Local eviction had political
motivations
Editor, Asheville Global Report,
This letter is to alert readers of the AGR that
the preemptive police repression used against protesters in
Washington, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles this year is not isolated
to international spectacles, but is going on right here in Asheville.
The story starts early this summer when a group
of people, including me, rented an 8,000-square foot warehouse
by the river that had been vacant for 25 years. Some of us had
recently moved out of the Pink House on Broadway, which had
been sold to a Christian non-profit, and our intention was to
build a vibrant, active collective space in which to live, create,
have fun, and connect with like-minded folks in Asheville and
beyond, similar to the Pink House but less chaotic and less
public. Our new low profile was not low enough, however, as
we were soon to find out.
We began decorating, building rooms, setting up
a library and a kitchen, and started a small garden. We had
an art show and some music. Things were positively rosy. Eventually,
the fire inspectors caught wind of the activity and dropped
by, giving us three weeks to get our wiring up to code. We made
an appointment with an electrician. A few days later we were
visited by an officer of the Asheville Police Department who
came to confirm a rumor that “the Pink House kids” had moved
to a warehouse by the river. He proceeded to imply that “Pink
House kids” were responsible for Asheville’s graffiti problem
and informed me that the general opinion at the police station
was that “Pink House kids” had vandalized several police “cruisers”
because we supposedly held the police responsible for the Pink
House being shut down. I assured him that everybody remotely
involved knew that we were evicted because the landlord sold
the house and knew that the police had nothing to do with it.
The police, in fact, had been remarkably tolerant of the activity
there.
Well, his false accusation turned out to contain
a premonition, or perhaps a secret tip-off, because two days
later the police returned with the fire inspectors, building
inspector, and other ambiguous officials to conduct a surprise
“follow-up inspection” days before they were scheduled to return
and before the electrician had done any work. This time, they
weren’t interested in communicating with anybody or even telling
us what was wrong. They had come to shut us down and the building
was quickly condemned. The fire marshal had the power cut off,
said he was coming back to padlock the building and if he saw
anybody doing anything but moving out they would be arrested.
And that was the end of the warehouse.
It is true that we weren’t supposed to be living
in the space (it was rented to be artist studios), but I don’t
think it’s too paranoid to conclude that this is more than a
simple case of building code enforcement. The protests in the
past year in Seattle, DC, Philadelphia, and LA have gotten a
lot of press, and the media have focused especially on the young
black-clad anarchist rabble-rousers, printing “who are these
kids?” features and linking them to vandalism against chain
stores, etc. And, as readers of the Global Report know well,
the police have bent over backwards to preemptively strike against
protesters (shutting down warehouses and meeting spaces, confiscating
equipment, infiltration, surveillance, etc.) before they can
“cause any trouble.” Now, for police in the relatively small
town of Asheville, it would be easy to associate the rotating
cast of colorful characters in and out of the former Pink House
with this very media phenomenon, and to assume that as good
policemen it is their duty to contain this activity, repress
it, and keep it from gaining steam, possibly using some of the
same tactics as their comrades in the big cities.
Seen in this context and in light of the evidence,
it seems that our living illegally in a warehouse was more of
a pretext for being shut down than their primary motivation,
and the simple rumor that we had lived in the Pink House was
enough to connect us to a so-called dangerous national current
of criminal rebellion that needed some swift repression. Resistance
to the existing capitalist order is on the rise in America,
and this has heightened the sensitivity of law enforcement everywhere
to any activity that defies society’s norms. They’re making
it harder to be visible in our attempts to live as we choose
and build self-sufficient communities, especially if you are
young and wear black. Now is a time for discretion. Their eyes
are peeled.
David Meesters
Asheville
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