From a Twitter thread from 2020. Everything old is new again.
Bloc for everyone! 🧵
Or how I misspent my late teens & 20s.
Caveat: I learned bloc tactics from East Coast and West Coast activists, who learned from European environmental and anti-racist activists. And I learned a long time ago, as these things go.
BLOC EVOLVES.
Part I: BLOC IS A TACTIC.
Bloc is a tactic, not a group. I first heard bloc tactics described as passive-aggressive resistance — More direct than pure sit-in/die-in, without being aggressors. The tactic INTENDS to put your most resilient people as a defense line, because your cohort has fragile people. Recall, I come into this via HIV activism. LOTS of fragile people to protect.
I’ve seen the bloc tactic used everywhere from anti-nuke protests to hardcore environmental work.
And by people who aren’t even remotely allies.
That’s because it’s a TACTIC.
The bloc’ers amongst Pud Bois are not the same people bloc’ing for peace & justice. They just wear the same color.
I shall now mumble something something entitled pearl clutching something something over-reacting to incomplete knowledge & prejudice something something. Uh-huh.
The job of bloc is to hold the line when the cops get aggressive.
Note how I phrased that. No if — it will happen.
And note that protesters have WAY more to lose than cops, so it’s vanishingly rare for protesters to throw the first punch/rock/bottle.
Ideally, bloc’ers can articulate this:
Bloc exists to hold police accountable.
Bloc reminds cops that cops are citizens first, subjects of the law first, and cops’ authority and ability are granted by all the citizens.
Bloc are the watchers who watch the watchmen.
The cop-watchmen, being emotional teenagers, resent this. This being the problem with our police selection and training programs. We select for unquestioning authoritarianism, incuriosity & emotional stunting.
When an aggression comes from behind the bloc line, it’s almost always either a provocateur (impatient plainclothes) or one of the cops’ fellow traveler authoritarians.
For my generation, it was skinheads & SovCits.
Same shit, different name.
Part II: BLOC OPTICS
Bloc need not be black; it’s black because
i) almost every person owns plain black clothing or can obtain some very cheaply, and
ii) black clothes mostly match.
It’s entirely practical — the idea is for everyone to be visually similar so it’s harder to ID any single person.
I did white, then pink bloc – black’s too hot to wear in a desert summer, so we used painters’ cotton coveralls. When they got stained, we had a dye party.
This is because protesting is risky.
It’s why we’re saying don’t show pictures of faces.
Facial recognition gets used against protesters.
Getting your pic in the paper for an AIDS action often meant getting fired or worse; now, if it goes online, it means getting targeted everywhere.
Cops target women, trans folk, POC. Cops grope boobs, just to try to make the men beside us react, so the cops had an excuse.
(Cops have not improved since then.)
If everyone wears the same color, hair covered, faces covered, all in layers? It protects everyone.
Cops aim to grab piercings (back when piercings were still rare-ish in the general population) and will try to tear them.
(Pro-tip: “hold my earrings” is necessary. Remove your gear, and any other piercings, including tongue & genital. Use soft silicone in your mouth to hold the piercing. You don’t want a cracked tooth.)
A bloc of anyone, all alike, is also intimidating.
It’s why the cops are geared up in identical riot gear, after all.
They want to be anonymous and obscured.
(Also see: mirror shades and the magically appearing electrical tape that always seems to cover badge numbers…)
It is not a crime to be perceived as intimidating!
Nor is it a crime to have a self-identity that’s a shorthand for the role a group is taking.
Note that media wear fluorescent vests with PRESS, street medics wear their own vests.
This is on purpose.
Part III: BLOC TEAMWORK
Bloc should have some training.
A bloc group should practice and hang out together, so they trust each other and know what to do.
(The downside of the relatively peaceful late 90s until OWS? Some knowledge didn’t transfer/stagnated.)
Should doesn’t mean is, so some blocs end up being a lot more ad hoc than others.
We should see organization ramping up FAST.
If you are a fast healing young’un with 6 friends… allow me to point at this: historyisaweapon.com
I got my training back when anarchist bookstores were more common than they are now. This stuff evolves. It’s ok!
But Bloc is local.
And it’s personal. It is organized because an organized group knows how they work and won’t end up hurting each other. Organization is self-protection and group protection. (And anyone who says protest must be spontaneous is a doomer or a provacateur or psyop or just a fucking Useful Idiot, and is not to be trusted.)
Bloc is a squad who trusts each other.
If this catches your eye, you will need to prove yourself trustworthy to be trusted.
This is stupid simple operational security: if you rush up to an established group like a badly trained Labrador and tell them you want to fuck up cops?
They’re going to send you for a bucket of prop wash.
And a breastplate stretcher.
And an ID10T form.
They will think you’re a provacateur! DUH. Because you’re acting like one.
Be cool. And don’t be a dick.
But do be reliable — show up where you said you’ll be, keep coming back, do what you’re asked, be it showing up with Food Not Bombs or doing a Mutual Aid project.
Extend trust and it will be extended to you.
Part IV: BLOC CONSEQUENCES
Bloc knows they’re likely to get arrested. They’re thwarting cops’ will, even if they’re not doing anything specifically provocative, because as a front line, they keep cops away from the more vulnerable people.
So Bloc recruits people who can best handle getting arrested.
The reality is: a white suburban dude has social privilege — Likely more access to a lawyer, more capital, more likely to be released without charges, less likely to have poverty-based warrants (like failure to appear on a fixit-ticket), less likely to need maintenance meds.
Used to be, bloc groups got some training for arrests.
(Again, in the days of the anarchist bookstore, these local resources were easier to coordinate.)
The point was to put the people least likely to be harmed — physically, economically — by an arrest at the front.
If middle aged white ladies want to set up our Karen blocs, let’s roll.
Right now.
That’s what we SHOULD be doing.
We have all this unearned privilege, we should be spending it, protecting people who are more vulnerable than us.
Bloc is the major infiltration target because cops have no imagination.
Truly: the most dangerous people in a protest are the nice Quaker ladies who make sure Food Not Bombs, the bail team and the street puppeteers all show up. Friends’ Service knows EVERYONE.
But that’s fuckin’ work, and cops can’t do this work.
And they can’t fake it.
They don’t know how to be people committed to peace, because if they did, they couldn’t be cops.
Cops want easy targets, and a bunch of young’uns on the edge of bonehead?
VERY EASY TARGETS.
Which is not to say cops don’t try to infiltrate Peace & Justice centers and Friends Service Committees. They do, they’re just very bad at it & turd in punch bowl obvious.
Again: if they come to believe in peace & justice, they can’t stay the kind of cops who infiltrate and break heads.
Bloc groups know they’re infiltration targets, so they’re suspicious! And this is not personal towards you, it’s just sensible.
Object lesson time!
So you know, a thing bloc groups used to do, and should probably start again?… spontaneous community clean-up.
Protesting was (somewhat) less fucked up in the 90s, but even back then, cops would decide this was the day they wanted to crack skulls.
And you can tell — they show up in the riot gear, they show up with badges covered, without their name plates, with their mirror shades and no facial hair and no visible tats even on 115° days.
On those days, you can smell the spoiled testosterone rolling off their body odor because they woke up with a hair across their ass and they’re going to take it out on someone. (Protip: put the person with the most abusive father/stepfather on this lookout, because their instincts for a brutal attitude are usually really good.)
And so… Bloc groups almost always each carried a couple trash bags in their pockets.
If the cops were in a bad mood, you kept your distance and picked up every damn piece of litter you could spot.
Because the goal is to ALWAYS fail to give the cops what they wanted.
Remember: Bloc is a passive-aggressive tactic.
It’s about physical and emotional territory denial.
If you’re bloc-ing, you’re denying the cops access to your fragile people.
And you’re making them show that they are the provocateurs.
Sometimes, you won’t be perfect. It’s ok.
Part V: BLOC TAKES BLAME
Bloc takes the blame because suburban (mostly white) liberals are protected little babies who emotionally cannot process that power only responds to power, and so when they see the power of bloc’s resistance, they blame Bloc for exercising its power.
I swear that white liberals have ALWAYS gotten high on the idea of passive resistance & demonstrations as THE FIX.
(The Women’s March was a demonstration — it showed we technically HAVE this power. Our mistake was we didn’t exercise it.)
Passive resistance goes hand-in-hand with more active resistance. (Well, socially distant together.)
Passive resistance & demonstrations alone do not create social change.
At min, you need legal power, organizational & electoral activists, & likely need the passive-aggressive ones.
We’re past the demonstration stage. By two+ years, and none of us WANTED to be past the tipping point.
But now it’s here — we are a nation of people who now literally have very little left to lose. Jobs are failing, savings are failing, the only thing left is the hope of justice. (Note: this was written in the summer of 2020. We have even less to lose now.)
The ones at the front line will take the blame, because it keeps occasional demonstrators safer, and out of the work of an Occupation, or a sit-in (or actually caring for dying people).
And since the Bloc tactic exists to be a visible shock absorber taking a beat down … well, white liberals tend to shit their pants and point at the ones who are bloody, in their white, liberal, just-world fallacy way, and they blame Bloc for getting beat. Without ever examining the context of Bloc defending the vulnerable from worse.
White liberals have had Officer Friendly drilled into their heads since they were barely verbal. They may know intellectually that cops are a danger to all, but early socialization rises & they side with the bullies, hoping if they suck up, they won’t be next.
So. Whatever. If you think of white suburban liberals as LARPers, it often goes better.
Occasional demonstrators showing up and trying, even if they fade away when it starts getting hairy… It’s really fine. Actually, it’s what we want. We want parents to be there during the day with their little ones showing that children are part of social justice, and so children see what social justice looks like. But we WANT them fading out as we move towards sunset. We don’t want occasional demonstrators and little kids in the mix when the mix starts stirring.
Be delighted and welcoming because they showed up (and in a decade, you’re gonna be teaching those little kidlings every one of the tricks we’re rebuilding now, because they will need it, too.) Be very glad that the few who start as occasional demonstrators who can stay, do stay. Know that a fraction of those will become committed. And that’s how we grow.
But don’t worry about the occasionals. They’re not your priority as a member of Bloc. Worry about knowing who is on your bail team and what your medic needs.
That is my 101 on Bloc for both newbs to protesting, and for those who want to put their shit together and start doing the work.
I am now bail team & legislative team. I have a duty to my clients to not lose my license. My job is to sit here with my phone, and come bail you out. We will stop for takeout on the way home and process the trauma when you’ve had some sleep.
Homework, if you’re in the streets:
Hong Kong is your model.
They are seriously the best organized protest I’ve ever seen. (4 years later, this is still true.) They’re SO good at this, and they, too, are in an existential battle. Start here, get into their records: https://hongkongfp.com/2019/08/09/explainer-frontline-protesters-toolkit-evolved-hong-kongs-long-summer-dissent/
You, six friends with goggles, helmet, umbrella? 🥽,⛑, ⛱ — that’s how it starts.
If you’re going out, here’s the priority of gear:
- 1 – HELMET (bike helmets are excellent)
- 2 – Goggles/shatter proof visor/safety glasses. Prioritize the stuff we cannot transplant or fix: brain & eyes.
- 3 – Feet – closed toe shoes, laced, good support. You need to move.
- 4 – Lungs. The best mask you can have, two if possible. Disposable N95s are best, not reusables! Keep one on your face, cover it with a bandana, one in a plastic zip bag in your pocket so you can switch out. Discard any mask that’s been near a chemical weapon; it cannot be salvaged.
- 5 – Hands. Glove your hands, preferably with something rugged. Heat-resistant if possible.
- 6 – Skin. Long sleeves, long pants. Cotton is fine while the weather is warm. Dress in layers, old stuff that you’re willing to abandon if you get hit with a chemical weapon, so shorts or leggings under your jeans, tee or tanktop under your long sleeved shirt. If you don’t want to wear black, wear very light, reflective colors so you don’t overheat. NO LOGOS. Nothing identifiable. Now is not the time to wear that one shirt that comes from someone who only makes 50 shirts a year. Thrift stores are your friend.
- 7 – Joints — knee pads, elbow pads, wrist supports.
Your body has places that are bony and if you fall or are pushed on one, it will hurt. Pad that so it hurts less. You may also need to crawl — you want your knees and wrists protected. Laced boots if you have angry ankles. - 8 – If you have testicles, WEAR A CUP! (This can be anywhere below 4.) If you don’t have a cup, at least drop a couple pair of tube socks in your shorts as extra padding. (This is the time for boxer briefs or tighty-whities; do not wear loose boxers because you need to keep everything compact and controlled.)
- 9 – Kidneys: wear a weight lifting or back support belt (Harbor Freight ones are fine) to help distribute any blow to your mid torso. Wear it over your base layer, below your outer clothes so it’s not obvious.
Remember to either put your phone on passcode, or (preferably) be carrying a burner you bought second hand with cash that only contains essential contacts that you name Mom, Dad, Aunt Jenny and Uncle Scott. (Your team, plus your bail team/lawyer). Location services OFF, do not sign in to google, apple or any other service. Nothing that requires a password should be on this device. Remember: Bloc is about denial of territory, and that includes the digital realm.
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