QUESTIONING AUTHORITY
by Zimya' A. Toms-Trend Reporter and Co-editor of Industrial Worker
In this low-key recital of almost thirty years' involvement in working-class
struggles, Zimya' A. Toms-Trend gives little hint of her dedication, persistence,
and courage-standard equipment for a radical woman activist facing situations
of personal risk that could include police brutality.
I've always detested the hierarchical nature of the capitalist-patriarchy,
the military-industrial complex and the religious right. These institutions
divide humans by class, race/ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation because
it's in their interest to keep us hating, mistrusting and fighting each
other. On the other hand, left sectarians with their hierarchies, rhetoric,
and dogma alienate well-intentioned humans making it downright impossible
for them to wade beyond their ignorance, evolve philosophically and save
the planet.
How do progressively political individuals locate each other to form non-hierarchical,
non-violent communities? How do they provide mutual aid and facilitate social
change while maintaining ethical standards? Well-meaning individuals have
lost hope because they sought but didn't find these comrades and community.
During the '60s my awakening came while attending civil rights demonstrations
in Detroit and San Francisco. "The greatest good for the greatest number"
and "from each according to his ability to each according to his needs"
was my maxim. Although I resisted sitting down and getting arrested with
fellow students at these demonstrations (for which I was chided about not
being serious enough about this struggle), I'd made the transition from
liberal to unaligned radical with Marx and Engels as my economic mentors.
In 1964, I resigned from SNCC (Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee)
coalition since Afro-Americans wanted and needed exclusivity. This resulted
in the Black Power Movement and Black Panther Movement of the '60s and '70s
which, from my point of view, was essential for reinventing new self-images
and new programs of their own choosing as a down-payment towards what I
hoped would be their eventual empowerment.
With my comrades in Minneapolis and Seattle, I demonstrated, marched and
protested against the Vietnam War from 1965 till the war ended on April
Fool's Day 1975. Busloads of students went to Washington, D.C. over the
Easter break in April 1965 for what turned out to be a massive anti-Vietnam
war demonstration. The capitol was besieged, bullhorns were everywhere,
and musicians and performers on stage supported our long walk in bitter
cold temperatures. It was thrilling! I knew I'd never be the same.
Not until the early '70s did I find kindred spirits. Being a collective
member of Red and Black Books in Seattle (a left non-sectarian bookstore
unlike sectarian left bookstores or the anarchist bookstore, Left Bank),
I acquainted myself with books and magazines on anarchy. Communist-anarchism
made sense, and I could always find others at Morningtown, an anarchist-run
cafe, to discuss the finer points, if I chose. "The abolition of the
class system and the withering away of the state" along with I.F. Stone's
writing against the war became as essential as breathing. Finally I identified
myself as an anarchist, one who believes in "the complete absence of
government and law." I couldn't ignore the violence of my government
during this undeclared war. How could absence of government be more violent
and immoral than ten years of lies and violence perpetrated by our own military-industrial
complex? "Questioning all authority" henceforth became my modus
operandi.
I'll never forget the day when my anarchist practice vs. theory coalesced.
One sunny autumn day in 1972 after a lunch hour of rousing anti-war speeches,
students, faculty and staff spontaneously decided to walk from the University
of Washington campus to the Federal Building, 4 to 5 miles as the crow flies.
Seattle is unique in its freeway/expressway configuration. Between the freeway
going north and the freeway going south is a three-lane one-way expressway
which allows southbound traffic exclusive sway in the morning while northbound
traffic presides in the afternoon.
One hundred strong we left the campus and by the time we arrived at the
expressway, we were hundreds strong. The first dozen climbed over the guardrail
past the northbound freeway onto the expressway and hundreds followed. Within
minutes, police arrived to close the expressway to all vehicular traffic,
since pedestrians had commandeered this route. Drivers going north and south
on the freeway rubbed their eyes in disbelief, but the police were powerless
to intervene, since we'd outnumbered them.
By the time we arrived at the Federal Building, we were thousands strong.
Office workers from high windows saluted us, hooted, and doused us with
confetti in solidarity. Because this entire scenario was unplanned and we
outnumbered police a hundredfold, no arrests could be made.
Of course, we'd never have been given a parade permit to march on the expressway
in the first place. Never had I experienced a spontaneous act of civil resistance
against the state which maintained non-violent ethics. This sense of spontaneous
unison and collective will has never ceased to amaze me and reinforce my
anarchist ideology hands down. With the war over, my extracurricular activities
changed focus. I was a volunteer counselor at the Lesbian Resource Center
and worked with diverse groups on prison rights issues on top of a stressful
job as a psychiatric social worker in the jail. Anarchist Extraordinaire,
Emma Goldman, remained my role model throughout this period. In 1981 when
an Afro- American client was murdered inside the jail by a white guard,
my mental stamina snapped. I was dragged through the Coroner's Inquest-a
whitewash, but I hoped for justice at a trial which the NAACP and the anti-racist
community demanded. Again, the guard was acquitted. I lost hope and planned
my Seattle exit. (Ironically in 1987 this scenario was documented in "SIX-EAST"-the
mental health unit of the jail, by my feature-length film screenplay.) Alaska
provided a new life and new meaning for me. I worked as an Addictions Counselor
and my "cultural" work for 3+ years was producing community affairs
shows on public radio. My documentaries gave venue to Native Alaskans and
others who'd never had voice over any media waves. Against all odds, I found
community-an Anchorage elder signed me up as a member of the Industrial
Workers of the World, a radical labor union founded in 1905. The IWW Preamble
states: "The working class and the employing class have nothing in
common. There can be no peace so long as hunger and want are found among
millions of the working people and the few who make up the employing class
have all the good things of life." Instead of the motto: "A fair
day's wage for a fair day's work" we must inscribe on our banner the
revolutionary watchword: "Abolition of the wage system." I'd always
wanted union membership but as an office worker, I was not cognizant of
Boston's 9 to 5 union for pink collar workers. Graduate students are led
to believe that unions are unnecessary for "professionals" and
serve as (bad) bargaining power for the working class. As a working class
office worker paying my own way for my education, this indeed was a travesty.
Most AFL-CIO unions are a sham, sell-out their constituency of mostly blue
collar trades, refrain from organizing the lowest-paid workers, and most
importantly are pawns of the Democratic Party and other hacks.
As members of the Educational Workers Industrial Union of the IWW, I and
other Educational Workers could make IU #620 whatever we wanted. Whether
employed as a media monger (public radio, community television, film production
or print journalism), a social worker and/or counselor/therapist-my business
is educating workers to the reality of capitalism. I have "nothing
to lose but my chains" since becoming an anarcho-syndicalist. Again
from the Preamble, "It is the historic mission of the working class
to do away with capitalism. By organizing industrially we are forming the
structure of the new society within the shell of the old." My internal
beliefs were validated by one of the few organizations still in existence
after Red Scare and Comstock Raids of the 1920s. As a member of ACACA (Alaskans
Concerned About Central America), I lived in Nicaragua for 4 months in 1984.
For an hour each Thursday morning, internationalistas picketed the U.S.
Embassy in Managua. My language training at Casa Nicaraguense de Español
made me aware of the reality of the Nicaraguan situation. Mornings were
spent in school learning Spanish while each afternoon students visited government
agencies, hospitals, schools or cultural organizations.
High points were visits to Radio Sandino and the Children's Psychiatric
Hospital-both in Managua. When the founder of Radio Sandino realized that
I produced radio shows in Alaska, I received a solo invitation to return
and discuss shoptalk. This elder and ex-attorney established Radio Sandino
prior to 1979 as an underground communications network after being wounded
by Somoza's soldiers. His humility and bravery awed me, and I was flattered
beyond belief for being accorded private time with him. It was at the Children's
Psychiatric Hospital that sadness reigned supreme. All were orphans and
had emotional wounds from the war. Boys and girls alike clasped my hand,
skirt, or waist spewing out unintelligible words in a language where I was
a mere novice. Even after I gave them gifts, as did other internationalistas
on our way out the door, I was not turned loose. Led into the office by
the administrator while children still tugged at my skirt and tightly gripped
my hands, a translator asked what my profession was. When I responded "counselor,
social worker and periodista (journalist)," the administrator requested
that I consider a six-month commitment to work with these children under
her tutelage. "These children have never before behaved so outrageously.
Please do not abuse their trust." I needed media work as raison d'etre
as a cultural worker, and for once in my life allowed my head to rule my
heart; however, the choice was very difficult.
I joined 150 others from the U.S. and Canada when they arrived at the Managua
airport. We were known as the Maura Clarke brigade and traveled the first
50 miles on bus to EMSEC headquarters for a briefing; the last 100 miles
over rough terrain was spent standing up with 50 others in 3 pick-up trucks
with our luggage on a 4th pick-up. When we arrived at our hacienda near
the Gulf of Fonseca to pick cotton for 3 weeks, we learned of contra bombings
of a civilian communications complex 10 kilometers away in Apascoli. Our
brigade had the distinction of a visit from a CBS television crew and I'll
never understand how the equipment survived the trip from Managua. . . .
We donated blood to wounded Nicaraguans, attended cultural events throughout
this tiny country, and had travel access to the west coast (home to the
Miskito Indians and to English-speaking Afro-Caribbean peoples). These Creoles
proudly showed us evidence of Sandinista achievements in housing, education
and literacy after 40 years of Somoza's neglect of the entire Caribbean
coast.
Back home in Alaska, I broadcast interviews with Nicaraguan workers letting
them tell it "like it was" in their own vernacular. How could
I have known that 12 years later I'd complete a feature-length film screenplay-"Re-Awakening"-about
North American life in Sandinista Nicaragua? With a sense of renewal, I
completed my radio projects, was accepted at San Francisco State's graduate
filmmaking program, and left the last frontier, Alaska, where I'd developed
my primary media addiction. Could I survive in San Francisco, the independent
film capital of the world? Could I maintain my ethics, anarchist politics,
and activism from February 1985 until however long it took to complete a
16 mm thesis film on my heroine, Emma Goldman, entitled, "If I Can't
Dance, I Won't Join Your Revolution"? You'll have to read Part Two
of this monologue to find those answers!
