“If you carry a weapon in public service may God bless and keep you. But know that evils of the past involved policemen and soldiers finding themselves, one day, doing irregular things. Be ready to say no.”
As creatives the idea of carrying a weapon is likely foreign and repellent, and it’s true that this lesson speaks primarily to those in the military and police who carry guns. However, we also know state and private gun violence is ubiquitous in this country.
This lesson seems applicable in the way that Snyder speaks of–mass murders committed by police in Nazi Germany–but also in the disproportionate number of murders of Black people committed by police in the U.S.
I (Claire) am a proponent of moving money allocated to the police and the military to a universal income, creating social and affordable housing, universal healthcare, parental family leave, and abolishing prisons as an additional way to combat tyranny.
Here is some reading I recommend that has been influential in my thinking about this topic:
The End of Policing by Alex S. Vitale
Abolition. Feminism. Now. Angela Y. Davis, Gina Dent, Erica R. Meiners, and Beth E. Richie
How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective, Edited by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
Hear Timothy Snyder speak about this lesson on YouTube.
This lesson was letterpress printed in Pantone 109 ink on a Vandercook proofing press.
