If asked to name places likely to host activist activities, most people would list sites like college campuses, city council meetings, or public landmarks. But I get most of my activism through the Brooklyn DIY punk scene. Such is how I arrived at The Broadway, a dive bar and small music venue on the Bushwick/Bed-Stuy border, to check out the community tabling at a music video release show. Tetchy, Crush Fund, and Pretty Bitter (local punk acts and a DC progressive pop band, respectively) would be accompanied by SafeRaveNYC, a local harm reduction organization, and Merch4Change, an organization that sells merch from local bands in New York and donates the proceeds to direct aid in Gaza.
I arrived early and made a beeline for the table with the most fliers. This happened to be SafeRaveNYC, a relatively new harm reduction organization. I got to chatting with the group’s founder, Jared Skolnick, who formed the organization in January of this year. Jared used to lead a chapter of the national nonprofit DanceSafe, but decided to start SafeRaveNYC when he realized that an independent group could do a better job of meeting the New York music scene’s specific needs. While SafeRaveNYC still uses some of DanceSafe’s resources (like their alluring and wide-ranging informational drug postcards), the organization’s independence allows for better tailoring of resources and an overall stronger sense of trust within the community.
At this event, for instance, their table included earplugs, a sound pressure level monitor (SPL), and informed consent checklists, alongside their drug safety information (and just for fun, two volumes of a t4t smut zine written by a Brooklyn local). A few designated consent monitors hung out nearby as well, marked by their glowing blue wristbands. These volunteers are intended to be an alternative to venue security. Their job is to provide help to whoever needs it (someone overdosing, for example), without the threat of getting other authorities involved.
Creating a space for folks to freely enjoy themselves is also a particular passion of the headlining band, Tetchy. The band had hung consent-related posters all over the venue, and their singer, Maggie, began their set by acknowledging how many spaces are tainted for people because of past experiences with assault or harassment. She spoke about the need for venues to be invested in the communities that they are providing space to, and asked everyone to be present in their bodies for the next thirty-five minutes.
Meanwhile, Merch4Change’s table was nowhere to be found, the mystery solved only when Crush Fund took the stage and informed us that the group’s founder had gotten sick. The evening still managed to raise money for Gaza through sales of Pretty Bitter’s EP cassettes, and each band made a call to action on behalf of Palestine. These calls, like July of Crush Fund’s statement that “every minute that we’re here partying, our tax dollars are going to fund a genocide in Palestine,” simultaneously roused and quieted the crowd.
In a way, it’s impossible to justify going out at all when innocent people in peril actively need our time, attention, and money. We try through these acknowledgements and fundraisers, but ultimately we must make peace with our decision to attend shows, to sustain this community, and to create these spaces for each other. If nothing else, we can still inspire each other.