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The defenestrator is Philly's sporadic newspaper for resistance, creative revolution, and action. To defenestrate Power means total refusal of its tools and tentacles. Like the Hussites who had their oppressors thrown down from the Prague castle into the angry mob below, the defenestrator wrestles power and privilege from its highest and most protected strongholds and casts the beast out of the window and down into the angry hands of the people.
The defenestrator doesn't adhere to a strictly defined ideology, but we generally derive our ideas from an anarchist or autonomist tradition, which proposes a revolutionary transformation of society, the abolition of property and of all hierarchies and coercive power.
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The defenestrator is anti-authoritarian, anti-racist, non-religious and focussed on class struggle. Think of readers as people like yourself who are interested in grassroots struggle, directly-democratic, non-hierarchical processes, direct action for social change, etc. Don’t talk up or down to your audience. Writing should be accessible, but not simplistic (as with revolutionary struggles, it’s important to consciously grapple with the complexities of the issues). Your perspective on the issue is important. It’s your voice.
We are looking for local news and events, columns, features articles, reviews of various media, interviews, prose and poetry. If you have photography or art that can accompany your piece, please send it along in a high-resolution jpg format. In general we are looking for pieces that are 1,500 words or less. If you have a longer submission, contact us first to make sure that it will be a good fit for our editorial guidelines.
Submit an essay: dan@defenestrator.org
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The defenestrator's audience represents an emerging movement of radical Philadelphians and incarcerated persons organizing and agitating for social transformation to end all coercive power. This participatory group of creative and intelligent people works within the local community to build a better world tomorrow.
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The Struggle for
Dr. Monteiro's
Reinstatement
October 8, 2014
“Being the only black person in a room can become violent,” Kai Davis remarked, an English and African American Studies honor student at Temple University, in a poem of hers which she recited at a rally on May 8th on the corner of Broad Street and Cecil B. Moore Ave.
Her stark words, which echoed off the newly constructed, monolithic Mitchell and Hilarie Morgan Hall, expressed her frustration as a black woman towards a white classmate’s defense of the university as a “non-white school.” read more
Reparations: A Long Overdue Moral Obligation
While most discussions of reparations have focused on the period of chattel slavery leading up to 1865, the Kenya lawsuit against Great Britain compels us to expand the time frame to include the Reconstruction and Jim Crow eras. read more
By Ron Lester Whyte
October 8, 2014
Excerpt from A Guide for 21st Century Solidarity: The White Volume
The truth is that the covert and overt violence that black folks live with, move through the world with, and play out on each other because of systems in place that reinforce the devaluation of our bodies is deeply woven into the fabric of this place we call “home”. read more
By Melissa Moore
October 8, 2014
West Philly Food Not Bombs: A Tradition Continues
Every Friday for the last ten months, groceries have been brought out to Malcolm X Park for community residents to take home. Not even our winter of brutal snowstorms brutality managed to derail the 4:30 afternoon distro. Every week, veggies, fruits, and bread are free for the taking, and a hot dish is shared. But the latest incarnation of West Philly Food Not Bombs has definitely raised some eyebrows. read more
By Tony L.
October 8, 2014
(Beyond) Grad School & Survival
I believe that a radical approach to debt is necessary, one that goes beyond individualistic approaches to a systemic problem. And of course, debt and survival are inextricably linked. Why can't we even begin to have a serious conversation about this? read more
By Matt Dineen
October 8, 2014
The Value of Torture
I transformed, in a second, from a journalist on the ground who has a social status and people look at me in a certain way—I have my familial and social values and status—to a humiliated person stripped down forcefully, very naked, helpless. read more
By M.W. II
October 8, 2014