"Not a Threat, Better Yet, It's a Promise"- Method man

"I don't know about that fist... What, are you guys like with the Black Panthers or something?"

My boyfriend is a 6' 3" 185, pasty white guy in all black Damascus clothing (a brand that makes intense, geometric "we are all connected" street-goth kind of stuff). When he told me the woman at the vape shop asked him if he was part of the Black Panthers my response was a more caustic version of:
"Tell them YES next time someone asks."

This was two years ago, so, the movie wasn't out. She was just a late-middle aged woman whose scope of resistance knowledge was obviously minuscule. Even tinier! I'd say something like nano but I try not be sooo dramatic all the time ;) I knew when I chose our name what a visceral reaction that fist had on people. I knew most people saw it as a militant, aggressive symbol but, I also understood the subtlety and wanted to help wrestle The Fist out of the clutches of violence and hand it back to its true keepers: us.

I first saw the phrase "Respect Existence or Expect Resistance" in a movie about Julianne Assange's teen years. They graffitied it outside of a place they hacked. For me it was just a simple cause and effect, no more threatening or benign than gravity. Toss the ball up, the ball comes back down. Mistreat beings that could react to stimuli and they would react, they would resist mistreatment. I felt that this was the type of information that is universally beneficial. Not many people or things like violence. Life is order and violence is, well, a violation of that order. Every force has an equal and opposing force, so unless your end game is to have people retaliate against you, just, you know, cut it out man.

The fist, of course, has earned its baggage. Like every symbol, word, sound, thing that sticks around long enough, it's saddled with the flaws of those who most prominently owned it. But, at its core was the most basic, enduring idea we have: you can participate in your reality. You have validity, strength. You can clean your neighborhood, or plant a garden. You can write, or heal, or hug, or fight. The Black Panthers were, arguably, not predicated on violence but on individual. The innumerous worker's right groups that have used it, the same. Like anarchy, the idea of "Let me live in peace" often comes followed by an "Or else", but that is not the core. It is not the heart. We had fists of all colors and sizes. We even called our first flavor Primordial Soup: Life's First Resistance, the Resistance Against Entropy.

If you are someone familiar with 'manifesting' and Abraham Hicks' language, resistance is what stops you from creating more than you need or want. It's like the bumpers on the bowling lane that is your vortex. It doesn't feel good because it is the vanguard to something that feels worse. When you see it, take your cue and retreat. The fist, to me represents a reminder that we are all co-creating, a rouser of personal force that has been here Since Always.

(These are some photos my sister made. We have also shut down the company in December- just so no one thinks I'm sneakily trying to market products. There are none ;) )