Occupy Oakland Anti-Repression Committee writes: "Over the past year, we have experienced many forms of overt police repression, from the camp eviction and night of tear gas on October 25th, to raids on the vigil, to snatch and grab squads on May Day. We have come to expect the riot-clad police, with their batons and chemical weapons, although repression comes in other forms as well. As a community, we have not been sufficiently attuned to these other faces of repression.

"As the Anti-Repression Committee (ARC), we too have focused primarily on the overt police violence on the street and its counterpart in the jails and courts. We have spent countless hours in communication with people in jail, working with NLG folks to secure lawyers when possible, doing and mobilizing court support, and providing commissary and other forms of support for our comrades who remain locked up. We have also held workshops to talk about some of the other forms that repression can take — and ways that we as a community can keep one another safe — but we have not done enough as a committee to address these other faces of repression.

"We feel that as a community we need to shift our thinking about repression, to recognize the subtler more insidious forms that it takes and the ways that it targets our sources of strength and plays on existing conflicts and divisions in an attempt to weaken, distract, and consume us. This does not mean that we should become mired in trying to identify state infiltrators and agents. We may never know who the infiltrators are, and ultimately, whether individuals are directly working for the state when they engage in disruptive and divisive behaviors is not the point. We need to instead focus on behaviors. If behaviors support and consolidate state campaigns of repression — then they do the state’s work of repression."

Read More | See Also: Who is the Occupy Oakland Media Collective? | "Beat the shit out of anarchists" flyer found in Oakland | Take Back the Plaza! Overnight Vigil + FTP March #O25 | Anti-Columbus Day Arrestees Face Charges

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