^{Image: The first banner naming and describing the work of “Doodles without Borders.” 2021-2022.} 

Kind light / Բարի լույս* to you, dear neighbors, artists, collaborators, community partners, co-conspirators, supporters of arts in Skid Row and doodles w/o borders,
^{*morning greeting in Armenian translates as “kind light” (բարի լույս [baree looys])}

As we enter Pride Month, remember that class consciousness without identity politics is ahistorical, and identity politics without class consciousness is ripe to get hijacked and weaponized and sabotaged. As you go to Pride related events, think about how can we always center that identity politics and class consciousness are inseparable in our struggles. And mark your calendar to come out for Chella‘s YGSLRHSTFUT (You Guys Suck Like Real Hard Shut the Fuck Up Thanks) band performing at Skid Row Museum on Sat, Jun 14th, and also at LACAN’s Juneteenth celebration on Fri, June 20th!

Post highlights: (1) Events/Activities in and near Skid Row, (2) Thoughts Aloud – Local to Global, (3) Quote of the Month.

HIGHLIGHTS in and near Skid Row neighborhood, June 2025
Some neighborhood events, celebrations, and parties to join

1. Sunday, June 1, 3-7pm: Dena Rise Up March (3pm: starts at 2560 N Fair Oaks, Altadena) and Rally (5:30pm at 403 N Figueroa, Altadena)
2. Sunday, June 1, 6pm: Art of Defiance at Stories Books and Cafe (1716 Sunset Blvd)
   
3. Wed, Jun 4, 8:30am: Adam Smith Court Support and Concert! @ 210 W Temple
4. Fri, June 6, 7pm: MOVIE NIGHT at Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway)
5. Wed, June 11, 6pm: Movie night at the Park (San Julian Park)
6. Fri, June 13, 5-7pm ARTS JAM @ Studio 526 (526 San Pedro)
7. Sat, June 14, 7pm Chella‘s YGSLRHSTFUT (You Guys Suck Like Real Hard Shut the Fuck Up Thanks) band at Skid Row Museum
8. Thur, June 19, 2-6p: JUNETEENTH w/ Sir Oliver at Skid Row Museum
9. Fri, June 20, JUNETEENTH at LACAN (838 E 6th St)
10. Fri, Jun 20, 7pm: MOVIE NIGHT at Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway)
11. Fri, June 27, 5-7:30: Open Mic @ LA Poverty Dep’t Skid Row Museum
12. Fri, June 27, Dusk: Movie Night by StopLAPDSpying coalition in front of LAPD headquarters (check their instagram for more info)
    
    To view or print the full monthly calendar, go to doodleswithoutborders.com/calendar
    

Pa/est/ine + Skid Row Actions: some places to find local downtown LA and nearby actions that make local Skid Row to global connections: Pal Youth Movement – LA, Organize – LA, StopLAPDSpying, LACAN

SAVE THE DATE / ONGOING
Walk with Me exhibit by Studio526 @ Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway)
Regular museum hours are Thur, Fri, Sat 2-5pm

OPEN MICS as places to come together, and plant seeds of collective struggle.
There are at least THREE open mics currently in Skid Row neighborhood:
Weekly – (1) every Thurs, 6:30-9pm at Peace and Healing Center (116 E 5th)
Monthly – 
2) every second Friday of the month, 5-7pm, at Studio526 (526 San Pedro St)
3) every last Friday, 5-7:30pm with Lorinda at LA Poverty Dept‘s Skid Row Museum (250 S. Broadway)

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THOUGHTS ALOUD

Sign Offs

For a few years now, I sometimes use email signs offs as place to reflect.
Here are some examples:

With a morning coffee sprinkle of collective liberation future in the present, 

Sitting with a morning coffee, thinking that there is nothing like the importance of friendly and kind people around to be able to continue collective work,

With a raised cup of coffee to abolitionist, loving, kind, and collectivist relationships,

With morning coffee accompanied by chirping birds, helicopter and the freeway,

With wishes of continuously learning to practice our only inherent right: the right to struggle, 
the right to accountable, caring, imaginative, mutually supportive, collective permanent struggle,

With a raised cup of morning magic (delivered by caffeine with cardamom),

With loving commitment to internationalist liberation from imperialism, capitalism, white supremacy and patriarchy, as we collectivize the struggles,

With excited commitment to denormalizing service-minded thinking, and towards solidarity-minded community work,

With hope that the work of our day galvanizes us for tomorrow (lightly paraphrasing Ismatu),
Hayk

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QUOTE OF THE MONTH

“I don’t feel that the idea of family… is necessarily only a conservative and reactive site. I believe it is our inability to expand the concept of family. The family remains a location of self-determination. For instance, part of why Harriet Tubman starts a school in her house, in her living room, part of why so much civil right activism starts in the living room or the kitchen, is because those are the spaces, finally, that people have some control over.

In grappling with domestic space and family, my question is why such a conservative vision of the family has prevailed.“

– bell hooks in “Uncut Funk: a contemplative dialogue between bell hooks and Stuart Hall” 


dwb ONLINE:
1) Doodles without Borders (dwb) is now on Instagram / Facebook. 
2) There is a monthly dwb Skid Row Community & Arts Calendar. If you do community strengthening work in Skid Row and know of an event/meeting that should be on there, please share. 
3) dwb wishlist!  You can find it here: bit.ly/dwbwishlist 

Able and interested to SUPPORT Doodles?
Support Artwork Storage as a Human Right (and Collective Responsibility)
Community Arts Depot is a sister project addressing the vital need for artwork storage and access focused on Skid Row neighborhood members and residents. Artwork Storage as a Human Right – a glimpse from the Community Arts Depot story. This project’s sustainability is deeply dependent on grassroots support.  To donate to the campaign click HERE!
Email us for donating directly via Venmo, Paypal, or other ways.

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For previous newsletter(s), go to www.doodleswithoutborders.com homepage

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^{Image: Fragment from a “Working Class United…” t-shirt from Doodles without Borders, March 2025}

Kind light / Բարի լույս* to you, dear neighbors, artists, collaborators, community partners, co-conspirators, supporters of arts in Skid Row and doodles w/o borders,
^{*morning greeting in Armenian translates as “kind light” (բարի լույս [baree looys])}

Happy International Workers’ Day! Apologies for a belated email, and hope that you found your way to participate in May Day activities wherever you are. 
ALSO: Doodles weekly Arts Table will restart next week, and will be on Tuesdays, 4:30-6pm, at General Jeff Park.

Post highlights: (1) Events/Activities in and near Skid Row, (2) Thoughts Aloud – Local to Global, (3) Quote of the Month.

HIGHLIGHTS in and near Skid Row neighborhood, May 2025
Some neighborhood events, celebrations, and parties to join

1. TONIGHT: Sat, May 3, 5-9pm: Songs of Liberation with Another Adam Smith at the Other LAPD’s 🙂 Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway), music starts at 7pm.
2. Tue, May 6, 4:30-6p: Doodles w/o Borders weekly Arts Table IS BACK! @ General Jeff  Prk
3. Fri, May 9, 5-7pm ARTS JAM @ Studio 526 (526 San Pedro)
4. Fri, May 16, 12-3pm: MARKETPLACE at LACAN (838 E 6th St)
5. Fri, May 16, 7pm: MOVIE NIGHT at Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway)
6. Sat, May 17, 2p-6p – People’s Kite Fest @ LA Historic State Park
7. Fri, May 30, 5-7:30: Open Mic @ LA Poverty Dep’t Skid Row Museum
8. Fri, May 30, Dusk: Movie Night by StopLAPDSpying coalition in front of LAPD headquarters (check their instagram for more info)
   
   To view or print the full monthly calendar, go to doodleswithoutborders.com/calendar
   

Pa/est/ine + Skid Row Actions: some places to find local downtown LA and nearby actions that make local Skid Row to global connections: Pal Youth Movement – LA, Organize – LA, StopLAPDSpying, LACAN

SAVE THE DATE / ONGOING
Walk with Me exhibit by Studio526 @ Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway)
Regular museum hours are Thur, Fri, Sat 2-5pm

OPEN MICS as places to come together, and plant seeds of collective struggle.
There are at least THREE open mics currently in Skid Row neighborhood:
Weekly – (1) every Thurs, 6:30-9pm at Peace and Healing Center (116 E 5th)
Monthly – 
2) every second Friday of the month, 5-7pm, at Studio526 (526 San Pedro St)
3) every last Friday, 5-7:30pm with Lorinda at LA Poverty Dept‘s Skid Row Museum (250 S. Broadway)

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THOUGHTS ALOUD

Starting Points

Edited and translated fragment from the introduction section of a recent Doodles Without Borders related presentation and zine workshop at the FemLibrary in Yerevan, Armenia.

I only have one person’s experience, with its inherent limitations. 
So as a starting point to the Starting Points, (1) who am I, why am I talking (WAIT) and (2) who are my people?

(1) who am I, why am I talking
A working-class person, a tenant with no generational wealth or homeowner family to drop back on, a descendant of survivors of genoc/des, growing up in a post-Soviet country at war, emigrant from Armenia (i.e. South West Asia, SWANA region, so-called Middle East) to the occupied Tovaangar, Turtle Island (aka Los Angeles, u.s. empire); as well as a non-Black, non-woman, non-trans person living in a capitalist, patriarchal, white supremacist, settler-colonial, imperialist country with a singularly devastating global influence. 

I move through the world as a cis-hetero man. In other words, I benefit from many privileges under the mu/derous patriarchal system. 
I want to point out two privileges, which inevitably remain (even among the most progressive or revolutionary beneficiaries) until patriarchy or any other oppressive system is disassembled and replaced:

First is not knowing (or cluelessness, ignorance). That is, as long as an oppressive system still exists, being a representative of the dominant group means that it INDISPENSABLY limits your ability to understand the human experience of the oppressed group. The oppressive system literally requires your de-humanization from universal human experience in order to function. Cultivated not-knowing is a tool for invisibilizing the vio/ence against oppressed people and groups (poor people, women, queer and trans people, inferiorized immigrants, disabled people, etc.). 
Actively contributing to the work of dismantling the oppressive systems whose “protected identities” we carry is the only means to fight against the cluelessness they require of us.

Second is unearned authority. That is, patriarchy (or any oppressive system) bestows its beneficiaries with an authority–direct or indirect– that has nothing to do with any actual merit.
As long as any oppressive system exists, a beneficiary of that system should always be treated with at least some level of suspicion (perhaps to be understood as a practice of collective care). And any feeling of “unfairness” that the beneficiary may feel, they should take out on working to dismantle those systems of oppression.

One of the ways I try to account for both my privileges and oppressions is by working to align with abolitionist over reformist practices and end goals, and contributing to collective liberation struggles led from the peripheries.

(2) Who are my people? (a nod to Ella Baker for first introducing me to the importance of this practice)
Just a few categories from what could be a very long list, and could also start with listing of ancestors:

• The working class, 
• Tenants,
• Those who question the violence of heteronormativity, and point it out as violence,
• Locally: people of Yerevan, of Yerrord Mas and Zeytun neighborhoods; also people of Glendale, Skid Row, Los Angeles region,
• Regionally and globally: people of Armenia, of Artsakh, people of South West Asia, of Global South and of borderlands,
• Immigrants for social and economic reasons; 
• the Armenian diaspora and all diasporas and diasporans
• People who experienced/ are experiencing or are directly affected by genocide
• Etc.

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QUOTE OF THE MONTH

“I am not one of those who romanticize struggle for its own sake.
I want to win. I actually want to win.”

– Vijay Prashad of Tricontinental, speaking at the Washington Bullets episode of Upstream podcast, where he’s quoted from his interview on Guerrila History podcast


dwb ONLINE:
1) Doodles without Borders (dwb) is now on Instagram / Facebook. 
2) There is a monthly dwb Skid Row Community & Arts Calendar. If you do community strengthening work in Skid Row and know of an event/meeting that should be on there, please share. 
3) dwb wishlist!  You can find it here: bit.ly/dwbwishlist 

Able and interested to SUPPORT Doodles?
Support Artwork Storage as a Human Right (and Collective Responsibility)
Community Arts Depot is a sister project addressing the vital need for artwork storage and access focused on Skid Row neighborhood members and residents. Artwork Storage as a Human Right – a glimpse from the Community Arts Depot story. This project’s sustainability is deeply dependent on grassroots support.  To donate to the campaign click HERE!
Email us for donating directly via Venmo, Paypal, or other ways.

…
For previous newsletter(s), go to www.doodleswithoutborders.com homepage

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^{IImage: “We… Rebel now” banner from Skid Row neighborhood’s 10th Annual Bob Marley Day celebration (Feb 6, 2025) by Sir Oliver and Sir Oliver Productions}

Kind light / Բարի լույս* to you, dear neighbors, artists, collaborators, community partners, co-conspirators, supporters of arts in Skid Row and doodles w/o borders,
^{*morning greeting in Armenian translates as “kind light” (բարի լույս [baree looys])}

NOTE: Doodles Table at General Jeff Park is on break and will return on Tuesday, May 6, 4:30-6pm!

Post highlights: (1) Events/Activities in and near Skid Row, (2) Thoughts Aloud – Local to Global, (3) Quote of the Month.

HIGHLIGHTS in and near Skid Row neighborhood, April 2025
Some neighborhood events, celebrations, and parties to join

1. Thur, April 3: 7pm: Mutual Aid Across LA @ All Power Books (4749 W Adams –  CONNECT ACROSS TOWN!)
2. Fri, April 4, 7pm: Everything Everywhere all at Once + Q&A w/ directors! @ Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway)
3. Fri, April 11, 5pm: OPENING OF Studio 526 “Walk with Me” exhibit at Skid Row Museum
4. Mon, Apr 14, 7p: What Was Liberalism – public talk @ Skid Row Museum
5. Fri, April 18, 12-3pm: MARKETPLACE at LACAN (838 E 6th St)
6. Fri, April 25, 5-7:30: Open Mic @ LA Poverty Dep’t Skid Row Museum
7. Fri, April 25, Dusk: Movie Night by StopLAPDSpying coalition in front of LAPD headquarters (check their instagram for more info)
   
   To view or print the full monthly calendar, go to doodleswithoutborders.com/calendar
   

Pa/est/ine + Skid Row Actions: some places to find local downtown LA and nearby actions that make local Skid Row to global connections: Pal Youth Movement – LA, Organize – LA, StopLAPDSpying, LACAN

SAVE THE DATE / ONGOING
Walk with Me exhibit by Studio526 @ Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway), OPENS on Fri, April 11, 5pm
(Regular museum hours are Thur, Fri, Sat 2-5pm)

OPEN MICS as places to come together, and plant seeds of collective struggle.
There are at least THREE open mics currently in Skid Row neighborhood:
Weekly – (1) every Thurs, 6:30-9pm at Peace and Healing Center (116 E 5th)
Monthly – 
2) every second Friday of the month, 5-7pm, at Studio526 (526 San Pedro St)
3) every last Friday, 5-7:30pm with Lorinda at LA Poverty Dept‘s Skid Row Museum (250 S. Broadway)

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THOUGHTS ALOUD

Let’s make it socially unacceptable…

These days all I can think about are the work of local groups and larger networks of mutual support that explicitly tie their work to larger working class centering power building goals.
To this end, a section from an unfinished poem and a paragraph from an old but periodically updated text on Use of Language in Skid Row:

Let’s make it socially
Unacceptable to see a liberated future 
unless it includes
Disassembling 
and recreating 
this country 
in the image 
of its liberation struggles.
I want to see a liberated Turtle Island,

Rooted in Indigenous liberation movements, Black radical tradition, abolitionist feminism,
And the struggles of all working class, liberation-minded people.

People who know that identity politics without class consciousness is the violence of neoliberalism,
Class consciousness without identity politics is a willful contradiction at best,
But class consciousness and identity politics together 
give us a glimpse of Free Pa/ est /ine, of a liberated Artsakh,
give us a glimpse of collective liberation.
_____

Locally and globally, working-class oppressed people led, collective liberation struggles already align with Skid Row. Our common struggle must be to find ways to cultivate, grow and defend spaces where the need for universal protections for all basic human needs is the baseline. For each person’s individual responsibility to align with the collective responsibility to build power that will extend this baseline to the entire world.

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QUOTE OF THE MONTH / PAIRINGS

“It’s important, therefore, to know who the real enemy is, and to know the function, the very serious function of racism, which is distraction. It keeps [us] from doing [our collective] work. It keeps you explaining over and over again, your reason for being. Somebody says you have no language and so you spend 20 years proving that you do. …Somebody says that you have no art so you dredge that up. … None of that is necessary. There will always be one more thing.” 
– Toni Morrison
Data Fix-ation zine by StopLAPDSpying starts with this quote, and inspired using it as one of the quotes
Audio and transcription of full speech from which the quote comes.

“Pay it no mind.”
– Marsha P. Johnson
Bio statement about Marsha


dwb ONLINE:
1) Doodles without Borders (dwb) is now on Instagram / Facebook. 
2) There is a monthly dwb Skid Row Community & Arts Calendar. If you do community strengthening work in Skid Row and know of an event/meeting that should be on there, please share. 
3) dwb wishlist!  You can find it here: bit.ly/dwbwishlist 

Able and interested to SUPPORT Doodles?
Support Artwork Storage as a Human Right (and Collective Responsibility)
Community Arts Depot is a sister project addressing the vital need for artwork storage and access focused on Skid Row neighborhood members and residents. Artwork Storage as a Human Right – a glimpse from the Community Arts Depot story. This project’s sustainability is deeply dependent on grassroots support.  To donate to the campaign click HERE!
Email us for donating directly via Venmo, Paypal, or other ways.

…
For previous newsletter(s), go to www.doodleswithoutborders.com homepage

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^{Image: Fragment from a drawing for the “Artists against Art-Washing: aiding and abetting unhoused communities”  flyer, even happening this Sat, March 1, 4-7:30pm at Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway)}

Kind light / Բարի լույս* to you, dear neighbors, artists, collaborators, community partners, co-conspirators, supporters of arts in Skid Row and doodles w/o borders,
^{*morning greeting in Armenian translates as “kind light” (բարի լույս [baree looys])}

UPDATE: Doodles Table at General Jeff Park will go on break after Thursday, March 13th, and will return in May, on Tuesdays 4:30-6pm, restarting Tuesday, May 6th, 4:30-6pm!

Post highlights: (1) Events/Activities in and near Skid Row, (2) Thoughts Aloud – Local to Global, (3) Quote of the Month.

HIGHLIGHTS in and near Skid Row neighborhood, March 2025
Some neighborhood events, celebrations, and parties to join

1. Sat, Mar 1: 4-7:30pm: ARTISTS AGAINST ART-WASHING: aiding and abetting unhoused communities @ Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway)
2. Sat and Sun, Mar 1-2, 11am-5pm: LA Zine Fest at Broad Museum (get FREE tix)
3. Thur, March 6, 6pm: Women Leading Change by Skid Row Coalition @ STAR Apartments 
4. Fri, March 7, 7pm: “Marcel the Shell with Shoes on” MOVIE NIGHT at Skid Row Museum
5. Fri, Mar 14, 5-7pm: Arts Jam Open Mic @ Studio 526 (526 San Pedro)
6. Fri, Mar 21, 12-3pm: MARKETPLACE at LACAN (838 E 6th St)
7. Fri, Mar 21 @ 7pm – The Liberatory Living Room as part of Tents and Tenants exhibit at Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway)
8. Fri, Mar 28, 5-7:30: Open Mic @ LA Poverty Dep’t Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway)
9. Fri, Mar 28, Dusk: Movie Night by StopLAPDSpying coalition in front of LAPD headquarters (check their instagram for more info)
   
   To view or print the full monthly calendar, go to doodleswithoutborders.com/calendar
   

Pa/est/ine + Skid Row Actions: some places to find local downtown LA and nearby actions that make local Skid Row to global connections: Pal Youth Movement – LA, Organize – LA, StopLAPDSpying, LACAN

SAVE THE DATE / ONGOING
Tents and Tenants: After Echo Park Lake @ Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway), February 1 to March 31, 2025 (Regular museum hours are Thur, Fri, Sat 2-5pm)

OPEN MICS as places to come together, and plant seeds of collective struggle.
There are at least THREE open mics currently in Skid Row neighborhood:
Weekly – (1) every Thurs, 6:30-9pm at Peace and Healing Center (116 E 5th)
Monthly – 
2) every second Friday of the month, 5-7pm, at Studio526 (526 San Pedro St)
3) every last Friday, 5-7:30pm with Lorinda at LA Poverty Dept‘s Skid Row Museum (250 S. Broadway)

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THOUGHTS ALOUD

It’s Not a Holy War

About a year ago I read a poem at a local open mic by Pa/estinian poet Rafeef Ziadah called “We Teach Life, Sir” written back in 2011 or earlier, about Pa/estinian resistance to /srae/i geno//dal violence. It was well received, but the person who went after me commented–I know in good faith, but as if to say that this is nothing we can influence or change (and repeating the erroneous view that it’s “a religious feud”, and that its supposedly been going on for hundreds or thousands of years)–“it’s a holy war.” 
So I wrote this poem as a response. 

There is no holy war, 
What happens there is deeply connected to 
what happens here.
What happens there IS what happens here.

There is no holy war,
There is only unholy discrimination, oppression, dispossession, and lots of death,
In the name of… no, not God. But starts with a G and ends with D nonetheless.
In the name of Greed,
Entitlement to land, to so called “private property”,
at the expense of fellow human beings
and
at the expense of respectful, loving, joyful relationship with nature and in nature.

May all who have perished be remembered, honored, and defended.

There is no holy war,
there are no conspiracy theories that outweigh
The things right in front of us.
Everything,
that is standing in the way
of our liberation
is right in front of us.

Capitalism,
White Supremacy,
Imperialism,
Patriarchy.
Thank you bell hooks.

Capitalism
gives birth to ableism,
Gives birth to toxic individualism,
Gives birth to property rights
Above
responsibility to people and nature.
Gives birth to glorified greed and backstabbing,

Exploiting our need to survive
To convince
some of us that capitalism is right…
In the name of Father, and Son, and the holy spirit – capitalism!

Capitalism Gives birth to thinking that there is nothing beyond capitalism.
But there is.

***
White supremacy
gives birth to dehumanization,
Gives birth to anti-Blackness,
Gives birth to colorism,
Gives birth to whiteness as property.

White supremacy hijacks the souls and
Steals the humanity of all those who benefit from whiteness,
Weaponizes it in order to try to destroy Black, Indigenous, Brown, immigrant,
ALL humanity.
Fails, fails, FAILS, at this task miserably, but brings enormous suffering and violence in the process.

White Supremacy gives birth to thinking that there is nothing beyond white supremacy.
But there is.

***
Patriarchy gives birth to misogyny,
Gives birth to queerantagonism and transphobia,
Gives birth to compulsory hetero-normativity.

Much like white supremacy,
Steals the humanity of all those who benefit from patriarchy.
Patriarchy hijacks masculinity and uses it as a tool of oppression. 

Gives birth to thinking that there is nothing beyond patriarchy.
But there is.

***
Imperialism gives birth to a God-given, I mean Greed-given
“right” to try to destroy peoples and cultures, 

Imperialism
Gives birth to modern militarism,
Gives birth to military industrial complex,
Gives birth to the modern geno//dal structures rooted in the nation state formation,
Gives birth to European settler colonies of so-called united states, so-called canada, so-called australia, so-called new zealand, so-called argentina, numerous others, and the more recent addition – so-called state of /srae/. All of them in deep collaboration with European nation states and  in service of global capitalism, with u.s. empire calling the shots.

No religious, cultural, or human value is more important to imperialism,
then capitalism,
and its own hegemony.

Imperialism Gives birth to thinking that there is nothing beyond imperialism.
But there is.

***
It is important to name these systems of oppression, so they cannot hide. 
Thank you Paulo Freire.

To start being abolitionist 
means to imagine all the abundance, and love, and joy that the world can hold, so that prisons will not be necessary. 

To keep being abolitionist 
is to never forget what we are abolishing, lest the powers that be 
trick us into thinking that a little better conditions in the prisons is abolitionist,
That a little higher pay for life-sucking exploitation is abolitionist,
That free pizza from the blood drenched mayor’s office or [even or especially when our rep is now nice] council district 14 is abolitionist.

Our struggle is joyful, and Loving, and communal,
ONLY joyfully, lovingly, and communally can we keep and grow our collective work.

Because joy is liberating and anti-capitalist
Love is liberating and anti-american
And community is liberating and anti-colonial.

The struggle for collective liberation has a place for everyone,
Because from Black LA’s Skid Row neighborhood to Haiti, to Armenian Artsakh and to Palestine,
None of us are free until all of us are free.

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QUOTE OF THE MONTH

“what the birds know is the way home
it begins with a door that cannot find its
own name
the bird who stitches the last sky
must sing the name into existence
and the door opens into the burning of the world…”

– beginning of “Last Sky World Burn”
by Fargo Nissim Tbakhi


dwb ONLINE:
1) Doodles without Borders (dwb) is now on Instagram / Facebook. 
2) There is a monthly dwb Skid Row Community & Arts Calendar. If you do community strengthening work in Skid Row and know of an event/meeting that should be on there, please share. 
3) dwb wishlist!  You can find it here: bit.ly/dwbwishlist 

Able and interested to SUPPORT Doodles?
Support Artwork Storage as a Human Right (and Collective Responsibility)
Community Arts Depot is a sister project addressing the vital need for artwork storage and access focused on Skid Row neighborhood members and residents. Artwork Storage as a Human Right – a glimpse from the Community Arts Depot story. This project’s sustainability is deeply dependent on grassroots support.  To donate to the campaign click HERE!
Email us for donating directly via Venmo, Paypal, or other ways.

…
For previous newsletter(s), go to www.doodleswithoutborders.com homepage

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^{Image: Doodles attempt at an (iron transfer) t-shirt, using an Oct 2023 banner. Full image is titled Organized Working Class en route to Collective Liberation and can be seen here.}

Kind light / Բարի լույս* to you, dear neighbors, artists, collaborators, community partners, co-conspirators, supporters of arts in Skid Row and of doodles without borders,
^{*morning greeting in Armenian translates as “kind light” (բարի լույս [baree looys])}

Post highlights: (1) Events/Activities in and near Skid Row, (2) Thoughts Aloud – Local to Global, (3) Quote of the Month.

HIGHLIGHTS in and near Skid Row neighborhood, February 2025
Some neighborhood events, celebrations, and parties to join

1. Sat, Feb 1: 5pm: EXHIBIT OPENING: Tents and Tenants: After Echo Park Lake @ Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway)
2. Thur, Feb 6, 5pm: 10th Annual Bob Marley Day Celebration by Sir Oliver. At Skid Row Museum  (250 S Broadway)
3. Thur, Feb 6, 6pm: SRCIC’s Black History Month celebration @ STAR Apartments (240 E 6th St)
4. Fri, Feb 7, 7pm: “Earth Mama” MOVIE NIGHT at Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway)
5. Sat, Feb 8, 5pm –  The Giving: there is a history of the streets: Screening + panel discussion at LACAN (838 E 6th)
6. Fri, Feb 14, 5-7pm: Arts Jam Open Mic @ Studio 526 (526 San Pedro)
7. Sat, Feb 15, 10a-2p: 25th Annual Skid Row neighborhood’s Black History Celebration at San Julian Park.
8. Tue, Feb 18, 10:30am-12noon, Creative Writing at Skid Row Museum
9. Fri, Feb 21, 12-3pm: MARKETPLACE at LACAN (838 E 6th St)
10. Fri, Feb 21 @ 7pm – Tenants in the Streets panel discussion at Skid Row Museum.
11. Fri, Feb 28, 5-7:30: Open Mic @ LA Poverty Dep’t Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway)
12. Fri, Feb 28, Dusk: Movie Night by StopLAPDSpying coalition in front of LAPD headquarters (check their instagram for more info)
    
    To view or print the full monthly calendar, go to doodleswithoutborders.com/calendar

Pa/est/ine + Skid Row Actions: some places to find local downtown LA and nearby actions that make local Skid Row to global connections: Pal Youth Movement – LA, Organize – LA, StopLAPDSpying, LACAN

SAVE THE DATE / ONGOING
Tents and Tenants: After Echo Park Lake @ Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway), February 1 to March 31, 2025

OPEN MICS as places to come together, and plant seeds of collective struggle.
There are at least THREE open mics currently in Skid Row neighborhood:
Weekly – (1) every Thurs, 6:30-9pm at Peace and Healing Center (116 E 5th)
Monthly – 
2) every second Friday of the month, 5-7pm, at Studio526 (526 San Pedro St)
3) every last Friday, 5-7:30pm with Lorinda at LA Poverty Dept‘s Skid Row Museum (250 S. Broadway)

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THOUGHTS ALOUD
in • դի • vi • դու • էլի • sm
in [dee] vi [doo] [e-LEE] sm

wordoodles without borders | Armenian-English

դի [dee] ֊ dead body, corpse
դու [doo] ֊ you
էլի [e-lee] ֊ again

        Individualism: a system that produces դի֊s (corpses), էլի (again) and էլի (again), with դու (you) at the center, disattached from collective responsibility or care, and celebrated for it, until դու (you) are the next դի (corpse).

        Individualism: one of the most destructive tools of (neo-)liberalism: the deliberate ideology of pitting people against each other, competing with each other, and blaming each other for systemic oppressions: capitalism, imperialism, patriarchy, white supremacy.

        In that sense, any gathering has anti-capitalist potential. Any gathering is an opportunity to expose the terrible violence of these systems.

        Any gathering is an opportunity to remember that there is only one inherent right we have: the right to collective struggle. The protection of human needs, nature, connection to land, and a dignified life are predicated on assuming responsibility for collective, caring, permanent struggle.

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QUOTE OF THE MONTH

“…there is also the FEAR question. …One of the things that we talk a lot about is that in the FEAR there is also the DEMAND.
The person who is afraid of not paying rent, does not want to pay rent.
The person who is afraid of not paying rent, is angry because they have to pay rent.
The person who is afraid of not paying rent, is terribly angry because the housing conditions are not the conditions that they want. …
How do we… change the fear, and focus on the anger and the frustration? The Tenants Union is the one that provides that space.”

– Leonardo Vilchis in Abolish Rent w/ Leonardo V and Tracy Rothenthal on The Dig podcast, January 2025

dwb ONLINE:
1) Doodles without Borders (dwb) is now on Instagram / Facebook. 
2) There is a monthly dwb Skid Row Community & Arts Calendar. If you do community strengthening work in Skid Row and know of an event/meeting that should be on there, please share. 
3) dwb wishlist!  You can find it here: bit.ly/dwbwishlist 

Able and interested to SUPPORT Doodles?
Support Artwork Storage as a Human Right (and Collective Responsibility)
Community Arts Depot is a sister project addressing the vital need for artwork storage and access focused on Skid Row neighborhood members and residents. Artwork Storage as a Human Right – a glimpse from the Community Arts Depot story. This project’s sustainability is deeply dependent on grassroots support.  To donate to the campaign click HERE!
Email us for donating directly via Venmo, Paypal, or other ways.

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For previous newsletter(s), go to www.doodleswithoutborders.com homepage

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Image: “¡Para Todos Todo! (For Everyone Everything!)” banner (edited), from 2022, a nod to the Zapatistas, to autonomy, and to abolitionist politics. When the Zapatistas say ¡Ya Basta! / Enough! / Բո՜լ ա, it is a call for unity, and for collective work towards collective liberation.

Wishing you a New Year filled with favors and sacred gifts /Շնորհավոր Նոր Տարի*, dear neighbors, artists, collaborators, community partners, co-conspirators, supporters of arts in Skid Row and of doodles without borders,
*the new year congratulatory phrase in Armenian translates as “[May you have] a New Year filled with favors / (sacred) gifts” (Շնորհավոր նոր տարի [Shnorha-VOR nor ta-REE])
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Post highlights: (1) Events/Activities in and near Skid Row, (2) Thoughts Aloud – Local to Global, (3) Quote of the Month.

HIGHLIGHTS in and near SKID ROW, January 2025
Some neighborhood events, celebrations, and parties to join

1. Thursday, Jan 2nd, 3-4:30pm – First weekly Doodles Arts Table of the year. At General Jeff Memorial Park
2. Fri, Jan 10, 5-7pm: Arts Jam Open Mic @ Studio 526 (526 San Pedro)
3. Fri, Jan 17, 12-3pm: MARKETPLACE at LACAN (838 E 6th St)
4. Fri, Jan 17, 7pm, Movie Night at Skid Row Museum
5. Tue, Jan 21, 10:30am-12noon, Creative Writing at Skid Row Museum
6. Fri, Jan 31, 5-7pm: Open Mic @ LA Poverty Dept Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway)
7. Fri, Jan 31, Dusk: Movie Night by StopLAPDSpying coalition in front of LAPD headquarters (check their instagram to confirm and for more info)
8. Sat, Feb 1: Opening of “Tents and Tenants: after Echo Park Lake” exhibit at Skid Row Museum
   
   To view or print the full monthly calendar, go to doodleswithoutborders.com/calendar

Pa/est/ine + Skid Row Actions: some places to find local downtown LA and nearby actions that make local Skid Row to global connections: Pal Youth Movement – LA, Organize – LA, StopLAPDSpying, LACAN

SAVE THE DATE
February 1, 2025 – opening of new Skid Row Museum exhibit
February 6, 2025 – 10 Year Anniversary Annual Bob Marley Day with Sir Oliver! @ Skid Row Museum
February 2025 – Look out for information about 25th Annual Skid Row Black History Celebration, check UCEPP page on IG for more info

ONGOING

OPEN MICS as places to come together, and plant seeds of collective struggle.
There are at least THREE open mics currently in Skid Row neighborhood:
Weekly – (1) every Thurs, 6:30-9pm at Peace and Healing Center (116 E 5th)
Monthly – 
2) every second Friday of the month, 5-7pm, at Studio526 (526 San Pedro St)
3) every last Friday, 5-7:30pm with Lorinda at LA Poverty Dept‘s Skid Row Museum (250 S. Broadway)
…

THOUGHTS ALOUD
A•ԲՈԼ•ITION – a[bol]ition
բոլ [bol] – abundant; enough, that’s enough!
wordoodles without borders | Arm-Eng

Aբոլitionist politic is when love for the world is so abundant, makes it obvious that all comforts of individualized life under today’s oppressive systems is always at the cost of others’ suffering.

Aբոլitionist politic says: enough of this. No more.
No more rent.
No more prisons.
No more vio/ence of capitalism, patriarchy, imperialism, colonialism, wt supremacy, and all the fear and hatred of difference–from anti-Black to anti-trans to anti-poor–these systems feed on.
No more exploitation of people, land, and any part of nature.

Aբոլitionist politic makes it abundantly clear: “none of us are free until all of us are free” is a lifelong collective practice. And it’s hard; keeping in mind everyone’s humanity in day-to-day organizing practices is hard, but essential to liberation work.
With permission to be imperfect in good faith.

To a collectivist, aբոլitionist 2025!

To see the full newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/3000896c5b2d/january2025


dwb ONLINE:
1) Doodles without Borders (dwb) is now on Instagram / Facebook. 
2) There is a monthly dwb Skid Row Community & Arts Calendar. If you do community strengthening work in Skid Row and know of an event/meeting that should be on there, please share. 
3) dwb wishlist!  You can find it here: bit.ly/dwbwishlist 

Able and interested to SUPPORT Doodles?
Support Artwork Storage as a Human Right (and Collective Responsibility)
Community Arts Depot is a sister project addressing the vital need for artwork storage and access focused on Skid Row neighborhood members and residents. Artwork Storage as a Human Right – a glimpse from the Community Arts Depot story. This project’s sustainability is deeply dependent on grassroots support.  To donate to the campaign click HERE!
Email us for donating directly via Venmo, Paypal, or other ways.

QUOTE OF THE MONTH – PAIRINGS

“Instead of doing to settler society what they did to us–geno//ding, removing, excluding–there is a capaciousness to Indigenous resistance movements that welcomes in non-Indigenous peoples into our struggle, because our primary strength is that of relationality, one of making kin.” 
– Nick Estes, The Red Nation Movement, speaking on Democracy Now

“Had Pa/estinians not resisted, their story would have concluded… and they would have disappeared.”
– Dr. Ramzy Baroud, ” ‘The Essence of being Pa/estinian’: what the Great March of Return is really about“

“The LandBack movement is less about a mass real estate transaction that it is about sovereignty, recognition of treaties, and, ultimately, the abolition of united states’ concept of real estate altogether.”
– B. “Toastie” Oaster at bit.ly/LandBackQuestions

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To see the full newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/3000896c5b2d/january2025
For previous newsletter(s), go to www.doodleswithoutborders.com homepage

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Image: “Th-enk-skee-ving / We are in mourning” wordoodle, 2023,  a reminder that a day we are told is associated with giving thanks, family, and friendship actually whitewashes geno//de of Indigenous peoples and stolen land. Scroll down to THOUGHTS ALOUD section for more, including celebrating resistance.

Kind light /Բարի լույս* to you, dear neighbors, artists, collaborators, community partners, co-conspirators, supporters of arts in Skid Row and of doodles without borders,
*the morning greeting in Armenian translates as “kind light” (բարի լույս [baree looys])
…

Post highlights: (1) Events/Activities in and near Skid Row, (2) Thoughts Aloud – Local to Global, (3) Quote of the Month.

HIGHLIGHTS in and near SKID ROW, December 2024
Some neighborhood events, celebrations, and parties to join

1. Thur, Nov 28: Day of Remembrance, Day of Mourning, and Day of Collective Resistance, saying “No Thanks, No Giving” to Settler-Colonial Revisionism of historic and ongoing geno//dal policies against the Indigenous peoples of occupied Turtle Island
2. Fri, Nov 29, 3pm: International Day of Solidarity with Pa/es/inian People @ Tongva Park (1615 Ocean Av, Santa Monica)
3. Fri, Nov 29, 5-7pm: Open Mic @ LA Poverty Dep’t Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway)
   
4. Friday, Dec 6th, 10am-5pm – Re/Sound Festival by Street Symphony @ Midnight Mission
5. Fri, Dec 6, 7pm, Movie Night at Skid Row Museum
6. Fri, Dec 13, 12-3pm: MARKETPLACE at LACAN (838 E 6th St)
7. Fri, Dec 13, 5-7pm: Arts Jam Open Mic @ Studio 526 (526 San Pedro)
8. Sat, Dec 14, 2pm: Covid Hotel Performance…welcomes you to the future + Closing Event  @ A Poverty Dep’t Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway)
9. Mon, Dec 16, 7-9pm: Sidewalk Project Women’s Center Grand Opening
10. Friday, Dec 20, 5-8pm, Holiday Party at Skid Row Museum
11. Sat, Dec 21, 12-4pm: Holiday Called Home – Celebration by Urban Voices at Budokan (249 S Los Angeles St)
12. Fri, Dec 27, Dusk: Movie Night by StopLAPDSpying coalition in front of LAPD headquarters (check their instagram to confirm and for more info)
    
    To view or print the full monthly calendar, go to doodleswithoutborders.com/calendar

Pa/est/ine + Skid Row Actions: some places to find local downtown LA and nearby actions that make local Skid Row to global connections: Pal Youth Movement – LA, Organize – LA, StopLAPDSpying, LACAN

SAVE THE DATE
February 1, 2025 – opening of new Skid Row Museum exhibit

ONGOING
“Welcome to Covid Hotel” at Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway) until December 14, 2024

OPEN MICS as places to come together, and plant seeds of collective struggle.
There are at least THREE open mics currently in Skid Row neighborhood:
Weekly – (1) every Thurs, 6:30-9pm at Peace and Healing Center (116 E 5th)
Monthly – 
2) every second Friday of the month, 5-7pm, at Studio526 (526 San Pedro St)
3) every last Friday, 5-7:30pm with Lorinda at LA Poverty Dept‘s Skid Row Museum (250 S. Broadway)
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THOUGHTS ALOUD
MOURNING, IRREFORMABILITY, COLLECTIVE RESISTANCE
For those of us living in u.s. empire, the history of this land stretches far beyond united states and mexico, before conquest and colonization, and will doubtlessly continue long after. It is in our hands to contribute to bringing post-conquest era sooner.
We are on unceded, occupied, stolen Indigenous land. “Thanksgiving” is a cover-up of ongoing geno//dal policies and practices, irreformable but replaceable, from vio/ence-centering to collective care-centering, changing our relationship with land and with each other in the process, informed by Indigenous-led organizations and groups unified by the call for LANDBACK. Regionally and continentally, Red Nation is a great place to start, and locally Tongva Taraxat Paxaavxa Conservancy (where you can also make a periodic contribution if you are able).
There is also a long tradition of gatherings to mark this day as a Day of Mourning, Un-thanksgiving Day / Sunrise Ceremony , and generally honor, uplift, and celebrate collective resistance! 
LANDBACK as an inspiration for this collective resistance to colonialism and to the logic of profit over people, both locally and globally, from Skid Row and Little Tokyo, to Pa/est/ne, Artsakh, Sudan, Congo, and beyond. 

A note on wordoodles. Wordoodles, like the image at the top of this newsletter, are an ongoing project meant to uplift Armenian and Pa/es/inian, Indigenous, Black and Brown, Working Class and all oppressed peoples’ solidarities, and to contribute to cultivating collective work that is միաSEEN. Wordoodles can be currently found on the @doodleswithoutborders instagram page.

dwb ONLINE:
1) Doodles without Borders (dwb) is now on Instagram / Facebook. 
2) There is a monthly dwb Skid Row Community & Arts Calendar. If you do community strengthening work in Skid Row and know of an event/meeting that should be on there, please share. 
3) dwb wishlist!  You can find it here: bit.ly/dwbwishlist 

Able and interested to SUPPORT Doodles?
Support Artwork Storage as a Human Right (and Collective Responsibility)
Community Arts Depot is a sister project addressing the vital need for artwork storage and access focused on Skid Row neighborhood members and residents. Artwork Storage as a Human Right – a glimpse from the Community Arts Depot story. This project’s sustainability is deeply dependent on grassroots support.  To donate to the campaign click HERE!
Email us for donating directly via Venmo, Paypal, or other ways.

QUOTE OF THE MONTH

For this quote of the month, so honored and excited to share a quote (from a quote 🙂 ) from a mini- syllabus by @kimi_hanauer and @practice_liberation 

“[T]here isn’t, there’s never been, and there never will be anything but now. And even if the past can act upon the now, this is because it has itself never been anything but a now. Just as our tomorrow will be. The only way to understand something in the past is to understand that it too used to be a now. It’s to feel the faint breath of the air in which the human beings of yesterday lived their lives. If we are so much inclined to flee from now, it’s because now is the time of decision.”

– ‘Now’ by the Invisible Committee (2017), excerpt as part of the ‘organization means commitment’ by grace lee boggs, ‘theory as a liberatory practice’ by bell hooks, and ‘now’ by the invisible committee (check out the whole thing!) mini-syllabus by @kimi_hanauer and @practice_liberation 

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For previous newsletter(s), go to www.doodleswithoutborders.com homepage

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Image: A work in progress “Community Means” banner that was started last weekend, at the 15th Annual Festival for All Skid Row Artists, October 2024.

Kind light /Բարի լույս* to you, dear neighbors, artists, collaborators, community partners, co-conspirators, supporters of arts in Skid Row and of doodles without borders,
*the morning greeting in Armenian translates as “kind light” (բարի լույս [baree looys])
…
-> SAY NO TO ARTWASHING AND DISPLACEMENT! UPDATES regarding the open letter from last month in this Hyperallergic article. You can still sign the OPEN LETTER here: bit.ly/RVEncampmentOpenLetter
-> LOOKING FOR a movement rooted, collectivist, working class, tenant power centering VOTING GUIDE? Go to VOTERGUIDE.LA ! 

Post highlights: (1) Events/Activities in and near Skid Row, (2) Thoughts Aloud – Local to Global, (3) Quote of the Month.

HIGHLIGHTS in and near SKID ROW, October 2024
Some neighborhood events, celebrations, and parties to join

1. Sat, Nov 2, 3pm-7pm – Dia De Los Muertos @ Eastside Cafe (5469 Huntington Dr)
2. Sun, Nov 3, 2pm: Marx’s Capital, Chapter 1 – Book discussion by @thepublicschoolla at Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway)
3. Friday, Nov 1, 6pm, Dia De Los Muertos Theatrical Performance and Procession at Olvera Street (across from Union Station)
4. Sat, Nov 2, 3-7pm: Dia De Los Muertos @ Eastside Cafe (5469 Huntington Dr)
5. Sat, Nov 2, 6pm: Dia De Los Muertos Theatrical Performance and Procession at Olvera Street (across from Union Station)
6. Thu, Nov 7, 3-4:30pm: Doodles Arts Table @ General Jeff (Gladys) Park CHANGES to Thursdays 3-4:30pm
7. Fri, Nov 8, 5-7pm: Arts Jam Open Mic @ Studio 526 (526 San Pedro)
8. Wed, Nov 13, 5pm: MOVIE IN THE PARK @ San Julian Park (Movie starts at dusk)
9. Fri, Nov 15, 12-3pm: MARKETPLACE at LACAN (838 E 6th St)
10. Friday, Nov 15, 7pm, Movie Night at Skid Row Museum
11. ***SUNDAY, NOV 17, 3-5pm: Windows of Little Bronze Tokyo Culmination Celebration @ Azay in Little Tokyo (226 1st St)***
12. Tues, Nov 19, 10:30a-12pm: Creative Writing @ Skid Row Museum
13. Thur, Nov 28: Day of Remembrance and Collective Celebration of Resistance, saying “No Thanks, No Giving” to Settler- Colonial Revisionism of historic and ongoing geno//dal policies against the Indigenous peoples of occupied Turtle Island
14. Fri, Nov 29, Dusk: Movie Night by StopLAPDSpying coalition in front of LAPD headquarters (check their instagram to confirm and for more info)
    
    To view or print the full monthly calendar, go to doodleswithoutborders.com/calendar

Pa/est/ine + Skid Row Actions: some places to find local downtown LA and nearby actions that make local Skid Row to global connections: Pal Youth Movement – LA, Organize – LA, StopLAPDSpying, LACAN

SAVE THE DATE
Fri, Dec 6th, 10am-5pm – Re/Sound Festival by Street Symphony @ Midnight Mission

ONGOING
“Welcome to Covid Hotel” at Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway) until December 2024

OPEN MICS as places to come together, and plant seeds of collective struggle.
There are at least THREE open mics currently in Skid Row neighborhood:
Weekly – (1) every Thurs, 6:30-9pm at Peace and Healing Center (116 E 5th)
Monthly – 
2) every second Friday of the month, 5-7pm, at Studio526 (526 San Pedro St)
3) every last Friday, 5-7:30pm with Lorinda at LA Poverty Dept‘s Skid Row Museum (250 S. Broadway)
…

THOUGHTS ALOUD
HALLOWEEN AS COMMUNITY
Looking at the history and pre-Christian origins of Samhain, then All Saints/Hollows Day (Dia de los Muertos) and Eve/ Halloween, thinking that perhaps this is actually the one deeply relational holiday celebration that we have. From celebrating harvest, to coming together and seeking protection for wintertime, learning from and honoring our dead, Halloween touches on our relationship with the personal and collective, with death, with our fears, as well as with joy and celebration. It is also directly connected to seasons, associated with mutual support, with cycles. 
Halloween has been coopted in many ways, but it has been very resistant to homogenizing, having a layered relationship with individual and collective human condition, belonging and otherness. Halloween as a collectivist, queer and trans(formational) celebration. Halloween as one of the many ways to come together in disassembling institutions of vio/ence–capitalism, white supremacy, imperialism, settler-colonialism, patriarchy, heteronormativity–and replace them with collective life affirming institutions. 

dwb ONLINE:
1) Doodles without Borders (dwb) is now on Instagram / Facebook. 
2) There is a monthly dwb Skid Row Community & Arts Calendar. If you do community strengthening work in Skid Row and know of an event/meeting that should be on there, please share. 
3) dwb wishlist!  You can find it here: bit.ly/dwbwishlist 

Able and interested to SUPPORT Doodles?
Support Artwork Storage as a Human Right (and Collective Responsibility)
Community Arts Depot is a sister project addressing the vital need for artwork storage and access focused on Skid Row neighborhood members and residents. Artwork Storage as a Human Right – a glimpse from the Community Arts Depot story. This project’s sustainability is deeply dependent on grassroots support.  To donate to the campaign click HERE!
Email us for donating directly via Venmo, Paypal, or other ways.

QUOTE OF THE MONTH

“Personal advancement has become the proof of self-determination, a ridiculous belief but one that is nevertheless strongly held. The breakdown of collective identification… has set in motion an increasing individualist identification fed by popular culture, the structure of the market, and the beurocracy of everyday life.“

– from “Neo-Colonialism and Indigenous Structures” (1990)in the book From a Native Daughter by Haunani-Kay Trask, a leader in Hawaiian anti-colonial movement for self-determination and self-government

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For previous newsletter(s), go to www.doodleswithoutborders.com homepage

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Image: “Free Skid Row, Free Pa|est¡ne” banner that was started just under a year ago, at the 14th Annual Festival of Skid Row Artists, late October 2023. Later this month, Oct 26-27, will be the 15th Annual Festival.

Kind morning /Բարի լույս* to you, dear neighbors, artists, collaborators, community partners, co-conspirators, supporters of arts in Skid Row and of doodles without borders,
*the morning greeting in Armenian translates as “kind morning” (բարի լույս [baree looys])
…
SAY NO TO ARTWASHING AND DISPLACEMENT! LA County Department of Arts and Culture recently released an RFQ for artists to “beautify areas after an RV resolution”–in other words, to use art to cover up and erase displacement of RV residents. Join in signing an OPEN LETTER opposing this: bit.ly/RVEncampmentOpenLetter

Post highlights: (1) Events/Activities in and near Skid Row, (2) Thoughts Aloud – Local to Global, (3) Quote of the Month.

HIGHLIGHTS in and near SKID ROW, October 2024
Some neighborhood events, celebrations, and parties to join

1. Wed, Oct 2, 4:30-6pm: – Doodles w/o Borders Arts table at General Jeff Park
2. Fri, Oct 4, 7pm, Movie Night at LA poverty department‘s Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway)
3. Wed, October 9, 6p – MOVIE in the PARK @ General Jeff Park (movie starts at dusk)
4. Fri, October 11, 5-7pm: Arts Jam Open Mic @ Studio 526 (526 San Pedro)
5. Tues, Oct 15, 10:30a-12pm: Creative Writing @ Skid Row Museum
6. Fri, Oct 18, 12-3pm: MARKETPLACE at LACAN (838 E 6th St)
7. Friday, Oct 18, 7pm, Movie Night at Skid Row Museum
8. Fri, Oct 25, Dusk: Movie Night by StopLAPDSpying coalition in front of LAPD headquarters (check their instagram to confirm and for more info)
9. Saturday and Sunday, Oct 26-27, 12-4pm, 15th Annual FESTIVAL FOR ALL SKID ROW ARTISTS at General Jeff (formerly Gladys) Park, 808 E 6th St, 90021.  To sign up to perform, and for more information email at info@lapovertydept.org or call 213-413.1077
   
   Creative I will be GUEST HOSTING at Doodles without Borders Arts Table on Oct 9 and 16, 4:30-6pm! (location: General Jeff Park)
   
   To view or print the full monthly calendar, go to doodleswithoutborders.com/calendar

Local to downtown LA and nearby: Memorials, Vigils, Protests marking one year of intensified geno//de of Pa/est/nians and connections to imperialist geno//dal vio/lence from Artsakh to Skid Row, Turtle Island, and across the world:
1) Sat, Oct 5, 2pm: One Year of Geno//de, One Year (+107 years) of Resistance at Pershing Square
2) Sun, Oct 6, 4:30pm: Jewish Voice for Peace LA – Anti-Apartheid Tashlich @ Echo Park Lake, Lady of the Lake Statue
3) Sun, Oct 6, 6:30pm: Vigil for Palestine and Artsakh @ Echo Park Lake, near Lady of the Lake Statue – none of us are free until all of us are free

SAVE THE DATE
Nov 17th, 3-5pm – Culminating Celebration of Windows of Little Bronze Tokyo Project

ONGOING
“Welcome to Covid Hotel” at Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway) until December 2024

OPEN MICS as places to come together, and plant seeds of collective struggle.
There are at least THREE open mics currently in Skid Row neighborhood:
Weekly – (1) every Thurs, 6:30-9pm at Peace and Healing Center (116 E 5th)
Monthly – 
2) every second Friday of the month, 5-7pm, at Studio526 (526 San Pedro St)
3) every last Friday, 5-7:30pm with Lorinda at LA Poverty Dept‘s Skid Row Museum (250 S. Broadway)
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THOUGHTS ALOUD
Fargo Tbakhi: “NOTES ON CRAFT: WRITING IN THE HOUR OF GENO//DE“

I was going to write about the importance of recognizing [our own and others’] cluelessness, but that’s for another time. A couple of weeks ago I was introduced by a friend to a text that I think should be required reading for all creative people. Today I’d like to share an excerpt from Fargo Tbakhi’s “Notes on Craft: Writing in the Hour of Geno//de.”

“What does Pa/est/ne require of us, as writers writing in English from within the imperial core, in this moment of geno//de? I want to offer here some notes and some directions towards beginning to answer this question.

I
Craft is a machine built to produce and reproduce ethical failures; it is a counterrevolutionary machine.

I use “Craft” here to describe the network of sanitizing influences exerted on writing in the English language: the influences of neoliberalism, of complicit institutions, and of the linguistic priorities of the state and of empire. Anticolonial writers in the U.S. and across the globe have long modeled alternative crafts which reject these priorities, and continue to do so in this present moment. Yet Craft still haunts our writing; these notes aim to clarify it, so we can rid ourselves of its influence.  

Above all, Craft is the result of market forces; it is therefore the result of imperial forces, as the two are so inextricably bound up together as to be one and the same. The Craft which is taught in Western institutions, taken up and reproduced by Western publishers, literary institutions, and awards bodies, is a set of regulatory ideas which curtail forms of speech that might enact real danger to the constellation of economic and social values which are, as I write this, facilitating geno//de in Pa/est/ne and elsewhere across the globe. If, as Audre Lorde taught us, the master’s tools cannot dismantle the master’s house, then Craft is the process by which our own real liberatory tools are dulled, confiscated, and replaced. We believe our words sharper than they turn out to be. We play with toy hammers and think we can break down concrete. We think a spoon is a saw.
… …

We have to abandon [this Craft] and write with sharper teeth, without politeness, without compromise. We have to learn, or build, or steal, or steal back, the craft we need for the long |nt¡fada, which we carry with us to liberation and beyond.”

Full text here.

dwb ONLINE:
1) Doodles without Borders (dwb) is now on Instagram / Facebook. 
2) There is a monthly dwb Skid Row Community & Arts Calendar. If you do community strengthening work in Skid Row and know of an event/meeting that should be on there, please share. 
3) dwb wishlist!  You can find it here: bit.ly/dwbwishlist 

Able and interested to SUPPORT Doodles?
Support Artwork Storage as a Human Right (and Collective Responsibility)
Community Arts Depot is a sister project addressing the vital need for artwork storage and access focused on Skid Row neighborhood members and residents. Artwork Storage as a Human Right – a glimpse from the Community Arts Depot story. This project’s sustainability is deeply dependent on grassroots support.  To donate to the campaign click HERE!
Email us for donating directly via Venmo, Paypal, or other ways.

QUOTE OF THE MONTH / Pairings: Zabel Yesayan, Leila Khaled, Ismatu Gwendolyn 

“Literature is not an ornament, a pleasant pastime, a pretty flower. Literature is a weapon to struggle against injustice.” – Zabel Yesayan, novelist, political figure before an during first and second Armenian Republics, late 19th / early 20th century

“Israel and the United States did not boycott the [South African] apartheid. Boycotting oppression must be a culture”. – Leila Khaled, freedom fighter in the Pa/est/nian liberation movement, born in 1944, 3 years before the geno//dal ethnostate of /s/ae/ was formed

“We want the fiction of a happy ending more than we want actual liberation in of itself.” – Ismatu Gwendolyn, writer, collectivist, revolutionary, part of a long history of Black Radical Tradition on Turtle Island (so-called united states)

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For previous newsletter(s), go to www.doodleswithoutborders.com homepage

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^{Image: “THE BRAVE ONES replace colonialism with liberation” banner, still in progress, Doodles’ contribution to the 9th Annual Jamaican Independence Day celebration in Skid Row neighborhood, August 2024. Anniversary of the beginning of the Haitian Revolution is also in August. Note: “Carib” likely meant “the brave one, the brave warrior” in Arawak language.}

Kind morning /Բարի լույս* to you, dear neighbors, artists, collaborators, community partners, co-conspirators, supporters of arts in Skid Row and of doodles without borders,
*the morning greeting in Armenian translates as “kind morning” (բարի լույս [baree looys])
…

Post highlights: (1) Events/Activities in and near Skid Row, (2) Thoughts Aloud – Local to Global, (3) Quote of the Month.

HIGHLIGHTS in and near SKID ROW, September 2024
Some neighborhood events, celebrations, and parties to join

1. TOMORROW, Monday, Sept 2, 12-3pm: – LABOR DAY Celebration at LACAN (838 E 6th St)
2. Friday, Sept 6, 7pm, Movie Night at LA poverty department‘s Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway)
3. Wed, Sept 11, 6p – MOVIE in the PARK @ San Julian Park (movie starts at dusk)
4. Fri, Sept 13, 5-7pm: Arts Jam Open Mic @ Studio 526 (526 San Pedro)
5. Tues, Sept 17, 10:30a-12pm: Creative Writing @ Skid Row Museum
6. Friday, Sept 20, 7pm, Movie Night “Marley” at Skid Row Museum
7. Friday, Sept 27, 5-7:30pm, Open Mic with Lorinda @ Skid Row Museum
8. Fri, Sept 27, Dusk: Movie Night by StopLAPDSpying coalition in front of LAPD headquarters (check their instagram to confirm and for more info)

Until September 15th: LAST TWO WEEKS to catch  “Visions of Transcendence: Creating Space in East and West” at Wende Museum in Culver City, including a number of Skid Row neighborhood artists from OG Man to Lan to Linda Leigh to Gary Brown and more. Entrance is Free. Fri-Sun 10a-5p (10808 Culver Boulevard, Culver City, CA 90230)

To view or print the full monthly calendar, go to doodleswithoutborders.com/calendar

SAVE THE DATE
Sat-Sun, October 26-27: 15th Annual Festival for All Skid Row Artists. Follow LA Poverty Department for more info

ONGOING
“Welcome to Covid Hotel” at Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway) until December 2024

OPEN MICS as places to come together, and plant seeds of collective struggle.
There are at least THREE open mics currently in Skid Row neighborhood:
Weekly – (1) every Thurs, 6:30-9pm at Peace and Healing Center (116 E 5th)
Monthly – 
2) every second Friday of the month, 5-7pm, at Studio526 (526 San Pedro St)
3) every last Friday, 5-7:30pm with Lorinda at LA Poverty Dept‘s Skid Row Museum (250 S. Broadway)
…

THOUGHTS ALOUD
Grief affirms Life
This month will be one year since the total genocidal banishment of over 100,000 Artsakh Armenians from their ancestral lands in September 2023–a continuation of an ongoing Turkish/Ottoman intentional geno//dal vio/ence against Armenians that dates back more than 100 years. Only a couple of weeks later the intensification of geno//dal /s/ae/i onslaught on Pa/est/nians began.
Grief and mourning are rooted in love of life, love of collective life. One part of honoring, remembering the lives of those who were killed and banished is clarity, so much clarity in centering transnational working class struggle and collective liberation. Doodles without Borders commitment to PACBI is one node in this work.

Doodles without Borders PACBI Statement of Solidarity
(you can find the statement in English and Armenian at bit.ly/DoodlesPACBI, and the corresponding IG post with doodle here)

In total solidarity with the people of Pa/estine, Doodles without Borders commits to adhering to the Pa/estinian international call for Boycott, Divestment, & Sanctions (BDS) & to complying with the underlying guidelines of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of /s/ael (PACBI).

This commitment links to two key aspects of Doodles’ identity.
First, we do a majority of our work in LA’s Skid Row neighborhood – a low income working class neighborhood with a large number of unhoused residents, part of Black LA, one of the largest recovery communities in the world, and on the receiving end of the violence stemming from existential pillars of u.s. empire: capitalism, white supremacy, patriarchy, imperialism, settler-colonialism.
Second, we ground in our connection to Armenian heritage, part of the vast SWANA–South West Asia & North Africa–region, and on the receiving end of imperial genocidal violence from multiple directions. 

Both these realities, reflected in daily lived experience, help inform us about the interconnectedness of racial/ethnic, economic, imperialist, colonial, genocidal state violences. The resources intentionally not going for universal housing, healthcare, education, and equitable access to a dignified life in Skid Row neighborhood and across u.s. empire, are the very resources subsidizing is/ae/i arms sales and directly supplying aze/o-tu/kish imperial genocidal ambitions in Armenian Artsakh and across the region, as well as funding the intensified genocide of Pa/estinians.

For all these reasons and out of absolute commitment to Pa/estinian life and freedom, Doodles without Borders commits to:
• boycott any cultural product or event funded, commissioned, &/or sponsored by an official /s/aeli body
• not collaborate with or take money from /s/aeli institutions
• refuse “normalization” efforts seeking to justify Israel’s violence or present a false symmetry between oppressed & oppressor
• advocate for others to similarly divest from /s/ael and end support for the oppression of Pa/estinians.

Doodles without Borders is rooted in arts and cultural work as essential en route to collective liberation, and the understanding that none of us are free until all of us are free.  

For more information or for support drafting a PACBI commitment for your organization, contact: pacbi@wawog.com go to @wawog_now and writersagainstthewarongaza.com/pacbi
 

dwb ONLINE:
1) Doodles without Borders (dwb) is now on Instagram / Facebook. 
2) There is a monthly dwb Skid Row Community & Arts Calendar. If you do community strengthening work in Skid Row and know of an event/meeting that should be on there, please share. 
3) dwb wishlist!  You can find it here: bit.ly/dwbwishlist 

Able and interested to SUPPORT Doodles?
Support Artwork Storage as a Human Right (and Collective Responsibility)
Community Arts Depot is a sister project addressing the vital need for artwork storage and access focused on Skid Row neighborhood members and residents. Artwork Storage as a Human Right – a glimpse from the Community Arts Depot story. This project’s sustainability is deeply dependent on grassroots support.  To donate to the campaign click HERE!
Email us for donating directly via Venmo, Paypal, or other ways.

QUOTE OF THE MONTH / Pairings: Zabel Yesayan, Leila Khaled, Ismatu Gwendolyn 

“Literature is not an ornament, a pleasant pastime, a pretty flower. Literature is a weapon to struggle against injustice.” – Zabel Yesayan, novelist, political figure before an during first and second Armenian Republics, late 19th / early 20th century

“Israel and the United States did not boycott the [South African] apartheid. Boycotting oppression must be a culture”. – Leila Khaled, freedom fighter in the Pa/est/nian liberation movement, born in 1944, 3 years before the geno//dal ethnostate of /s/ae/ was formed

“We want the fiction of a happy ending more than we want actual liberation in of itself.” – Ismatu Gwendolyn, writer, collectivist, revolutionary, part of a long history of Black Radical Tradition on Turtle Island (so-called united states)

…
For previous newsletter(s), go to www.doodleswithoutborders.com homepage

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.

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.

.

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