Articles
- The Architecture of Banishment
Displacement (or "gentrification") is often incorrectly conceptualized as an unintentional consequence of inevitable transformations which occur in urban areas over time. The Berklee College of Music's "homeless spikes" are a stark reminder of the intentionality behind the efforts of local universities and tech, biotech, and pharmaceutical corporations to reshape the Boston area into a haven for majority white and professional populations, through the planned banishment of preexisting (Black and Brown, working-class) communities deemed undesirable.
- Boston's Colonial
Universities Grab Land for Profit, War, and Medical Apartheid
Universities in Cambridge and Boston colonize land and put it to work for private profit, imperial war, and perpetuation of medical apartheid. These land grabs increase property values and rent, fueling the displacement and ethnic cleansing of local communities. Yet history shows that this colonial loop can be disrupted, and has been challenged at every stage by organized resistance of the people it seeks to push out.
-
Prison
in Plain Sight: Visualizing the Economic Veins That Fuel Our
Carceral Reality
The prison system is all around us, but by design its operational
management, economic lifeblood, and imperialist links are hidden if
we are not paying close attention. The system sustains itself
through corporate capture of public funds, ongoing extraction of
wealth from incarcerated peoples' families and loved ones, and
predation of Black and Brown communities. Organized communities and
movements can dismantle this system – but we must have the
awareness, knowledge, and relationships to fight against each head
of this hydra. We must organize far and wide against the harms of US empire at home and abroad, from Boston to Ferguson to Haiti to the African continent and around the globe.
- Zionism, Policing and Empire: A Dispatch from the Mapping Project
Examines the networking of police agencies across Massachusetts as highly militarized forces that share resources and information to enforce the intersecting systems of white supremacy and capitalism, and reveals their connections to universities, weapons companies, and certain NGOs. It highlights the role of the Department of Homeland Security, with its use of "counterterrorism" as a catch-all for programs of surveillance and militarization, in organizing and funding these networks, often using Israel as a point of reference for ideology, policy, technology and organization.
- Mapping US
Imperialism
US imperialism is the greatest threat to life on the planet. This article explores the vast and complicated network of US imperialism, both hard and soft power, then turns its
focus to the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, a local institution that demonstrates the level of ideological and material cooperation required for the machinery of US imperialism to function.
- Massachusetts' Imperialist Landscape
European colonization brought a form of cannibalism to Turtle Island, and American imperialism has continued to cannibalize lives ever since. This cannibalistic enterprise requires land. On the colonized land known as “Massachusetts,” we find a dense network of centers that support US imperialism. We visualize some elements of this network with a few maps.
- The Police Executive Research Forum, the ACLU, and
Counterinsurgency
The Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) brings together police executives from across the country for yearly meetings at Boston University, and also organizes meetings between US police executives with their counterparts in Israel and in other colonial and repressive regimes. This article looks at their 2018 handbook The Police Response to Mass Demonstrations as an example of a counterinsurgency doctrine aimed at isolating leaders and radicals, and reveals the role of the ACLU in helping police to develop policy.
- Dismantle the ADL: The Anti-Defamation League’s record of racist counterinsurgency and espionage
Masquerading as a “civil rights” group, the ADL is a counterinsurgency and espionage organization whose mission is to protect the mutual interests of the US and Israeli governments, and to eliminate solidarity among oppressed peoples, especially concerning Palestine. The ADL spies on and criminalizes activists (using its connections to governments, police, schools, and corporations) while undermining their work by pushing its own state-sanctioned, pro-“Israel” agenda. And while the ADL claims to represent Jews and to fight “antisemitism” on their behalf, the organization has supported anti-Jewish state violence and sanitized Nazis. The ADL cannot be reformed: it must be dismantled and whatever resources it has should go towards repairing the many harms it has done.
- Charity is Theft: The Gann Foundation and Boston’s Zionist NGO circuit
Charity is fundamentally misconstrued as a selfless and generous act. In reality, charitable donations are supporting the colonization of Palestine and violence worldwide. This article provides an introduction to united states tax law as it applies to charitable donations, highlighting legal tax evasion, the ways in which taxes nurture wealth building, and the transfer of wealth to the political darling projects of the rich.
- Shut Down the JNF: A Colonial Conference in Boston’s Wealthiest, Whitest Enclave
On November 4-6 2022, some of the most notorious colonizers of Palestine will gather in Boston for the 2022 national conference of the Jewish National Fund (JNF). The JNF is a zionist organization which since its founding in 1901 has facilitated the theft of Palestinian lands in order to advance the racist, colonial mission of expanded Jewish settlement across Palestine. The Mapping Project recognizes that colonial projects where we live and the colonization of Palestine are functionally interconnected, and that in order to effectively resist colonization anywhere, we must resist it everywhere. We urge everyone in the Northeastern "United States" to join the recent call for a regional mobilization to Boston on Saturday, November 5th starting at 2:00pm to shut down the JNF's 2022 national conference.
The University War Machine in Cambridge and Boston: Some Pamphlets
from the New England Free Press
Displacement (or "gentrification") is often incorrectly conceptualized as an unintentional consequence of inevitable transformations which occur in urban areas over time. The Berklee College of Music's "homeless spikes" are a stark reminder of the intentionality behind the efforts of local universities and tech, biotech, and pharmaceutical corporations to reshape the Boston area into a haven for majority white and professional populations, through the planned banishment of preexisting (Black and Brown, working-class) communities deemed undesirable.
Universities in Cambridge and Boston colonize land and put it to work for private profit, imperial war, and perpetuation of medical apartheid. These land grabs increase property values and rent, fueling the displacement and ethnic cleansing of local communities. Yet history shows that this colonial loop can be disrupted, and has been challenged at every stage by organized resistance of the people it seeks to push out.
The prison system is all around us, but by design its operational management, economic lifeblood, and imperialist links are hidden if we are not paying close attention. The system sustains itself through corporate capture of public funds, ongoing extraction of wealth from incarcerated peoples' families and loved ones, and predation of Black and Brown communities. Organized communities and movements can dismantle this system – but we must have the awareness, knowledge, and relationships to fight against each head of this hydra. We must organize far and wide against the harms of US empire at home and abroad, from Boston to Ferguson to Haiti to the African continent and around the globe.
Examines the networking of police agencies across Massachusetts as highly militarized forces that share resources and information to enforce the intersecting systems of white supremacy and capitalism, and reveals their connections to universities, weapons companies, and certain NGOs. It highlights the role of the Department of Homeland Security, with its use of "counterterrorism" as a catch-all for programs of surveillance and militarization, in organizing and funding these networks, often using Israel as a point of reference for ideology, policy, technology and organization.
US imperialism is the greatest threat to life on the planet. This article explores the vast and complicated network of US imperialism, both hard and soft power, then turns its focus to the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, a local institution that demonstrates the level of ideological and material cooperation required for the machinery of US imperialism to function.
European colonization brought a form of cannibalism to Turtle Island, and American imperialism has continued to cannibalize lives ever since. This cannibalistic enterprise requires land. On the colonized land known as “Massachusetts,” we find a dense network of centers that support US imperialism. We visualize some elements of this network with a few maps.
The Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) brings together police executives from across the country for yearly meetings at Boston University, and also organizes meetings between US police executives with their counterparts in Israel and in other colonial and repressive regimes. This article looks at their 2018 handbook The Police Response to Mass Demonstrations as an example of a counterinsurgency doctrine aimed at isolating leaders and radicals, and reveals the role of the ACLU in helping police to develop policy.
Masquerading as a “civil rights” group, the ADL is a counterinsurgency and espionage organization whose mission is to protect the mutual interests of the US and Israeli governments, and to eliminate solidarity among oppressed peoples, especially concerning Palestine. The ADL spies on and criminalizes activists (using its connections to governments, police, schools, and corporations) while undermining their work by pushing its own state-sanctioned, pro-“Israel” agenda. And while the ADL claims to represent Jews and to fight “antisemitism” on their behalf, the organization has supported anti-Jewish state violence and sanitized Nazis. The ADL cannot be reformed: it must be dismantled and whatever resources it has should go towards repairing the many harms it has done.
Charity is fundamentally misconstrued as a selfless and generous act. In reality, charitable donations are supporting the colonization of Palestine and violence worldwide. This article provides an introduction to united states tax law as it applies to charitable donations, highlighting legal tax evasion, the ways in which taxes nurture wealth building, and the transfer of wealth to the political darling projects of the rich.
On November 4-6 2022, some of the most notorious colonizers of Palestine will gather in Boston for the 2022 national conference of the Jewish National Fund (JNF). The JNF is a zionist organization which since its founding in 1901 has facilitated the theft of Palestinian lands in order to advance the racist, colonial mission of expanded Jewish settlement across Palestine. The Mapping Project recognizes that colonial projects where we live and the colonization of Palestine are functionally interconnected, and that in order to effectively resist colonization anywhere, we must resist it everywhere. We urge everyone in the Northeastern "United States" to join the recent call for a regional mobilization to Boston on Saturday, November 5th starting at 2:00pm to shut down the JNF's 2022 national conference.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, students across the US protested the entanglements of their universities in the US war machine and took actions to disrupt them. They also drew connections between university expansion into research and development projects for the war industry and the displacement of working class people in surrounding communities. These actions included building occupations, destroying infrastructure involved in military research, student strikes, and shutting down military recruiting centers and programs such as ROTC. Harvard, MIT, Boston University, Northeastern, Brandeis, and other local colleges and universities had active student groups organizing against the ties between their institutions and US imperialism.
The broader context was a growing movement against the Vietnam war and in support of the Black liberation movement. In May of 1970, Nixon expanded the Vietnam war into Cambodia, and four student protesters at Kent State were shot and killed by the US National Guard. The trial of Bobby Seal and the New Haven chapter of the Black Panther Party began at the same time. Student protests expanded into a national student strike involving over 800 colleges and universities, which crystallized around three demands:
- That the United States government end its systematic repression of political dissidents and release all political prisoners, such as Bobby Seale and other members of the Black Panther Party.
- That the United States government cease its expansion of the Vietnam war into Laos and Cambodia; that it unilaterally and immediately withdraw all forces from Southeast Asia.
- That the universities end their complicity with the U.S. war machine by an immediate end to defense research, ROTC, counterinsurgency research, and all other such programs.
(from "National Strike Information Committee, Newsletter #5, May 7, 1970.")
Already in April of 1969, students at Harvard calling for a student strike against the war had occupied University Hall protesting Harvard's support for ROTC and its real estate practices in Cambridge and Boston. They listed six demands:
- Abolish ROTC
- Restore scholarships to the Paine Hall demonstrators
- Replace ROTC scholarships with the equivalent Harvard scholarships
- That rent rises in university owned apartments be rolled back to the level of Jan. 1, 1968
- University Road apartments not be torn down to make way for the Kennedy complex
- That 182 Black workers' homes in Roxbury not be torn down to make room for Harvard Medical School expansion
(from "Up Against the Wall St. Journal," Vol. 1, No. 1, April 16, 1969)
In the course of the occupation, students seized documents related to Harvard's involvement with the CIA, military industry, and US imperialism. Some of these documents were later published in the pamphlet "How Harvard Rules," which also included maps of Harvard's relationship to war-tech industry in Cambridge and across Massachusetts (note that the link provides only an abridged version of this pamphlet). The publication made extensive reference to another pamphlet, "Harvard, Urban Imperialist" documenting the role of Harvard and MIT in driving out working class residents to make way for technological research centers closely tied to war. (Another version of this second pamphlet was published under the title "Cambridge: the transformation of a working class city; Harvard and MIT create an imperial city" ).
Harvard and MIT research centers with ties to war and imperialism became persistent targets of the local anti-war movement. In 1969 and again in 1972, protesters entered Harvard's Center for International Affairs (CFIA) (now known as the Weatherhead Center) because of its close ties with Henry Kissinger--widely recognized as an architect of the US war against Vietnam--with the aim of shutting it down. The second attack was the culmination of a march that began with the physical blockade of a military recruitment center in downtown Boston, crossed the river into Cambridge toward an undisclosed "military-linked target" and veered toward the CFIA (then housed on Divinity Avenue) at the last minute. In the course of the attack, demonstrators overturned bookcases, smashed windows, set fires and opened the internal sprinkler system. "In less than 10 minutes, the inside of the center was in ruins," according to a report from the Boston Globe (April 19, 1972). From there the crowd of demonstrators moved on to attack an IBM office building on Cambridge Street, highlighing the connections between war, university research, and the local tech industry.
The New England Free Press was a local radical project that connected student and community activists and published some of the research, statements and analysis of the contemporary movement. We include here a few additional links to pamphlets, now available in their digital archive, which document ties between local universities, war industry, US imperialism and the displacement of working class people from Cambridge and Boston:
MIT
and Imperialism
Two,
three, many tech squares: MIT's role in the transformation of
Cambridge
The
CFIA, Center for International Affairs
Project
CAM Exposed
Underdeveloping
the World: Harvard and Imperialism -- the role of the development
advisory service (das)
M.I.T. Lab
Conversion: the (Ford) Fraud Exposed
Up
Against the Wall St. Journal, Vol. 1, No. 1.