Book Review: Representing Radicals

 

Image: The cover of the book shows a black and white photo that has been photoshopped to give it more contrast and less sharpness. It depicts a cop in a riot helmet on the left staring down into the face of a protestor on the right. The protestor has lighter skin, dark clothing, and bangs coming down to a cm or so above their eyebrows. In the background is a black and grey silhouette of someone moving past from right to left. The image is cut off about 2/3 of the way from the left side by a diagonal solid red panel. At the bottom of the cover, across the chests of both people in the photo is the title of the book in red and the authors in white.

Representing Radicals: A Guide for Lawyers and Movements, assembled by Tilted Scales Collective, is a nice little book that is valuable for organizers and should be required reading for attorneys. I am not a lawyer or legal scholar and thus cannot speak much to the accuracy or effectiveness of the broad range of legal topics and strategies contained in this guide. As a result, this review will be a bit shorter than usual. I have however been involved in legal support, have dealt with my own drama, have had many radical prisoner penpals, have organized a lot in the past, and have seen the results of the organizing of many others. With that background and what it has taught me, this guide seems pretty on point.

Representing Radicals is accessibly written such that lawyers and non-lawyers can read it. I read it cover to cover, but it is well organized such that a reader could skip around to the sections that are most relevant. Any references to already covered material refer to the section of the book in which it can be found. Tilted Scales Collective describe themselves on their website as, "a small collective of dedicated anarchist legal support workers who have spent years supporting and fighting for political prisoners, prisoner of war, and politicized prisoners in the so-called united states." These politics definitely shine through in the text which is unapologetically leftist, but it still remains appropriate for an audience outside of the far left.

The guide offers a breakdown of why specific and sometimes unique legal strategies are necessary when working with radical defendants. TSC covers the wide variety of ways to tackle cases of leftists with an emphasis on cooperation between legal counsel and defendants as well as the importance of non-cooperation with the state. (Meaning not snitching or otherwise endangering one's comrades.) They offer a lot of anecdotes which show their recommendations in practice which is an indispensable part of the book (though the font on these sections is VERY small and tough to read.) They also cover how to work with legal support organizers and the variety of ways media considerations are critical in defenses of radical activists. 

I got a lot out of this book, even though I was not the target audience. It's a quick read and definitely worth one's time, especially if they are involved in organizing in any way. For lawyers, I can't think of an excuse for not reading this book, except perhaps the public defenders who are sitting on 350 cases and haven't slept in 3 days. If you work in legal defense, this should be on your bookshelf with lots of bookmarks and highlights.

This was also posted to my goodreads.