Announcing Debate me, bruh

Announcing Debate me, bruh

From Debate me, bruh
A bit about DEBATE ME, BRUH:

It is a truth universally acknowledged that any organizer who dares to be public about their anarchic/queer way of being must encounter a debate bro (or ten). No matter how prefigurative or insurgent or both our lives might be, a significant portion of being an anarchist in a hierarchical social is necessarily political education–the most rudimentary kind. But what about personal property? What would communities do about murderers in an anarchist society? Who would take out the trash? We’re trying to teach people about a beautiful set of ethics, about what it means to care for one another outside of hierarchy, but instead we’re faced with the truly awkward: isn’t anarchy chaos? Isn’t human nature evil, meaning all social change is futile? Were we at January 6th? Thousands of works of anarchist theory explore (for example) the necessity of transformative justice, answering these questions in a more thoughtful way that a late-night debate in the group chat with your tech-bro friend ever could. Yet despite the theory and praxis that so many have dedicated their lives to, the queries about murder and waste management persist. And your tech-bro friend still hasn’t read Emma Goldman. And there are three other people like him in your DMs, all wondering why you’re an anarchist without actually wanting to know. One wonders if, even in an idealized anarchist society, some middle-school boy somewhere would refuse to shut up about the fascinating fact that “WHEN I HEAR ANARCHISM, I JUST THINK OF FIRE!”

I am a queer anarchist organizer, I have been told as an insult to go live in the autonomous zone, and part of me wonders if we could do debate-bro management better. If we could answer the basic questions in a way that communicates and prefigures our anarchic ethics. I started DEBATE ME, BRUH as a non-academic, informal, and overly sarcastic alternative to the many beautiful “anarchy 101” texts that circulate at zine distros and in online archives. As a space to shamelessly appropriate debate-bro culture and give it a radical queer twist. As a community-based, ever-evolving educational project. Anyone can submit any question, whether it’s about theory, organizing, or anything in between, and I’ll do my best to answer. I’m here, I’m queer, and sure, bruh, I’ll debate you.

Find me at https://debatemebruh.substack.com/.

An excerpt from the column:

Q: i guess my question is what is anarchy in ur own words? i know a bit abt it and i agree with the idea but i don't know too much abt it and i'm sure everyone thinks abt it differently depending on life experiences

Good question, bruh. If this were a debate, I’d probably use my favorite line: mutual aid, universal love, and lesbianism. Or maybe with someone theory-minded, I’d say something about how anarchy is a set of ethics that stands against all forms of hierarchy and coercive power. Or if it was 1 AM and this was on a group chat and I needed some sleep but didn’t know it, I’d spout something incoherent about queer insurrection (okay, that’s most conversations, but whatever). But because it’s not 1 AM, I’d like to share something better. If you can believe it, bro, I wrote a prose poem on this very topic once! Here’s a modified version. I hope this helps.

Anarchy is mutual aid.

Anarchy is community defense against bigotry. Embracing the beauty of queerness, what makes us different, what might even liberate the straight and fashy guys in your life.

Anarchy is gender liberation.

Anarchy is how queer people already relate, if you look hard enough.

Anarchy is a polite way of shouting to yourself, “I refuse to be anything but queer.”

Anarchy is universal love.

Anarchy is lesbian identity.

Anarchy is what you probably needed in middle school.

Anarchy is way more normal than you think.

Anarchy is prefigured change, liberation in the here and now.

Anarchy is queer worldmaking. Anarchy is queer pasts, losing yourself in theory and poetry and knowing you've never been alone. Anarchy is hope for queer futures.

There are 14 Comments

Because of an anonymous anarchist commenter on this site,,,,,,,noOow, WHEN I HEAR ANARCHISM, I JUST THINK OF FIRE-FIGHTERS!

Debate yourselves comrades. It is called self-debate. All post leftist Vegan speciesists engage in it

If you sit on your hand before you debate yourself it's like someone else is debating you.

that poem is such a powerfully beautiful description of anarchy!

This whole "project" seems to be commodifying conversation. Am I misreading the site, or are there subscriber tiers and paywalled access to have someone who says "anarchy is lesbian identity" tell you about anarchy?

IRC is free.

Pretty sure this is what I seen, too. And another comment that got removed was saying the same, that you need a paid account in order to... debate, bruh.

So this can be only a joke site, at best.

IRC ain't much alive...

Bruhs,
Don't hate the playa, hate the game.
If so-called anarchist publishers paid their authors then these hustles wouldn't be needed. An anarch's gotta eat and momma's hangry!
Got FOMO? Subscribe and Debate Me, Bruhs. Unless you chiIiiiiicken?

I'm uber-rooster,
I am no K F chicken,
Yo momma is gonna starve!

Pretty sure you don’t know how publishing works. If a publisher doesn’t make a profit then there is nothing to pay. Most alternative publishers lose money, constantly, forever. Then eventually shut down. Even if anarchist publishers came up with a royalty scheme, what is 15% of 0??

Publishing professional anon here.
You have no idea what you're talking about 20:23.

I think we all have interactions like this, and thank you so much for giving us a tool to give community care to these people who harm us through humor and rhetoric they're familiar with. By connecting love and anarchy to the things that give them comfort now, we can ultimately build interactions that are affirming for everyone. Thank you so much for sharing the meaning and hope in your academic inquiry and personal experience with all of us! I'm definitely going to refer people to this.

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