Everyone knows we say NO to the Olympics. It’s literally in our name! But people don’t always ask us what we’re fighting for — what we say YES to. Our platform offers one answer:
“We will continue our fight for a more just Los Angeles, for the abolition of institutions and systems that perpetuate racial-capitalist violence, for new structures and ways of relating to each other that affirm and sustain life, and for the power to shape our own city, neighborhoods, and collective futures.”
But what does that actually look like? Two beautiful events this past weekend offered rich nourishment for the radical imagination.
In a corner of Echo Park Lake, hundreds came together for the latest edition of the Really, Really Free Market. As a delightful zine by LA Street Care explains, the event’s name “is a play on the ‘free market.’” Contrary to the capitalist dogma that people must compete for scarce resources, the Really, Really Free Market insists that “People can be free. Help can come without strings,” and “by creating networks of care, we build a world that works for everyone.” The zine acknowledges that this weekend’s edition is a continuation of a more than two-decade-old tradition, with Really, Really Free Markets beginning in the early 2000s in the midst of that era’s anti-globalization protests. The Really, Really Free Market is also about reclaiming space for community, which is particularly important at a park where an encampment was so violently displaced by some 200 cops in March 2021.
At this Really, Really Free Market, people had access to free food from pupusas to hot dogs, free haircuts, free clothes, and free books. They could get free masks, sanitary pads, and other basic medical supplies from All Power Free Clinic. They could get legal help with tickets for infractions like sleeping in public, blocking the sidewalk, “having too much property,” and other citations that are used to criminalize unhoused Angelenos. They could get their face painted or their shirts stamped with unique designs. They could get information and connections to organizing networks at the tents of groups like the LA Tenants Union’s Echo Park Local and NOlympics LA. They could relax to the soft strums of a guitarist or work up a sweat in the free zumba class. They could register to vote or register for Cal Fresh. And they could get free vet exams and vaccines for their cats and dogs from the Underdog Community Project. The line for Underdog’s tent was as long as the lines for free food!
Some 28 miles away, in a corner of Long Beach’s Bixby Park, the block party organized by Care Culture Collaborative also offered “a space everyone can exist without needing to spend their money.” People enjoyed free food, free toiletries and hygiene supplies, and arts and crafts tables that were a major hit with kids. Queer Oil Long Beach led an oil change demonstration. The Long Beach Tenants Union led a rights workshop. Drag queens danced for the crowd and then led storytime for children. And we were honored to lead a discussion on the Olympics’ National Special Security Event (NSSE) designation, how it gives federal security agencies expanded authority over our cities, and how our coalition is organizing against the Forever Games. Care Culture Collaborative has serious concerns about the 2028 Olympics, forming a NOlympics working group that is studying and strategizing around the mega-event’s impacts on Long Beach. The demands printed on a banner at the block party began simply with: “NOlympics in LB!”
Insisting on the importance of community care networks and spaces that are truly welcoming to all (“really, really public space”??) is essential at a moment when some forms of community care are under attack. Since early May, there have been multiple aggressive raids on LA’s MacArthur Park by federal and local security agents in a crackdown on so-called “drug trafficking.” We don’t think it’s a coincidence that these raids have occurred ahead of and around the World Cup, especially as the park is hosting city-run watch parties. Homelessness and drug use are both visible realities in MacArthur Park. The park makes it starkly clear that, as a city and region, we are failing to care sufficiently for all. However, networks of care have long been active and essential in the park, as harm reduction organizations distribute naloxone and safe supplies and connect people to health and treatment services. LA County officials credit this kind of work as the reason why drug overdoses across the county have declined for three years in a row. Unfortunately, the raids in MacArthur Park have been accompanied by some dangerous and baseless media narratives that blame harm reduction services for enabling drug use. But decades of research shows that harm reduction is an effective intervention that saves lives by reducing overdoses and disease. Police raids disrupt the networks of trust that have been built over time to do this essential work. Enforcement does nothing to ameliorate this longstanding public health crisis. In fact, it risks exacerbating it.
Community care networks are also a crucial line of defense and source of support as ICE raids and kidnappings continue across the region, albeit seemingly away from SoFi Stadium, fan fests, and official watch parties. In the last few days, Union del Barrio reported several kidnappings by masked ICE agents, including in Alhambra and South Central, and Northridge, while local media reported multiple kidnappings across the San Fernando Valley.
As the World Cup and Olympics stand to make our cities more gentrified, militarized, and corporatized, it is so important to celebrate and cultivate the spaces and events that help us imagine and enact the opposite. We want cities where “care culture” is everywhere. Where people are welcomed and cared for no matter how much money they have to spend. Where care networks are abundant and equipped to meet people where they’re at, without judgment. Where we invest in public spaces where people can just be, and where we program public spaces to offer material support alongside cultural nourishment.
Thank you, Care Culture Collaborative, LA Street Care, Echo Park LATU, and everyone who contributed to these events, as well as the many harm reduction and mutual aid organizations, for transforming our parks into spaces for rehearsing the future we want.