Host and "Movement Meteorologist" Ejeris Dixon welcomes back abolitionist safety practitioner Che Johnson-Long and technologist-lawyer Ken Montenegro back to The Fascism Barometer.
Ejeris Dixon welcomes abolitionist safety practitioner Che Johnson-Long and technologist-lawyer Ken Montenegro back to The Fascism Barometer for a grounded, practical guide to resisting in a fast-shifting landscape. They unpack how fascism feeds on panic and isolation—and how all of us can respond when we examine risk, create shared tools, and take care of each other. Homework includes: broaden trusted information sources, join an organization, and start an actual risk plan.
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Che
No matter who you are, there is a level of bravery that we all have to turn up. We need more of us. Now is not the time to pull back. Now is the time to really show up with everything that we have, with all the people that we have, with the biggest, baddest campaigns that we can bring.
Ejeris
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 intersections of communities that fascists see as the enemy. And for a very long time, I have desired a way for us to understand and measure the threat of fascism and how it impacts all of us. In each episode, we work to learn what fascism is and what we can do about it, from the perspectives of each of our guests.
And as barometers measure pressure, we unpack the pressure that fascism puts on all of us. So as I'm looking at the barometer today, its reading continues to be very high. The Supreme Court has ruled that racial profiling is permitted within immigration raids.
And while that's already been happening, this ruling writes more fascism into our legal system. So yes, the fascism barometer is rising. But so are we.
The citizens of Washington DC just launched their largest demonstration since the federal takeover. And people in Chicago are preparing to defend their communities. So I know we can navigate this storm. And I believe we will come out the other side, but we're going to need all of us. And as we've said before, fascism is best fought with massive amounts of people power. And that's what we're building together. Thank you for listening and joining our movements.
This week's conversation on fascism features the return of Che Johnson-Long and Ken Montenegro to continue our conversations on individual and collective safety as fascism rises. But before we get to that, here are the latest updates on fascism in the news.
Welcome to the Fascism Roundup. In this segment, we talk about current trends in fascism in the United States. And there is so much happening that this is just a snapshot, and we're going to put some additional articles on our website.
So the Supreme Court recently decided to overturn a lower court's ruling, which barred racial profiling in immigration raids. Now, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, also known as ICE, has been targeting Latino communities and arresting anyone that they suspected of lacking legal status, and then examining their immigration status later. However, this ruling allows these ICE arrests and abductions to continue, dehumanizing immigrant communities, and treating people as threatening based solely on who they are.
In a critical dissenting opinion, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote, “We should not have to live in a country where the government can seize anyone who looks Latino, speaks Spanish, and appears to work in a low wage job.” The targeting of communities based on identity is harmful, and it's classic fascism, and this paves the way for practices that will harm all communities of color and marginalized communities. Additionally, Trump signed an executive order on September 5th, seeking to change the name of the Department of Defense to the Department of War, a name that hasn't been used since the 1940s.
Now, to make this official, it first needs to be approved by Congress. Trump stated, “Defense is too defensive.” Okay.
But continuing, he also stated, “We won the First World War, we won the Second World War, we won everything before that and in between, and then we decided to go woke, and then we changed the name to the Department of Defense.” Okay. Now, this would also change Pete Hegseth's title to Secretary of War.
Hegseth previously stated he wanted to restore the “warrior ethos” to the Pentagon. This rebranding can feel like an annoying waste of resources, but it's also important to speak about the role and imagery of war and warriors for fascists. Fascists often have a deep sense of pride in their race or nation, and it's also called nationalism, and it reeks of supremacy and hierarchy.
Fascists use war and images of themselves as warriors to highlight their national and racial superiority, often naming that all others outside of their true nation or race are less than human. We know that this is a dangerous road, and we will keep reviewing it.
In a recent hearing, multiple members of Congress from both parties have accused RFK Jr., the chief of the Health and Human Services Department, also known as HHS, of causing chaos within HHS and the Center for Disease Control, an agency within HHS. Recently, RFK. Jr. fired Susan Monarez, the CDC director.
Following this, other members of the CDC have also stepped down to protest what is happening at the CDC and to draw attention to the political interference with the research and work being done there. Last week, a thousand current and former HHS employees sent a letter to Congress demanding his resignation.
According to an article from National Public Radio, RFK Jr. fired all 17 members of an outside expert vaccine panel and replaced them with his own hand-picked roster. And he changed COVID-19 vaccine recommendations without input from his own expert staff. This is something that multiple medical associations have opposed.
“The nation's defenses are down,” declared Senator John Ossoff on Thursday. “We are more vulnerable to deadly disease outbreak than at any time in recent history because of the demolition of the CDC.” According to multiple members of Congress, RFK.
Jr. is attacking science and medicine and replacing it with pseudo-science or fake science. Now, there's a long history of pseudo-science within fascist regimes, particularly within the Nazi regime. So stay safe out there, y'all, and we'll keep following this.
So the ongoing genocide in Gaza continues with a death toll of over 64,000. Palestinians are dying from starvation. Israel has killed multiple journalists and is in the process of a military takeover of Gaza City, the largest city in Gaza.
Simultaneously, the US continues to attack Palestinian communities and the pro-Palestinian movement. Recently, the US has sanctioned multiple Palestinian human rights organizations for providing evidence on Israeli human rights abuses to the International Criminal Court. However, in a small win, Harvard won its lawsuit against Trump this past week, restoring almost $3 billion in federal funding.
The judge ruled against the regime's argument that they were attacking Harvard due to anti-Semitism. She said in her ruling that it is difficult to conclude anything other than that defendants used anti-Semitism as a smoke screen for a targeted assault on this country's premier universities. The regime is expected to appeal the decision, and we'll keep monitoring the situation.
And finally, Chicago is the next likely city facing federal occupation. Trump recently claimed that the people of Chicago should demand protection. And this news came after immigration and customs enforcement announced the plan to dramatically increase raids against immigrants who live in Chicago and Illinois.
Trump then posted on Truth Social, “I love the smell of deportations in the morning.” A reference from the movie Apocalypse Now. Trump also informed Illinois leaders that they would soon find out why he had changed the Department of Defense to the Department of War.
However, there's also tremendous organizing and preparation happening in Chicago. Mayor Brandon Johnson signed an executive order that prohibits the Chicago Police Department from collaborating with federal agents on immigration enforcement. Governor JB Pritzker has voiced his opposition, and community groups are organizing protests, rallies, and organizing community defense to protect each other, to raise awareness, and to push back against this deployment.
And last weekend in Washington, DC., tens of thousands of demonstrators marched towards the White House in the city's largest protests since the regime unleashed federal troops onto its streets.
This protest demonstrated the opposition to the deployment and the regime and drew connections between DC and Chicago. We are fighting fascism, all, and we will continue to fight fascism together.
I'm very excited to welcome Che Johnson-Long and Ken Montenegro back to The Fascism Barometer.
Che is my chosen family. We've organized and worked in the same communities for over 15 years. And she's an abolitionist security practitioner and a community organizer who can't leave well enough alone. She's currently the Community Safety Director at Vision Change WiN, and serves as a board member of Third Wave's Accountable Futures Fund Advisory Council. She's one of the best community safety and security trainers I know, and I'm so excited to have her here.
Welcome, Che.
Che
Hi.
Ejeris
And Ken and I have collaborated quietly. I think we're approaching a decade. And whenever I get really stuck on a security issue, I go to Ken.
Over the past 25 years, he's amassed more skills than most people can, from his work as a lawyer, a digital security practitioner, technologist, and he has expertise in fighting online fascism and resisting surveillance and state violence. He's a past vice president of the National Lawyers Guild, a board member of May 1st Movement Technology, and was a co-founder of the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition. Welcome, Ken.
Ken
Hi, everybody.
Ejeris
So last time we talked a little bit about how we define fascism, but since you guys are return guests, it'd be really interesting to hear, especially since everything that's happened in the past year, why you think it's important for the communities that you come from to understand what fascism is. And I'd love to start with you, Che.
Che
I think it's important for my communities to understand what fascism is because fascism is a unique beast and now is the best time for us to win. And so understanding how fascism works is one of the best ways and the best tools that we have to win. I've heard a lot of folks in my community talk about how this moment can feel like more of the same.
I've heard folks talk about how, you know, the right has always been attacking left movement organizations and this is nothing new. I would argue that this is something new and that it's very important for us to recognize that and to understand the elements of this political moment that are unique or the convergence of unique moments that create really complicated threats for us to address. I think at the same time, there are a lot of familiar playbooks that we can use past lessons in order to defeat now.
So, you know, we're seeing this incredibly intense war on trans communities, on immigrant communities, on black folks. You know, we're seeing this sort of attempted consolidation of executive powers and just a total reshaping, attempted reshaping of our federal government, an attack on democracy. And that is a unique time for us to be in.
And at the same time, there are a lot of history - moments in history that we can really draw from. I find it really useful to talk to folks who are organizing in the post 9-11 anti-war moment to understand some of the tactics that are useful right now when it comes to thinking about political repression. So I do think there's a lot that we can learn from the past, but I also think that we are in such an important moment where fascism is not going to get easier for us to fight later.
And so right now is the time for us to really give our organizing everything that we've got, to be clear on what the moment is, and to be able to work together with that clarity.
Ejeris
And Ken, why do you think it's important for the communities that you come from to understand what fascism is?
Ken
Yeah, I think that for me, just so much of what Che says resonates, and I think also in an international kind of level, being first generation born in this country, having family members who are immigrants, and being deeply rooted in those struggles, I just think there is this, if we have a deeper, if we're able to develop a deeper understanding of what the threat is, we start to demystify it, we start to understand it, we start to understand that people have pushed back successfully, people have kept each other safe in the most dire situations and conditions. And I think then that turns it from this, like, depressing thing to like, here is an opportunity to build something. I think the rise of fascism is really a challenge to those of us who want a more life-affirming society.
To be like, so what is our proposition? As we see this threat to our existence grow, as we see this colonialist violence come home, it's really like, yo, so what are you going to do? And I think that's why the work that you're doing to Ejeris, Vision Change Win is doing, is like, really rooted in, like, love of, like, we want to stay alive, not just to, like, you know, have a nap, have a dope meal, but because we want to, like, be together and, like, get down and enjoy stuff and we understand that we want other people to enjoy it too.
So, like, that opportunity, and that's exactly what fascism, the opposite of what it wants us to do. Fascism wants to alienate us. It wants us to be afraid of the trans person, of the unhoused person. It wants to blame, like, late stage capitalism on migrants or other informal workers, et cetera, and this is, like, our moment to step up and be like, no, no, no, no, no, no. We've seen historically how communities fight back, and we've learned these lessons, and we've also learned that we can't just fight it here at home. This fight has to be international for it to succeed, because otherwise it'll just keep popping up with different permutations.
Ejeris
Yes, I think it's true. Like, fascism wants to steal our joy. Fascism wants to steal our own sense of safety. Fascism even starts to steal our ability to plan long term, right? This idea of, like, what will be here? What does future look like?
And what I've noticed in a lot of the circles that I'm in is that people are having trouble focusing on what we need to fight because of these threats, and are starting to think a lot about, can I do this? You know, so we have ICE abducting and disappearing people. We have what they call an increase in detention centers that look a lot like concentration camps, that we know are not there just for immigrants.
The way that the National Guard is being deployed in various cities that seems to be a pushback on our movements. It's not about crime because every city that had a high crime rate is not on the list. You know, otherwise you don't get only mayors of color.
We're watching celebrities like bounce and get their passports. But I'm also just in spaces where people are talking about their own personal timeline, right? Which feels like it's a bit about the tolerance for the threat.
And yeah, fascism is scary. We all know what's happened in history. We know the level of violence and devastation that fascist regimes have deployed.
So within that, it feels really important to revisit some of our conversations around risk and like what risk assessment is and how people do that, how people assess their risk, which it's all going to have, everyone's going to have different variations, right? But how people assess it realistically while they're really scared. And Che, I know that you're not only a security practitioner, you have a long background also in somatic work.
You understand what happens to people's minds and bodies and spirits when fear starts to take over. So I'm really curious about your thoughts around how we think about risk when we're really afraid.
Che
Yeah. I think one thing to keep in mind is that fascism really wants us frantic and unstrategic and that that is part of their tactical focus when it comes to what we see in the news, what we hear about in mainstream media. Before I am an organizer or a somatic practitioner, or a security practitioner, I am a professional worrier.
And if there were one identity that predates any of those other identities.
Ejeris
Oh, team Anxious Unite.
Che
Team Anxious, I feel so grateful that anxiety and worry has found a purpose that I can sort of shape these feelings into something that's useful for movement. But, you know, honestly, from being a little kid, I just remember always knowing where the exits were in a room and always looking for the things that could go wrong in any scenario. And one of the ways that I would cope with that kind of worry as a young person was I would do a lot of over planning, over preparing.
I would collect little items that I would find around the house that I thought would be useful for the apocalypse and I'd store them under my bed. One could say that was the beginning of my little kid go bag. And, you know, that way of collecting stuff has stayed with me.
It is something that shows up a lot, especially when I'm packing for a trip or I'm going hiking for a day. So I have a friend who I go hiking with often. And as you can imagine, you know, little kid Che grows up to be adult Che.
And what that means for my hiking bag is that it is filled with stuff. It is filled with bear spray, even though I very rarely run into bears. It's filled with rope. It's filled with more water than I need. And it's a heavy bag, you know, because it's filled with all of these items that are sort of manifestations of my worry.
My friend, on the other hand, is sort of the polar opposite of me. He packs nothing. He kind of just rolls out on vibes with a water bottle. And you know, we've lovingly teased each other about our different ways over the years.
One thing that I really know about myself is that my way of over planning has kept me safe in the past. It has helped me when I needed that extra first aid kit, when I needed that extra tool. And that way of over packing is sort of like, it's sort of like a one trick pony, you know?
It's not adaptive. I don't really change it depending on the conditions. I just always go for this way.
And so it's automatic in me. Similarly, my friend is really good at adapting situations. He can really make a band-aid out of anything.
He understands the terrain that we're in often. He can kind of read the land. And that's a limited way.
Sometimes you just need a tourniquet. Sometimes you just need a satellite phone, you know? And so, you know, I find that over time, as we hike together, we start to build compassion for each other, but we also start to figure out how to adapt to the current moment.
I think under pressure, all of us have these kind of go-to ways that we use to keep ourselves safe. Some of us have a go-to way that's similar to mine, where we over plan, where we want to spend thousands of dollars on the newest equipment or walkie-talkies, where we often are sort of assessing every safety threat that we see as very, very, very likely. And in that way, we become very stressed out people.
We become people who sort of spend a lot of time and resource without discerning and narrowing down which threats are likely. I have a lot of people like my friend in my life too, who sort of assess that every threat is actually not likely, that we're all good, that this moment is just like every other moment. And that kind of downplaying, I think, really saves us in moments where we need calm demeanors.
And it's also not adaptive to our current moment. And so I think one of the first things that we need in order to assess risk is a general understanding of how we as individuals keep ourselves safe. How have you historically gotten out of scary situations?
What are sort of your automatic responses under pressure? They might be a response to get out, to know where the exits are. They might be an automatic response to sort of like get confrontational, to really get big, to show that we're not going to back down.
I think these automatic responses are really smart and they've saved us in the past. And any good organizer knows that we need many tools in our tool box in order to be adaptive, in order to read the moment, in order to win. So then what is the opposite of that?
The opposite of sort of responding with these automatic responses is a risk assessment. And that's just a fancy way of saying, we want to discern what safety threats are likely to happen, which ones will have the biggest impact on us, and then we want to pull out the correct tool to address them. And so risk assessments really ask three questions.
First, they ask, what is likely to impact you? You specifically in your geographic location with your identities, or inside of your specific organization that does your specific work? That question can be answered in a lot of ways, but I always recommend first talking to people who are around you, talking to people who you share coalition space with, talking to folks who might be in the same geographic neighborhood as you, getting a sense of what's the difference between a rumor that you might hear once - Oh, hey, I heard that somebody's protest got busted by the feds, right? And then being able to start verifying, so the difference between a rumor and verified information. We can also just read the news.
I'm not a fan of reading the news every single day, but it's not good for my mental health. But I do pick a few different news stations that are across the political spectrum because I want to look for repeated messages. I want to understand kind of what is the big picture?
What are we hearing a lot? Because often that can impact how we experience things locally. And then the last thing I do is I talk to people who've done it before me.
You know, I like to talk to organizers who were around before I was, who were in different political moments that I was, because they can often notice patterns and safety threats. And they can say, you know what? This actually looks really similar to what we were dealing with in 2002, when we were sort of addressing a lot of the onslaught in the after 9-11 organizing crew.
I can talk to folks who were around during the beginnings of Cointelpro and they can notice those patterns. It helped me to understand them in this political moment.
Second question is, what's the impact? You know, for some groups, I think the threat of a white nationalist counter-protestor showing up to their direct action is going to have a huge impact on their turnout. It could mean that everybody leaves because they're afraid.
But for some groups, white nationalist counter-protestor showing up to their direct action is just called Tuesday, and it won't have any impact on who shows up or who leaves. And so getting a sense of what that safety threats impact might be on your goal, really getting clear on what that goal is that the impact can be measured. And then I think the last question that we ask ourselves is, what's the correct tool that we want to pull out to address that safety threat?
So the tools are really going to be a mixture of what resources we already have available to us, but it could mean that we assess that we don't actually have the tool that we need. I think that's where we get to go back to our coalition partners, to other groups in our city, to other folks that we know, to figure out who might have the tool, recognizing that we might all be at real low capacity, but collectively we have more resource.
Ejeris
And can you name what you mean by tool?
Che
Yeah, yeah, definitely, definitely. So going back to this example of, a group might hear, oh, there's a rumor that a white nationalist group is planning to show up at our direct action in a week. We've heard of this.
We want to make sure that we assess if it's likely to happen. So I'm going to talk to other folks in my city. I'm going to talk to other folks who do similar work to me.
I'm going to make sure I'm clear. I'm like, is this happening? Or is this just like kind of a rumor that we're going around?
And if I hear enough folks say, yeah, I actually have heard about this happening, this happened a week ago to us. If I start hearing about something in the news, if I talk to organizers who came before me, then I might go to that impact. And if I assess this is a safety threat that's going to have a big impact on our group, then some of the tools that I might pull out are, I want to make sure that our participants feel very safe and protected because our goal is to keep people at this protest.
We want to make a very, very big turnout. So some of the tools I might pull out are being very clear with folks that we want folks to arrive to the protest in pairs. Being very clear with folks that there's a safety team in place so that they don't show up and automatically feel like, oh, I have to deal with this on my own.
Being very clear with folks about how we want people to engage with counter protesters and saying that again and again on the mic. We might talk to other folks who've experienced similar kinds of counter protesters and get a sense of like, what worked for you when they showed up to your action and what did not work for you. And then we might also decide on some details of our event that help create a safer event.
So we might decide, you know, we were going to have this action in this part of the park that was backed up against a wall. But we're realizing that we actually want to move our action to another part of the park that allows for everyone to leave in an open field, because we don't want to accidentally get backed up against that wall, if something gets a little funky. So we're starting to shape our event or our action around safety.
We're starting to make sure that folks are clear who arrive, what the plan is, what the expectations are. And then we're setting a team in place to make sure that we have sort of a buffer between our participants and the potential harm.
Ejeris
One of the things I think I'm going to ask y'all for after this episode is probably some tools on how people can facilitate these like risk assessment conversations, whether it's like in their families or in their organization or with their homies that they do activism with. Because I think that people having something to hold on to in this moment as opposed to just like a conversation about all the things we're scared about could be really helpful. One of the things that I know we share, I get to do this because I know y'all, we're friends.
I don't know if this is standard for people who end up doing safety and security work, but we all actually know in our lived experiences what it's like to be truly unsafe. We've all had that physical sensation in our body. We've all gone through things.
We don't need to go into all the details, right? And it's one of the reasons why it's important to all of us at the barometer to center the communities that are most targeted by fascism because we also have wisdom that we can pull from in our lives, in our families, in our lineages, right? Like in our generations.
Yeah, like there's stories in my family around people navigating lynching, right? People have stories of reasons why people had to leave certain countries or all of these different pieces. So there's this piece about your risk and what makes you unsafe.
But there's also this piece around your tolerance and how much danger you feel like you can operate within. And there's, it doesn't feel like from my vantage point, there's a way to completely divorce that from privilege and access in the life that you've lived. And there is always a push for people with more access to be comfortable with tolerating more danger.
But I'm curious, Ken, when you are, when you talk about risk with people and you start to enter into this conversation, around risk tolerance, what do you think is really important for people to think about and prioritize?
Ken
Yeah, I mean, I totally want to drive into the kind of the systemic ways we can try to navigate this, but I just, I have to like pause for a second and say like the answer to so much of this is in what Che has said. Like for me, it's been a journey doing this work to really learn how we need to listen to our bodies, to our souls, to like whatever is like guiding us to what we're feeling and how important the relationships are. Because I think that then once we have that foundation that Che just so beautifully covered and I'm just thinking of like the beauty of like the synergy that's built with like, I'm the over-prepared homie in the crew and this is the under-prepared homie who's like showing up in flip-flops.
And somehow we can make magic happen and we can fight the state and we can build deep analysis and we can keep each other safe in spite of like these things that seem to not make sense. And I think that's like one, the importance of relationship and understanding and coming at this from a place of care. Because then we can actually do real risk calibration, not like some like corporate nonsense like that.
It's like, no, this is actually like an exercise of love where I can be like, oh yeah, you know what? My light skinned Latino friend is going to have a different experience on the street than like some white female friend I have, then like some trans friend, etc. And then suddenly it's like, okay, cool.
I can ask myself in an honest way, how likely am I to be the primary target? And that's where risk calibration starts. It's like me, how likely am I to be a primary target?
Because then it's like, oh, if I'm a primary target and I'm at the front, I'm going to be calling attention and that might get my crew in trouble as well. So it's like not just about me, but it's like what elements of risk and also what elements of safety, like whether it's like socially structured safety, like identity or like appearance safety to leverage that as well, is really important. And I think that can work if it's like coming from a place of love and not the desire to be a protagonist, not the desire to be like, these are all the things I am.
You need to put me at the front for this where it's like, oh, actually, that's causing more risk, even though it'll get you like 100 likes on the Instagram. So I think like that's important, the calibration as well. And going to the item of privilege or the issue of privilege is like within that factor we all understand in movement work that it's so much of this, particularly living in capitalism, is if I'm targeted, what resources do I have to get me through this?
Like, it's very different for someone to be like, I'm targeted, I'm going to get in my car, drive 30 miles and stay at a hotel, and it's okay, I'm not going to go broke because I spent one or two nights in a hotel. As opposed to some folks who are like, I hope the bus comes because it's after 9 p.m., so I don't know, what can I do? And so those things are really important because a lot of sometimes how we're taught to understand safety and security in a material way is sometimes like you have the go bag with like the 800 apparatuses that actually we're not going to be using today.
Which is not to say that the go bag is bad, but it is to say like, okay, let's slow down. Do I need to be pulling 25 pounds of gear with me for this particular action? So how do we like also make this iterative?
How do we make it like, okay, you know what? I'm going to leave the rope behind, but I'm going to put in some tennis shoes for the homie who is always at the flip-flops, just in case we need to like, oh, I got your shoes. And they're ugly because you always wear flip-flops.
So I think that. And then I think after that, then we can go like into a more traditional risk manager framework where I'm like, oh, what do we do with risk? Well, we want to avoid risk.
So like, let's say if there's an action that's particularly hot, you and your crew can say like, oh, you know, actually, we're not going to go to that action because it's particularly hot. In the current state of the United States, I don't necessarily agree with avoidance. It's in traditional risk management, it's called avoidance.
You avoid the risk by not going. I'm not really down with like the avoidance piece because I'm like, okay, we have to like think like, how are we going to confront this together? But that's a decision that individuals will hopefully take with their teams or their crews and their formations, whatever the collective is, and decide that together like, oh, you know what?
Actually, that is too far. We actually can't go and make it back safely that day or whatever, or these other people are going to be there. We don't really trust them, so let's just like not make it drama, just like we will do something else, etc.
Then after avoidance, usually there's like the idea of risk transference. In like a traditional model that's like, oh, insurance, so the risk is transferred to the insurer. In like the movement conversation that we're having right now, sometimes that looks like people moving away to be like, oh, I'm going to move to like, air quote, “a blue state.”
And it's like, okay, that doesn't work so well for like movements if it's like, oh, we're going to transfer the risk because ultimately, we're transferring the risk to people who don't have the same economic language and other like bundles of privileges that someone who's like Team Go might have, so which is not to say that's not an option, but just when we exercise these frames, how do we do this in a way that's values aligned with what our movements want to be, which is life affirming. Then kind of like the next pathway would be mitigation, which would be like, yo, no electronic devices. It could be like having a security team at all, like your events and all your actions, making sure you know, like, okay, we don't know if there's going to be a street medic, but you know what? I'm going to get my aunt who is a nurse and see if she can join us. And if she knows what's up and she'll join us for a day, and that way, in case something pops off that's medical, we have someone with that skill set in our team. So reducing the risk is mitigation.
And the final one is acceptance, which I think at this moment in time, we're seeing a lot of brave people just accept the risk, where they're like, this is something that wants to remove our life opportunities. It wants to jam up my communities. It wants to put us in cages.
I'm going. I don't care. I'm taking my phone.
I'm gonna live stream it. It's like all the things that some of us are like, no, don't do it. But then it's like, wait, there's like a certain degree of like autonomy that we also need to recognize and a diversity of tactics.
Was like, all right, cool. Are you informed? Did you accept the risk?
Boom, let's go. All done. It's great.
Because then like all of this like feeds back into that loop that Che was mentioning, which is risk tolerance and how that needs to be a narrative process. That just means we need to talk about a lot because like the situation on the ground can change. Like if I'm in New York, if the National Guard rolls in, we definitely need to have a conversation that is a different conversation than the one that we had the other week.
So like as the conditions change, we also need to like adjust our risk tolerance. I think too often, and this is not the fault of like any one like person, et cetera, it's capitalism. We kind of think it's like one and done.
It's like I spent all this time, I made a plan, that's what we're going to do. And it's like, no, actually things have changed. But I also want to return to something that Che, who I've learned so much from, Che.
She's like, let's be real about strategy. It's like I think we keep having this challenge in movements where we confuse strategy for tactics. And these shifts create additional risk because there isn't the predictability of we know what we're going to do, because, oh damn, we decided something different and now we're heading in a different direction.
Which is different than we're heading in the right direction, but we're going to pull over by the side of the road because we got to go to the bathroom type of thing. Now it's like, whoa, we actually just pulled a U-turn and we're like going off road now. So I think for that, that's one of the things that I think is also really important is like, none of these things are really set in stone and how it's easier to go through these frameworks, apply these frameworks when there is that relationship, where there is that trust.
And I think especially when we have the capacity to understand there's no perfect way to do this. And also that it's okay to be afraid. It's okay to be afraid.
It's not okay to let your fear put other people at risk. Those are two different things. Like, yo, if someone's afraid, take care of them, take care of yourself.
That's a real response. It's okay to be afraid. Let's not be like you're driving the highway at 70 miles an hour, 80.
I do 80. And you're like, whoop, there's my exit. And you're suddenly like crossing three lanes.
No, let's not do that. Because we were putting other people at risk because we kind of lost it. We were not cool headed.
And that's not what we're here to do.
Ejeris
We just had this two episode conversation with Tarso, kind of about what time it is. And the stage we're at with fascism and authoritarianism, as opposed to kind of, you know, the previous situation we're in, where many people talk about is neoliberalism. The stage we're at is fundamentally not predictable, or it's far less predictable.
And people have to get used to that just being scary. Like some of what's happening, we wouldn't have imagined. The National Guard is going to be deployed to multiple cities based on false reasons that are mostly racist, and around pushing back on our ability to protest.
And when the takeover of DC happened, I was in a movement conversation where people were like, well, it sounds like it's unsafe to do protest now. Like, blanket, you know? And there's this piece that I think is also around risk tolerance, just around like very different people, right?
Like, the same way where, like, there are people who left right after the election or before the election. You know, like, different people have a different tolerance. Different people calibrate the risk differently.
Well, then there's a question around, to what extent, when we're in community, do we make those decisions for others? What I think is hard about this decision around mass protest is that fascist governments, dictatorships, we've literally seen historically that mass protest can erode the power. You know, consistent, repetitive mass protest can erode the power of a fascist state, right?
By just showing, like, a public display of noncompliance. But you need to be more than they can arrest, right? Like you need to have a resistance of a certain size to withstand the pressure.
What do we do in these contexts where people are kind of going one to ten, you know? Where conditions have changed, we are in more danger, the stakes are higher, but resistance is still needed. Because it feels like that's going to be what we're talking about as fascism rises until we push it back.
So I'm just curious, I'm sure you guys have had these conversations both with individuals and with organizations. So I see you nodding, Che, so I might start with you first.
Che
I really appreciate what Ken was saying earlier about the spectrum of risk tolerance and understanding your own risks, your own personal risks and your own privileges. I think no matter who you are, there is a level of bravery that we all have to turn up. Knowing that for some people, turning up bravery with all the risks that are likely for them as individuals might mean something very different, right?
It might mean I'm going to show up to this organizing meeting and I'm going to get involved in a group. And that is the bravery and that is the thing that's actually building more power. For some folks, it's going to be, I'm going to show up to this super risky protest and I'm going to live stream the entire thing.
And I think we all have to make that assessment individually, but I do think that regardless of where you are on that spectrum, we need more of us. And we don't only need more of us at protests, we need more of us involved in organizations, we need more audacious campaigns. I think now is not the time to pull back.
Now is the time to really show up with everything that we have, with all the people that we have, with the biggest, baddest campaigns that we can bring. I also think that this is a moment where it's important for us to make sure that we're not falling back into the sort of individualism that fascism wants for us, that can show up when we get in that frantic fear place. I think fear is a very logical response to what's happening right now.
I would be a little concerned if people were not a little bit afraid right now. But fear is not the place that we planned from, right? Fear does not take the wheel when it comes to building strategy.
I think the fear tells us that we're under deep pressure, and we acknowledge that, and then we keep returning back to that risk assessment to say, okay, how can we make the most audacious organizing campaign that we can and address the safety risks that are going to impact us as we do that work? That involves making sure that we're having collective conversations about the risk that our entire group, or our neighborhood, or even our block, or our family unit might take together. I think when we do that together, it also helps for us to spread those resources across the board a little bit better so that we don't have folks who are the most likely to be targeted, also bearing the brunt of holding their own safety by themselves.
Ejeris
Ken, I want you to answer the same question, but maybe in a flipped way, which is, I'm curious about a time where you've been in conversations around the risk being too high for either a certain action or a certain plan, or even a certain person when somebody wants to be brave, but may not be considering the various forms of danger that they're in and how you've gone about that.
Ken
Yeah, that's actually a hard question. It's hard emotionally because lately I've worked with some folks who have decided to self repatriate to their home countries because they're like the risk of me being snatched while the kids are at school or home alone is just too much. Like I just can't do that.
I can't imagine. So yeah, I think this comes back to like the how do we examine like the privilege of people and the autonomy of folks. But I always come back to how do we do this in a way, whichever treatment we're going to apply or whatever tactical approach, whether it's avoidance, transference, mitigation to acceptance, how do we take that path without creating additional risk to people?
Because I mean, I think that's what movements teach us. Movements teach us like we're in it together. And yo, you can wear your flip flops, you can wear your running shoes, you can wear your dress shoes.
I don't care, but we're going to show up together and we're going to stand by each other. I also think a lot about how in this current moment in time, I really want us to return to the basics of like, how are we all on the same page? And by that, I mean like language justice stuff is really important.
Disability justice is really important. I think like in a lot of safety planning, and this is once again, I think that this is an opportunity to like, really break with some of the pre-conceived notions we have of this, that to do safety and security work, you have to be like some big, masculine, able-bodied person. And it's like, nah, I held on to that.
Like, dude, that's not true. There are just so many roles that can incorporate everybody. We need all the skills that we have to do effective security.
Like, just thinking how in Portland during the George Floyd uprisings, there was like a wonderful work done where, you know, folks were like, yo, I can't go out on to the street because, you know, I'm immune compromised, I'm disabled, et cetera. They were holding it down. They're the ones who are like, all right, so-and-so told me this.
Here, here's what you need to know, et cetera. There are spaces for everyone with all the skills. I think, like, for me, that's a big part of this conversation that too often I see folks miss in the urgency to do something.
And then we get to, like, the point of, like, the doing something where lately I'm, like, really encouraging folks to go back to George Jackson, which George Jackson encourages us to, like, settle our quarrels. And, like, for me, part of that is, like, don't be a rat. If you know someone is, like, going to do something that is arguably illegal, or some could say, like, creating extemporaneous art, like, you don't need to rat them out.
You don't need to take a picture of that. You don't need to post it on social media. Like, yo, just chill.
Like, try to stay in your lane and try to keep your people safe. And to do that, you don't need to put other people in harm's way. I think we tend to forget that because we're like, oh, my God, I want to control the environment.
I think that's the other thing is that so much of risk management and calibration is, at some point, knowing that there's residual risk. Whatever you do, there's always going to be some risk involved. Where it's like, oh, I left the action, everything was solid, but then, I don't know, I hit a pothole and I spun out and I got, like, in a car accident.
Whatever. There's always going to be residual risk. That's okay.
I think the big thing is, like, let's make sure we cover what's more likely to happen. And always, like, through a lens of collectivity and kind of, I know that VCW has really good material on it. Just thinking of things like basic, things like check-in, where it's like, sure, that's really tactical, that seems really basic.
A lot of people forget the basics because we want to focus on, like, the big sexy stuff.
Ejeris
If you were going to offer our folks one safety task or assignment, you know, we've now come to class twice, so it's time for us to do some homework. What is the assignment that you want to leave with folks?
Che
I want folks to find two additional sources of information that they find reliable, a person, an organization, a news outlet, a podcast, and to add that to their risk assessment to engage with that source of information weekly, so that we broaden our understanding of what's happening and what's likely to happen. The second thing, I'm going to keep saying it until the cows come home, which is join an organization, join an organization, and join an organization. If you don't have a crew, find a crew, make a crew.
But we are more powerful when we are crewed up and we need more people right now.
Ejeris
Ken, what about you?
Ken
Amen, amen, amen to Che. Exactly. And I will just add, my two things would be one, learn about how communities outside the US have responded to fascism.
It's good to see how other people roll and what we can learn from them. It also helps us in calibration, get grounded and be like, we are not that unique, we are not that special. And I think the second thing is, to start thinking about risk management, which means moving beyond making that 100-row spreadsheet of things that could go wrong, and let's move to understanding what we'll do with each risk, identifying the ones that are likely to happen, how we'll navigate it, and what our risk management fabric is.
Because that's how we will get through this.
Ejeris
Wonderful. These conversations are always so useful to folks, like many people named. One of their favorite episodes last season was the one where we talked about safety with both of you.
I'm so grateful for you joining us on The Barometer, but I'm even more grateful for all the things that you do in the world. So thank you for joining us, and we'll stay in contact, because as you all are saying, we're safer together.
We've reached the end of today's episode, and while the pressure continues, I also feel more equipped and resourced to keep fighting fascism. And I hope you do too. In this episode, we talked about risk, safety and resistance.
And I've done some traveling lately, and a lot of people are discussing how to navigate safety while being brave under fascist advances. I know some people are contemplating if they need to prepare to leave the country. While I can't make that decision for you, I hope our conversation today about risk assessment, risk tolerance and understanding what types of threats are most likely to affect you and your communities helps you puzzle this out.
As we've learned together, increasing fascism can mean increasing danger, especially to the most targeted communities. And yet we also know that the resistance needs all of us. And if you're still looking to find your role, please check out the resources on our website at fascismbarometer.org.
We also talk through some concepts that may be newer to you. And here at The Fascism Barometer, we hope to be one of your many learning spaces. And we've listed so many educational opportunities in the resource hub on the website.
We appreciate you joining us, and we're working hard monitoring The Fascism Barometer for you. Together, we can keep fascism at bay. Watch the skies and subscribe to this feed, as we only have a few more episodes left this season.
And we can't wait to share them with you. And when you share the show with a friend, you've got it. You help fight fascism.
Our producer is Phil Surkis. Our theme is by McLeet Hediro. This project is a podcast of Ejerie Labs.
I'm your movement meteorologist, Ejeris Dixon. See you next time on The Fascism Barometer.