A few miles away from the Democratic National Convention (DNC), a coalition of actionists has gathered all week for panels and workshops in solidarity with Gaza. “F*** the Genocidal National Convention,” a counter-convention organized by Chicago Dissenters, has held events across the city, offering a stark contrast to the Democratic Party’s pageantry. In rooms filled with keffiyeh-clad organizers, the counter-convention has created space and opportunities for people to strategize, learn, and be in community.
“We need to provide the alternatives that we want people to attend,” said Jordan Esparza Kelley, a Chicago Dissenter and freelance photographer (Esparza Kelley has contributed photos to the Weekly). “If we are not the ones providing the alternatives for people to indulge in, then all we are is complainers about what people are doing. So I want us to provide the media. I want us to provide the space. I want us to provide the education.”
The free counter-convention kicked off its week of programming the weekend before the DNC, featuring events such as “DJs Against Apartheid,” a book and zine fair, art installations, and panels on topics including “cop cities,” labor organizing, healthcare in Gaza, and prison abolition.
Ashley De La Torre, who DJs under the moniker Mo Mami, was on the DJs Against Apartheid panel. The Pilsen DJ is the creator of Fever Dream Worldwide, which hosts a monthly dance party centered around creating inclusive nightlife spaces. “We were able to reflect, brainstorm and share personal experiences on our respective missions to create liberation through music and dance,” she said.
The events have been hosted in four locations, Pilsen Community Books, Co-Prosperity in Bridgeport, Grace Place in the South Loop and Podlasie Club in Logan Square. (Masks are required to prevent airborne disease transmission.)
“The spaces that we’re hosting these events at are spaces where they have been very allied, and have hosted a lot of events for the pro-Palestine movement,” said Maheen, a Chicago Dissenter who declined to give their last name.
“Everything is free here. We got snacks, we got coffee; we tried our best to provide everything, and we also have strict masking guidelines, because right now, Chicago is experiencing a summer COVID surge,” Esparza Kelley said.
People traveled from across the country to attend the counter-convention, with attendees coming from states such as Georgia, California, Indiana, Texas, and New York. Several panels are live-streamed, and Esparza Kelley has anchored Lumpen Radio from 4 to 5 p.m. each day of the convention. On the airwaves, he interviews panelists and organizers, and provides recaps of each day’s events.
While the panels are focused on different movements and social actions, there is a common thread that weaves them together: resistance.
“What we’re talking about is getting back to those roots and standing from a place of strength [and] of remembering that we have always been in resistance with each other, but now we have the tools to actually be deeper in relationship with one another,” said Janene Yazzie, a panelist and the director of policy and advocacy for NDN Collective, an organization dedicated to promoting Indigenous power.
Yazzie traveled from New Mexico to participate in Tuesday’s “Stop Cop Cities” panel. “The solidarity that we’re talking about is not something that’s just sprouting out as a new tactic,” she said. “It’s something that has been woven into the creation of this country.” She emphasized the importance of recognizing Indigenous organizing as a crucial part of the broader liberation movement, breaking the erasure that often surrounds it.
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The “Stop Cop City” panel explored how that movement, which began in Atlanta, has spread to other cities. It concluded with words from Joel Paez. Paez’s son, Manuel Esteban Paez Terán, who went by the activist moniker Tortuguita, was a twenty-six-year-old Indigenous queer environmentalist who was fatally shot by Georgia State Patrol Troopers during a raid on the Stop Cop City encampment outside Atlanta in 2023. Paez’s words moved attendees to tears as he ended with a call to action in honor of his late son.
Esparza Kelley said that the fear police brutality has instilled in disenfranchised communities was only heightened in 2020, and has deterred people from supporting movement actions. On the second night of the DNC, about seventy demonstrators were arrested during a pro-Palestine march outside the Israeli consulate. According to the Chicago chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, whose members are monitoring the demonstrations, at least two protesters have been hospitalized after being arrested.
“What people experienced on the street was a very real thing, and it is scary. Even I, myself, was intimidated. I had never faced police repression like that,” Esparza Kelley said. “I think that’s what our counter-conference programming has become: it’s just this sanctuary of people who still are down, still want to be involved, but cannot really bear the police brutality.”
F*** the GNC will continue to host programming through Friday.
People can also take to the streets today at the march alongside March On The DNC, which is holding a demonstration at Union Park, 1501 W. Randolph, beginning at 4pm.
Jocelyn Martinez-Rosales is a Mexican American independent journalist from Belmont Cragin who is passionate about covering communities of color with a social justice lens. She’s also the music editor at the Weekly.
