ARA is eighteen years strong!!!!!
Welcome to where it all started.
ARA originally came out of the efforts of Minneapolis anti-racist Skinheads to create an organization that could combat the presence of nazi skinheads in that city and its neighboring city, St. Paul. The Baldies, a multi-racial skinhead crew having members of Black, White, Asian, and Native American origins, was fighting the Nazi skinhead group, the White Knights, and had set a code within the local punk and skinhead scenes: if Baldies came upon White Knights at shows, in the streets downtown, or wherever, the nazis were warned once. If Baldies came across the nazis again, then the nazis could expect to be attacked, or served some of what the Baldies called "Righteous Violence."
While the Baldies actions went a long way to limiting the presence and organizing efforts of nazis in the Twin Cities areas, the Baldies realized that a successful drive against the nazis would mean having to form a broader group that appealed to kids other than just Skins. ARA was that group. However, the attempt to make ARA into a group beyond the Baldies was met with limited success, and ARA remained predominantly skinhead.
The experience of the Baldies was not limited to Minneapolis alone. Across the Midwest, nazi activity was growing and anti-racist Skinheads were organizing in similar ways to what the Baldies had done. Soon, these different anti-racist skinhead crews were meeting up with each other and deciding to create a united organization of anti-racist skinhead crews. ARA as a name was adopted and a brief network of the crews was formed: the Syndicate.
Like Minneapolis, Chicago had multi-racial crews. These ARA skins were generally left-wing sympathetic and in Chicago it was not uncommon to find some Skins warm to Black liberation/Nationalist ideas. And it was not just racist and nazi ideas that were confronted. The Chicago ARA crew banned the wearing of American flags patches on jackets. At this point in time this was a rather significant step in Skinhead circles. While many Skinheads could claim to be "anti-racist", a vast majority also were ProAmS (Pro American Skins). It was generally unheard of to find whole crews of Skinheads rejecting patriotic trappings. Taking their cue from the words of groups like Public Enemy, for many ARA Skins, America was a racist nightmare and the Stars and Stripes a symbol for "a land that never gave a damn."
Up in Canada, anti-racist skinheads and others in the youth subcultures were also uniting to get nazis out of their scenes. From 1990 to 1992 in Edmonton, the Anti-Fascist League waged a street-level propaganda war against a racist gang called the Final Solution, who were recruited and manipulated by the Aryan Nations. In Winnipeg, the United Against Racism crew fought to keep the bars and streets free of fascist violence. And in 1992, Toronto's Anti-Racist Action formed to take on a similar threat posed by the neo-nazi Heritage Front.
Toronto's ARA was inspired especially by the Minneapolis chapter, where anarchists and feminists had tried to broaden the mandate of the early skinhead fighting crews. From the jump, ARA Toronto included several activists with lots of experience in feminist, anarchist and First Nations solidarity groups.
In 1994 ARA Toronto attended the first conference of the Midwest Anti-Fascist Network in Columbus, Ohio. The conference was called by Columbus' ARA group, to co-ordinate and sustain the constant protests against Klan rallies throughout the Midwestern U.S. -- rallies which were often protected by legions of heavily armed police. Most conference goers were high-school students, punks, kids who fought with their schools over dress codes and the right to distribute political literature. Several veterans of the early ARA crews of Chicago and Minneapolis drove in for the gathering even though their own groups were pretty inactive.
This was not a government-funded, corporate-sponsored conference. The keynote speaker was a survivor of the "Greensboro Massacre" of 1979, when a Klan cell linked to the Aryan Nations and heavily infiltrated by police and FBI, shot and killed five anti-Klan protestors in Greensboro, North Carolina.
Like the subcultures that were the social base for this particular anti-racist movement, the gathering was predominately white, although people of colour of all ages played important roles. Women and girls were outnumbered but vocal. The dominant political tendency was anarchist, but there was a commitment to non-sectarianism and small groups of Trotskyists were also involved. Some of the key older organizers had a long history of work, dating back to Students for a Democratic Society in the 1960s.
The ARA Network grew like crazy for several years. Annual gatherings drew hundreds of people, new groups were forming all over Canada and the US. In 2003, the growth spurt has ended. The anti-globalization movement became the next "new thing" and many kidz who wanted to get into activism were more turned on by Seattle, Washington and Quebec City than in confronting some loser boneheads. Now, with US aggression sparking the biggest anti-war movement in world history, anti-racist and anti-fascist activists have to look to ourselves again - how are we relevant to what's going on today?
But ARA has kept with the program and we're into something more slow and steady. There are dozens of committed and experienced ARA organizers across North America and several strong chapters with a lot of history. ARA is still fighting the fash at Klan rallies and white power shows all over North America. We're writing to prisoners and standing up for First Nations and immigrant rights. In lots of places, ARA has become part of youth subculture, something taken for granted like punk or hiphop. And we're learning more about how we fit into a world of social movements and struggles as ARA puts down roots in South and Central America.
For years ARA has been able to popularize the ideas of direct action in the fight against racism. It's also been an arena for debate and action around the connectedness of various forms of oppression. As we ACT we become CONSCIOUS, and our consciousness flows into our action. And all this outside of the control of the government, multinationals, religious institutions or other authorities.
To contact ARA Twin Cities :
Please email us at
[email protected]
On MySpace at: MySpace.com/aratwincities
Or write to us at :
Anti-Racist Action
P.O. Box 4597
St. Paul, MN 55104
