Ask an Abolitionist: Prairieland defendants & snitches
Hi Eric,
I want to offer support to the Prairieland defendants, but as I understand it, one of the defendants collaborated with the police. In your opinion, how do I maintain the ethics of “snitches get stitches” while also supporting the Prairieland defendants who did not collaborate?
– a Confused Abolitionist
Eric: The situation you bring up is a quite delicate one isn’t it? How do we handle it when someone helped the state hurt fellow comrades? I think there are questions we need to ask ourselves to really evaluate the situation. My opinion may be biased due to having been snitched on and been in prison, where snitches literally get stitches and knives and their heads stomped in. So I think these questions are valuable.
1) What would you do? Be very realistic with yourself. If you were looking at 10-50 years inside prison, would it be worth it to you to tell the cops something they already knew? To be yet another cog in the machine of repression. To hurt people who trusted you. If it were your absolute best friend who did it, would you still want to support them and have them be respected, to have their case be seen in the nuance of the specific situation? I think whatever you answer to that, will help clarify the situation a bit for you.
2) Do snitches really get stitches? In your code of ethics, would YOU stab or cut or stomp out someone for snitching? How badly would you do it? I think sometimes in radical circles we exist within slogans and ideas which are ethical, but not always within our praxis. I have hurt snitches in the past, and it didn’t feel good. It didn’t feel bad either, but I felt not gratification from it. Nothing was gained. Do I still advocate for people who cooperate to get fucked up, mostly yeah. But I’m not going to do it, I don’t have the energy to spend on hurting people in that way. If you do, I would not discourage you or anyone else from expressing that righteous rage.
So how could you support the P-Land folks without supporting the snitch? To me this is very easy; I support the ones who didn’t snitch. I support them as individual people, not as a collective unit. I look at someone like Lucy, they love animals and nature and Christianity. I support them on that level, not the PL co-defendant. I support Des as a talented tattoo artist, Song as an overall interesting dude, etc. etc. They are people first and foremost, and I would get to know them on that level. I will not be supporting the snitch. I will never say their name or acknowledge their existence, and that’s my ‘stitches’ for them.