of this ideology of like, going back to normal or going back to the old ways.
But in that story, and of course, you know, in the country, there's so many ways that this political party actually creates more harm and creates more othering while using sort of the opposite cultural language. And so, You know, with my nibbling, we talk a lot about the differences between what fascism messages and what fascism does and how it's also about culture.
It's about getting people to sort of buy in, in mass to this idea that there has to be one group of people whose fault it is for [00:11:00] all of our problems. And if we can sort of blame this one group or one sort of like outsider group, then we'll be fine. And that's been really exciting, too, because then we get to talk a lot about all the ways that people are addressing fascism in these fictional stories.
Ejeris Dixon: Oh, I love that. I love that. And we can talk about the fake promise of fascism and some of those, like, real desires that people may have to improve their lives, but how it's seen in this kind of us versus them scapegoating style story. Ken, I'm also really interested in this question. And I want to know why do you talk about fascism with your people and also who are your people?
Ken Montenegro: Thanks for that. I just, I'm enamored of Che's response. It's just like, it's being so like deep and close about these stories. Cause I think just my answer is, is also predicated on stories, on history, just being the child of Ecuadorian and Guatemalan folks, having [00:12:00] a partner who is from Colombia. Recently come to the U S all these countries have experienced governments that are fascistic governments, governments that are enamored of death.
And, and in having that conversation, it's funny in the last maybe year, if I've come to realize that it's actually thinking of fascism in how we talk about it, about, Oh, these people are afraid of us and they're also afraid of us. And they want to eliminate us. But that's all predicated upon fear, which ties back to how Che shares their understanding of fascism in like such a beautiful way, that this is actually also about our power, like our power to tell stories, our power to survive, the power of our ancestors to have survived previous iterations of fascism.
Ejeris Dixon: Yeah, I think there's a particular wisdom and knowledge. around speaking about fascism, speaking about resistance, but also from the [00:13:00] communities that are targeted from marginalized communities. And it's one of the reasons why I really wanted this podcast to speak about what it means for all of us when we hear folks on the right wing, folks in the Make America Great Again movement, talk about our communities as the problem.
And so recognizing it's a hard time and it's a sad time. And a frightening time for a lot of our folks. And as collaborators, we've all dedicated our lives to making marginalized communities safer. And there's a core piece on fascism, that fascists use violence to both eliminate democratic practices, and to harm the people they scapegoat.
So I'm curious if you all can offer a safety strategy for individuals, and then we'll also talk about organizations in a little bit. And I'd love to start with you, Ken.
Ken Montenegro: Yeah, I, I think in the [00:14:00] current context to me, um, how do we build trusted networks of information because so much of our response, um, our security, our safety process, mechanisms, protocols, et cetera, they kick in based on an incident.
I am hopeful that we were able to build up like a reliable. Oh, this is legit. Now we need to move. As opposed to we're still in this space where some folks don't have protocols in place. Some people do, but we still don't have that first level of is something really happening? And what is it? And what is our intervention?
Because then we can understand it and operate from a place of power of like, knowing, uh, I need to go somewhere else, or I need to throw away my device, or whatever the reaction is, or the response is, versus the, I really don't even know what's happening here. So for me, it's that space of like, how do we identify that this is a legitimate threat, that this is legitimately happening, and not someone who [00:15:00] saw to do it.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers getting a drink, a cup of coffee somewhere, and suddenly it's like, ICE is in the shopping mall.
Ejeris Dixon: Yeah.
Ken Montenegro: Everybody look out.
Ejeris Dixon: No, I really hear you, Ken. There's this piece that's really hard. As so many of us are operating with more fear, which makes sense, how are we going to Separate rumors from like reality, and I'm curious when you talk about these trusted networks of information, like how are you doing that for yourself, Ken?
Ken Montenegro: Yeah, so for myself, I'm, I'm fortunate enough to have spent many years in leadership of the National Lawyers Guild. Being connected with small groups, but I think the thing I want to highlight is having small communication channels of that network of trust of people who are like, you know what, I'm actually going to be listening to like who, what these people are saying on this, because I know that it's not going to be a lot of noise.
So for me, [00:16:00] it's been a years of curation, but I think in the short term, I would encourage folks to like, listen to like the organizations, the formations that they trust. And maybe using that as kind of like the bellwether of like, Oh, something's going down. We need to get ready to roll.
Ejeris Dixon: Yeah. And so that can sound like I'm guessing one local organizations, especially with your example around ice, right?
Ice is in the shopping mall, you know? So are you joining a local organization, but also finding trusted news sources, more progressive news sources? I don't know, like a democracy now or something along those lines, so we can also drop those in the resources. Um, Che, I'm also really interested if you were to offer people in your life who I'm sure are coming up to you with fear and with questions right now, what safety strategies do you feel are really important right now?
Che Johnson-Long: You know, I think in my Atlanta [00:17:00] world, I have a lot of comrades who are part of the movement to stop cop city here. And everyone's really scared. Everyone's really freaked out by the RICO charges that have been placed against stop cop city organizers. And in a lot of ways, I think our focus can go to these kind of like big publicized cases that are rightfully incredibly terrifying, but at the same time have a comrade who just got pulled over because she had expired.
Registration, and it was that pullover that actually led to escalated charges.
Ejeris Dixon: And
Che Johnson-Long: so, you know, I think there's something to be said, like Ken was saying about, like, really Looking into threats to verify their legitimacy and to understand whether they're going to impact us or not. And I think there are personal vulnerabilities that we can sometimes address and it's small stuff, you know, it's [00:18:00] looking into whether your tags are up to date.
Paying your parking tickets, if it's possible for you, making sure that you look into paying back taxes, like, these are the small things that I think can sometimes get people caught up in much, much, much bigger things later, or sometimes that's the excuse that the state uses to pull people over, or to kind of like get them in custody, and so I think especially for leaders of movement work, but really for everybody, It's to figure out where you can reduce your own personal vulnerabilities.
And that's going to be different for everybody. You know, some people are going to be able to afford to get their tags updated. And if that's you go for it. Some people are going to make different choices, but I think. Even just knowing what your vulnerabilities are can be really helpful in building a safety plan for yourself.
I echo the joining an organization, um, I think now is the time to just find your people, and if you can't find them, then, then make the [00:19:00] organization, you know? But really, connect yourself to others, because A lot of the safety threats that we're personally concerned about, our communities are also concerned about, and there's just no need for us to be anxious alone, um, when we have so many people, and I think that's one of the biggest assets that we can kind of like lean back on right now, is knowing that there's just a lot of us.
You know, I think there's something to be said about That you level up on your kind of like study or your skill building for yourself. And so there's a ton of resources. I think some are going to drop later, but I like to lift up the Get Information Toolkit, um, which Ejeris was the original writer for.
And it's just like chock full of decades of community safety practices. I think it makes a great kind of like reading group vibe. Um, but I truly think that there's enough, um, resource out there for everyone to find the [00:20:00] toolkit or the community safety training or webinar, whatever it is, and decide what your plan is to deepen your skill.
Um, I think that a lot of times community safety can feel Intimidating, or there can be like an overemphasis on just physical de escalation, you know, everyone's kind of like, how do I get my self defense training together? And while I think that's important, I also think there's just small things that folks can, again, do to start, where it's like, Going back to my, my 17 year old nibbling, when he was much younger and, you know, less surly than he is now, we would play this game when we would go to grocery stores.
And I actually got this game from a security training a long time ago, where we would count all their surveillance cameras in the grocery store. And like, whoever got the most accurate number, they would get to like, pick an extra thing to buy at the grocery store. And usually he would, you know, choose candy.
And I loved that game because it really [00:21:00] got him involved in being aware of his surroundings in the security world. We would call this like situational awareness, and it's something now that allows him to notice when violence is starting to escalate at his school. Or when a fight's about to pop off at the park.
And it's something that he does with his friends now too. And so I think skills like that, you know, that can really engage young people, or that can just be a part of your everyday life, can help you to be a better support to other people if they might be in danger, but can also help you to notice danger as it's starting to escalate.
Ejeris Dixon: And that makes a lot of sense. Yeah, I'm also thinking about all of the different pieces you all said, like verifying information, this piece on situational awareness. So I bet that for commuting routes or in people's neighborhoods, they can just start to be more present and aware with what's happening, right?
Where [00:22:00] is the local precinct? Where are the neighbors that I trust the most? You know, how far are my friends from me? All of these different pieces. I think what can be really challenging under fascism and under repression is understanding how safe or unsafe we are. And I think that there's this piece, um, that I'm noticing with a lot of folks who are like, do I need a go bag, which is like a bag of things that you pack to like leave if you have to leave really quickly.
Or there are a whole bunch of celebrities who are like, we're leaving the country, you know? And so I'm wondering how you all think about. access and safety, right? Because if everyone goes into their kind of internal planning or is like, I actually can't join an organization now, I'm going to focus on keeping me and my family safe.
I don't think we then can build the movements we need to resist. But at the same time, different people are more [00:23:00] vulnerable than others with all of these threats about deporting all undocumented immigrants, right? Or with the threats that are happening against trans folks. you know, we can think about folks who are already over policed or people in prison, like our safety is variable and ever changing.
So how are y'all thinking about that piece around access and identity around safety?
Che Johnson-Long: Okay. So I have two thoughts. So, you know, first thought I think is just everyone being able to flex a muscle around measuring the likelihood of safety threats for them. Particularly, you know, being able to look at the likelihood of a safety threat impacting you is sometimes what can help folks to prioritize their resources and their capacity and not spend time and energy and sometimes money planning for threats that may not happen.
And so, you know, [00:24:00] in security culture, we would call this a risk assessment. And that's just a fancy way of saying, how can I look at What is happening in the political landscape and start to assess, like, is this threat likely for me, given my identities, given my social location, given where I live? You know, I think risk assessments in the most simplest terms are really talking to other people, whether it's people in your neighborhood, people you organize with, people you're in coalitions with, and starting to understand if the fear that you have is actually something that a lot of people in your world are experiencing.
Um, there was a rumor in Atlanta a few years ago that. ICE was going around doing raids of different immigration rights groups. And the rumor kind of like spread through coalition spaces, but it never got super verified, but it scared people. And so folks [00:25:00] stopped having meetings in their spaces for a while.
Some organizations put out these statements about staying safe. And I think that one of the things that, you know, we missed back in that time was really talking to each other about our experiences and getting a sense of, is this threat actually happening? Because then the next move after that is to start to safety plan.
And I think maybe Ken was going in the direction of safety planning, but You know, I just quickly want to say that safety planning is something that anybody can do. Um, it does require being in collaboration with other folks in your life, but if you got three people in your life, then that is enough for a safety team, and that's enough to start talking about the safety threats that might impact
Ejeris Dixon: the three of you.
As we're talking about risk assessment, as we're talking about safety planning, you might be like, where do I even start? And don't worry, as usual, I have a resource. Che has sent some resources, Ken has sent some [00:26:00] resources. If you go to the resource section of the website, you'll be able to download some actual forms that can help you get started with your own safety plan.
But Ken, I know you have ideas around this piece around how do people kind of calibrate their own safety and make their own decisions. Plans, but ground them in reality.
Ken Montenegro: Yeah, the first thing is just total amen to everything that Shea said, and just thinking of like, when we're creating this list of things that we are worried about, concerned about, or potential threats, having some type of calibration within those threats of like, Yeah, I read that that happened to that cat.
It's probably not going to happen to me. Okay, cool. I will put it as like a low risk. But emotionally, I've processed it because I've written it out. I've had some chance to think about it and be like, yeah, not going to happen to me. I think the other thing that I want to encourage us to, to think about is also how a lot of security and safety practices have [00:27:00] origins in like traditionally targeted communities, particularly, um, female communities where those communities are like, you know, they, they have to live.
Unfortunately with this like higher degree of situational awareness. So how do we also not rarify it as a skill, but it's like, Oh, Hey, you know what, you already have this power. Let's step into it in that context because, um, we have that ability and, and using like chase example of like, and sometimes we can actually make it fun so that we're able to build muscle memory in for when the moment happens, we know what to do.
Which I think makes me think about how do, when we have our people, how do we make sure we do role playing? And like legit role playing where yes, we can have fun with it, but this is like a revolutionary, like very rigorous discipline of like, yeah, okay. Yo, I totally didn't tell them to put the warrant under the door.
I forgot to ask for that. All right, cool. So we'll try that again next month. Once again, how do we build these practices? The thing about go bags has always been [00:28:00] fascinating to me. And then this is just me and my, my own emotional kind of burdens where I'm like, especially now that we're in this time of climate collapse, it makes me think of, oh, so this is just like in an environmental disaster where certain people are privileged enough to have the bag with the passport, with the clothes, with like the stacks of hundreds and be like, I'm going to like best shades and be like, now I'm going to bounce.
See y'all later. Um, for me, I'm hopeful to see like more resilient security formations that are predicated more around like relocation than, than fleeing, stepping into like different. Modes of power within this as well. And how do we like not create a culture that affirms abandonment? I think the last thing I want to include in that is particularly thinking when we're designing these processes.
How do we make sure that these are accessible processes? Because thinking [00:29:00] of someone who is in a wheelchair, Their capacity, their avenues of escape are going to be limited. So maybe there is like the, okay, let's be real about this. This is a plan for able bodied people. And if that's who we are going to prioritize saving that, that might be a little whack, is this, is this the culture that we want to like put forward?
And yet at the same time, how do we make sure that we keep our elders, our resources, our leaders safe, but also in a way that's congruent with our shared values?
Che Johnson-Long: Can I think what you're saying about go bags really resonates with me and it makes me, I'm such a go bag girl. Like that's how I navigate anxiety and stress related to safety is like, I want the thing, the tool that's going to make me safer, but I think something that a comrade of mine said recently, that's kind of helped me to reframe this is.
You know, there's a, there's a ton of Appalachian mutual aid groups, and they've gotten [00:30:00] even stronger as they've navigated all these hurricanes and just climate chaos. And one of the things that they're starting to encourage people to do is to do more resource mapping than go bags, where they're talking about like, You can't put a well in your go bag.
You know what I mean? Like, you can't, but you can map out where there is fresh water source in your area and have a conversation about who is actually going to go get the water. You can't necessarily have the stuff, the things that you're going to need to survive all by yourself. And that's actually not the point.
The point is to be able to make sure you have enough to be able to support a larger community. So there's some folks who are thinking about things like plan B and making sure that they have plan B stocked up. There's other folks who are mapping out water systems. There's other folks who are talking about like language access.
And to me, like that means we're actually resourced and not my little, dry food that's gone. You know, [00:31:00] protect me or keep me fed for like a day and then I will be hungry like everybody else who did not pack dry food in their little go bag.
Ejeris Dixon: Yeah, it feels like we're really talking about both and space and things that you may already know.
So if you have. made a plan around how you would navigate a hurricane as a family, then you have the start of your safety plan, or if you've been through fire season and you have a plan on how you'd leave your house for fire season, or if you have things that you've put together in case the power went out in a storm or an earthquake, there are parts of this that can all be around safety planning and the through line like Che and Ken are saying is that we do this in collaboration, we do this in community.
What we know about fascism is that there are different points as a fascist progression happens. So there's a point where you're actually safer staying put, organizing with the community that you have and resisting, right? Because [00:32:00] you actually have a chance to stop what's happening, right? You have a chance to create different forms of protection.
Because when we all start to like, just think about our immediate folks, it makes everyone who doesn't have a plan or doesn't have access to the safety team. more vulnerable. So there is this piece around it that all of us who are against fascism are all a little less safe now and we all will need to be a bit more courageous and our ability to end what's happening is really important.
Is about how we organize together. So what I'm curious about, we've been talking about joining organizations. We've been talking about how important it is. And I would love for you guys to start to say for folks who are in organizations, what are your tips or ideas?
Ken Montenegro: Yeah. One of the things that's key and, and Che touched on it and you have like, Built a universe of knowledge and resources around it is, yeah, there's no joy [00:33:00] in being the only person that is safe, like to be the only person who makes it through.
That seems really sad and depressing.
Ejeris Dixon: And we've like seen that movie, right? We've seen that show.
Che Johnson-Long: That's how you get a volleyball for a best friend.
Ken Montenegro: But I think that's part of, um, In like safety and security culture, so much of it happens through this capitalist lens of how am I going to get through it, how are me and my wife and the kids and the dog going to get through it, as opposed to actually part of this is about making sure my community makes it through.
Like that the most of us make it through as opposed to individualized. And I have to say that that's one of the unique blessings of progressive security spaces and formations is that they're very clear that adopting an individualistic and a militaristic model is not going to get us through. In a way that's meaningful and humane.
Ejeris Dixon: No, I completely [00:34:00] agree. I'm really curious about what y'all's thoughts are around organizations, right? As we're talking about the need to organize, more people are joining organizations. People are probably entering wondering what are the, what are the safety plans that are in place? Our organizations are more vulnerable, especially when they're supporting.
The communities that are more vulnerable. So how do you talk to organizations about how they think about safety?
Ken Montenegro: To me, I think so much of this is about mission and values alignment. I think that like before the safety conversations, like what do we really believe? Let's be real about this. What are we concerned about?
And what is our internal capacity to do this? Because one of the big challenges is you can engage with the group, talk about the threats that are the group might be facing. And then suddenly it's like, Ooh, this is a lot of work and there's nobody left to work on it. And yet the work has to go forward because that's legit.
Like that's why people came together to move that work forward. And [00:35:00] so it's like, What is the risk tolerance for certain activities? Yes. And how to calibrate your work according to that. So like, let's say if it is illegal to feed unhoused folks in a certain place and the group is like, yo, that's our sole mission, then that's our sole mission.
There's like very little, maybe like, Oh, we'll like be on the lookout for the cops. And there are other like mitigations, but that's the mission, like making sure that in the desire to be safe, we actually don't lose the point of why we were coming together. The other thing is like having. To me, talking to groups about creating reasonable expectations that this is also a culture shift.
So if it's an organization that always has functioned in the open, everybody knows everything. Social media is just used widely and publicly. It's like, okay, cool. How do we draw this back? In a way that's actually going to be sustainable and meaningful because that is culture shift. So how do we create those culture shifts so that it's not like, [00:36:00] um, in 2016, a lot of organizations and formations receive digital security training with the first Trump administration.
Those trainings do not, did not stick because everybody thought, including funders were like, Oh, we'll give people one training. Of course they'll remember everything. And it was like, A failure, because like, how can you expect folks to literally operate in a different way to do their work without consistent support and affirmation?
Because I think that's the other thing, is like, folks should be affirmed. Like, if we're doing things safely, like, let's give ourselves some love and celebrate that, because it's not, it's not easy.
Ejeris Dixon: Yes. Yes. I mean, I think it's. a psychological desire around fear and terror. So please give me your training.
Let me, it's like a, you know, a box you can open and then just wash safety all over you. You know, there's this piece. That's how people want to think on how it works as opposed to it being a practice, right? Like something you do regularly over [00:37:00] time, you get better at it as you do it more and more. Not like, okay.
Check like I got my safety training. I mean, we've seen how that works with like trainings in general. Oh, yes There will be no more racism at my organization because we check we did the racism training and and now racism is eradicated So this one time model for addressing really big issues and big concepts We know it's not going to work, and it's about the steps that we take every day.
Um, I'm curious, Chae, around, um, what are you offering to organizations in these times?
Che Johnson-Long: I want to encourage groups to slow down. There are so many protests in this moment being organized in, like, hours. And the unfortunate reality, I think, is that we're, we're about to be at a marathon. And not a sprint and.
When we are anxious [00:38:00] and when we're nervous and we're moving fast is when I think organizations make the biggest mistakes. And so first, just kind of like slowing down and recognizing that. We're going to need to fortify ourselves. And so getting into that fortification mindset, I think there's a level of like proactive planning that all organizations can do.
Um, if they haven't done so yet, really thinking about and listing out. Who is their opposition? Who are the organizations, the folks who are organizing against what they're organizing for? And really thinking critically about like, what are those groups known for? What do they do when they are organizing against their enemies?
Um, really Trying to think ahead of safety threats, I think, sometimes means having conversations [00:39:00] with folks who you're in coalition with to get a sense of, like, what is their lay of the land? What is their read? And what are the safety threats that they're experiencing? Um, I've been a part of groups. That have experienced safety threats.
And sometimes we've, there was some kind of like weird shame that we felt about experiencing like a break in or, you know what I mean? There was like a, we should have known better kind of vibe. And so we kept it to ourselves for way too long and we spent too long trying to fix it ourselves. And the irony is that once we started telling other people in our city about what we were experiencing, I can't tell you how many people were like, Oh, us too.
Yeah, last month, us too. And so it just became really clear that, one, that these threats were, were part of a pattern. And so the more we talk to each other, the more we notice those patterns. But also that we did not have to only rely on our own capacity to address [00:40:00] those threats. You know, and then I think the last thing is just kind of, All of the stuff we said about individuals, I think is also true for groups that there is an investment in skill building and community safety skill building that orgs, if you're not doing now, like it's, it's time, um, if you aren't thinking about the digital security of your filing system or how you're storing the information of your members, and now's the time.
If you haven't yet thought through what happens if a member or a staff person gets arrested at a protest. Then now's the time like these are some of the threats that I think a lot of groups should start with, but then every group is going to be different, right? Some groups are going to be more vulnerable to certain threats and others.
And so I think that's where leading into that risk assessment is useful. I think the last thing that I'll say is I know myself and I know that under pressure, I can [00:41:00] start to want to move too fast, and I can start to want to move alone. I can get frustrated sometimes when I feel like The threat is coming at us, and I just want to move my group, and I'm so blessed to have comrades like y'all, um, who also know this tendency in me, and who have seen it over years, to be able to keep kind of slowing me down, and reminding me that I'm not alone.
We have to move together. There's just no option where I, by myself, am going to safety plan for a whole organization or a whole movement. That's not realistic. That would burn me out. And it's just not within my power. And so I think reminding our comrades when we start to notice those tendencies come out where you're like, Girl, I know you want for this action to happen next week, but could it happen maybe two weeks out?
Like, could we do a little bit more time? And sort of like lovingly reminding each other that, [00:42:00] that we need to prioritize safety together in order to be able to survive what's coming.
Ejeris Dixon: Yeah, you know, I want so much more time with y'all, but I'm going to just ask one last question. A lot of folks are under a lot of pressure right now.
It's a scary time. And of the folks who are under a lot of pressure, people who do safety and security work for progressive communities and for marginalized and targeted communities are under so much pressure. Like I know you're getting lots of requests and lots of fear. And, um, Can you talk to me about how you stay grounded and, and, um, adding to what you were saying, Chae, like why, why staying grounded is, is critical to the work of building safety?
Che Johnson-Long: I think for me, the thing that keeps me grounded is I think remaining right sized, remembering that both things can be true, [00:43:00] right? That this is not the first time that our movement has experienced intense safety threats, that there's just so much wisdom at our backs. There are so many elders who came before me who survived, who navigated stuff, who made our movements possible.
And so it can help me to just remember that This moment is something that's survivable. And I think it can also be useful to just borrow this idea of science fiction, that we are able to create things that don't exist yet. And so while we're coming from this place of like, yeah, we have a lot to learn from the past, and we have a lot of like knowledge at our backs.
And we're innovative, and we're able to adapt to changing conditions, we're able to create things that didn't exist before. Yeah, to me that keeps me in the middle, where I need to be to be doing work.
Ken Montenegro: Yeah, I'm gonna echo the grounding in history of our movements, like I [00:44:00] think just a couple of months ago, I was rereading, uh, Jalil Lutakim's, uh, Prison Writings, and I was like, damn, like, we really need to practice.
But also, I'm not going to get up tomorrow and run a marathon. I didn't bring the shoes to do it. Like, I actually have no interest in doing it. So, so why am I going to, like, Tell myself I'm going to be ready and do that. So how do I keep honest with myself? I feel that one of the things that keeps me honest, um, apart from comrades like y'all is, um, the community of practice.
So there's a beautiful and growing community of practice of, of rad. You know, safety and security practitioners, it's really beautiful seeing that flourish, especially over the last couple of years. Um, have to just like shout out vision change wind for creating the space for a lot of us to come together and just like have an interdisciplinary approach.
Cause I think having that interdisciplinary approach where it's like someone who's like, yeah, you know what, Hey, I'm going to focus on like. protest stuff, I do [00:45:00] mental, I do digital, I do organizing, I do research, having all those people at a table as comrades. And like as family, just like being real with each other.
And those are the things that keep me grounded. Cause the other thing is just knowing that none of these fascist exercises last forever. They're based on death. They're not going to last forever. So the thing is, how can we like not be afraid of the ruins? And that keeps me grounded. Just knowing like, okay.
We are learning so much from, from Palestinian resistance. We are learning so much from like the history of resistance of like black and indigenous communities globally. For me, that's like, okay, you know what other people got? This can don't be a baby chill. And then like, put your shoulder to the wheel.
Ejeris Dixon: I love this.
I'm so grateful for y'all for bringing that lesson and that reminder because one of the things I used to say a lot in the safety trainings I would facilitate would be for all of us who come [00:46:00] from marginalized, targeted and oppressed communities, there is wisdom and legacy just in our elders. Like your parents, your grandparents may not have been the same.
activists or revolutionaries, but they navigated some stuff, you know, like my, my mom, um, grew up in the segregated South and just the safety plans that they had to have around kind of racist police and around white supremacist violence are so useful. Right. And then there's even organized groups like the National Council on Elders.
I get really inspired by and you can just check out their stuff on Instagram, right? And they talk about the way that they were able to navigate during the civil rights movement or the way that they were able to navigate kind of the U. S. based repression of organizers and activists. So there is a rich history of survival and our communities have the skills.
[00:47:00] And I'm really grateful for y'all bringing that wisdom today. I'm grateful for all of us in this work, and I'm grateful to all of our listeners. So thank you so much for being on the Fascism Barometer.
Che Johnson-Long: Thank you.
Ken Montenegro: Thank you.
Ejeris Dixon: We've reached the end of today's episode, and while the pressure is still there, I feel more equipped to face fascism, and I hope that you do too. If you want to know more about what actions you can take against fascism, please go to our website at fascismbarometer. org. There will also be information on Che's work at Vision Change Win and Ken and Che's work with the Progressive Safety Alliance.
We appreciate you joining us and we're working hard monitoring the fascism barometer for you. Together, we can keep fascism at bay. So watch the [00:48:00] skies and subscribe to this feed to stay up to date. We have one more episode in this season, and you don't want to miss it. And again, when you share the show with a friend, you fight fascism.
Our producer is Phil Serkis. Our theme is by Meklit Hedero. This podcast is a project of Ejeri Labs, and I'm your movement meteorologist, Ejeris Dixon. See you next time on the Fascism Barometer.