Estonko! Hi John, you probably already saw Dominic's email, but wanted to give you some more background. Power Shift 2023 is less than six months away, and yesterday the doors officially opened to register to attend (we’re offering a 10% discount with the code earlybird2023). Us on staff, host city folks, and PSN members are working hard to make PS23 a place for young folks from all over the country to learn valuable skills, deepen their political education, and find their movement homes in a space of creativity, intentionality, and community care.
You might know PS23’s host city Bvlbancha by its more commonly used colonial name “New Orleans.” The word Bvlbancha comes from the Chata and Yama languages, translating to “Place Where Many Languages are Spoken” or “Place of Many Tongues.” Long before colonization Bvlbancha was known for being a complex, intercontinental trade hub and gathering place, a thriving city of many cultures and ecosystems living and working in kinship.
We chose Bvlbancha for Power Shift 2023 because in the face of the unrelenting effects of climate abuse, the criminal actions of the petrochemical industry, racism and anti-Blackness, and staggering structural inequalities, Bvlbancha is a place of powerful resistance. The folks here have generations of adaptations to climate abuse and systemic abuses of power, centuries of fighting against staggering odds with culture and radical joy. In Bvlbancha, art is embedded in all parts of life -- grief, celebration, resistance, the daily goings on; it is the how-to manual to survival in a place that understands first hand the weight of history and how those effects play out today. There are lessons that have been hard won, and if we hope to thrive in the future that awaits us we need to start teaching them to others.
In addition to the lessons the Gulf has to teach, building power in this region is part of a long-term strategy toward dismantling the grip fossil fuels have on our world. The whole petrochemical industry has a chokehold on this region– it’s our job to meet them head-on, offer young folks strategies and support to combat their feelings of futility, paralysis, and despair with community, direct support, and action.
The root of Bvlbancha’s strength is community, the lessons and creative adaptations crafted while doing the work, and leaning into the power of interdependence and networks. Living in that wisdom is what will ultimately help us all survive and thrive in the face of climate destruction. I’m so happy to invite all of you to my home, and hope to see all of you April 6-8 here in Bvlbancha for PS23! From now until 11:59 ct November 30th, we’re offering a 10% discount with the code earlybird2023, so get your tickets and come down!
Hvtm cehecares,
Sasha Irby, Convergence Coordinator at PSN
