There's this new group called "Black Hammer", supposedly they've purchased some land in CO for their settlement(?). There's a whole lot of ---discourse--- surrounding them so I thought I'd watch one of their 2hr Zoom meetings and comment as I go. Wish me luck!

#blackhammer
18 of the 25 people in the Zoom meeting have the title "Chief". But they're all 'anonymous' resulting in names such as "Chief t", "Chief Tacky", "Chief Savvy", and, bizarrely, "Chief" (that's it, just "Chief", so "Chief Chief" maybe?).
They begin literally every statement with "Land Back". As in "Land Back, this is Chief Mixtli and I'm really thrilled to be here" or "Land Back, I want to make sure everybody has eaten something before we begin." It's like a verbal tick, some weird gatekeeping.

#landback
One of their first speakers just blamed colonialization for the fact that he learned his girlfriend's password so he could read her texts without her knowing. Another person then agreed with his statement as representing facing his own self-colonization.
Chief Afeni's background is the livingroom from The Simpsons. Is this a meeting or a long-form TikTok?
They call individual members "Hammers".
"When operating as a Hammer..." and "On nature Hammers hold the land to the same regard..."
They managed to stretch "Take only memories, leave only footprints" into three paragraphs, and then invoked Egypt and the hippopotamus to discuss Indigenous living in the Americas. ๐Ÿ™ƒ๐Ÿ™ƒ
"On romantic and personal endeavors of any sort...we must push thru this fear of 'weakeness' to show our true strength: the power of the collective".

Can't decide if this is about wife-swapping or 'if you try a committed relationship in the commune you're counter-revolutionary'.
"Denying other colonized people a chance to make choices with full disclosure is violent individualism".

Definitely the second one then. Any couples wanting to make it in the mountains better hope neither of them is attractive to the 'leaders', it won't end well.

๐Ÿ’”
"In maintaining our character we rid ourselves of the colonial standard of indecency and selfishness."

Someone will steal your phone claiming they reappropriated hwyte wealth, and you will definitely be required to attend group orgies.
"Never intentionally harm, scare, or abuse colonized children."

How does one 'accidentally' abuse a child? Oh wait...
We're only 30mins in............

Chief Chief seems to be muted. Moving forward, Turey (not a chief apparently) speaks briefly about how happy he is to be here, "Land Back", then sings about how he'd really like it if this gets posted to social media ASAP. "Land Back"...
I can NOT get over how much Chief Chief looks like Adam Driver. But even though Chief Chief is a joke that gets old instantly, I can't call him "Chief Ren" because there's already a "Chief Wren".

Chief Kylo...?

#forced
Chief Solimar was muted, but she doesn't know who did it. Anyway, "Land Back!" she's very happy about all the colonized children they'll be raising... Sorry what?

That theme is not defined or contextualized.
chief t seems to be some form of South Asian, India or thereabouts judging by accent. Anye said something about being Latin, but the overwhelming accent pool and vernacular is US. The 'world cultures' element has a decidedly G8 bias.

"Land Back!"
45mins.

Anco is the Secretary General. Wearing what appear to be gold-plated glasses and in an aggressively West Coast accent he explains that he represents the Mapuche of Chile. He has very white teeth.

Okeydokey. ๐Ÿคท๐Ÿฝ
Anco is... a talker.
Something something, volcano 60,000yrs ago, something something, the fight, something something, revolution.

I have become more than a little obsessed with what his entirely disinterested roommate is cooking on the stove during this speech.
Ten Minutes. Ten Minutes of whatever the hell, and we finally get to why this whole meeting was called in the first place:

We [they] have land!

Oh god, more vamping...

Holy shit, a whole power point and the first slide is Anco talking about (drumroll please)... Himself!
He loves city planning, "science", and "the people", which he learns about not by getting an education but "From YouTube, y'all".
Chief Coyotl's echo isn't, well, too distracting. They've given themselves "a revolutionary name" from the Uto-Aztecan language family.

"Land Back"
Chief Savvy is Creek, Blackfeet, and... African.

Two tribes and a continent?
Comrade Tupac was muted. This has been fixed. They're representing the Aymara "nation".

They have no experience with revolution, or activism, but they've read about them a lot and they'll use that knowledge in their work.

"Land Back!"
1hr

Anco FINALLY gets to the point, after he'd already said he was getting to it. But hey, whet appetite, right?

Colorado!

Several shots of random mountains, all above the treeline.

"We'll have clubs, and our own roads, and you can even make your own silverware!"
He has no words. He's all out of words. The words have left him. He can't express to you how happy he is in words because his words are gone.

Comrade Max: So... why not Florida?

Anco: COVID, also other reasons, plus "spiritually".

"Land Back!"
I don't want to assume that Chief Solimar is becoming as bored as I am, but she keeps dancing while muted, so I have my suspicions.

Also, I don't wanna say I've spent the last few minutes trying to figure out who the sketch is in "cheem's" background, but I totally have.
Anco believes this is a project "under the nose of the colonizer", if by that he means "In front of, literally jumping up and down, while doing live full-face Zoom meetings on Facebook" then yes it's totally subversive and revolutionary.

"Land Back!"
Aaand it's lunch time. Chief Kylo started snacking and he seems to have inspired others.

Meanwhile Chief Afeni wants to make very clear we all need to use seudonyms to guarantee safety.

While full-face... in a Zoom meeting.. posted to Facebook.
Oh hai, a Nigerian guy! So of the 13 people who've spoken so far that's 2, count'em TWO, who aren't from the US! Multi-cultural AF!

I kid, I kid, Chief Afeni is way more fun than what's happened so far.
Um... I don't know how to feel about glitter curry (the person, not the food, I think edible glitter in your curry is fine), but he's definitely a nice change of pace. Or maybe my standards are just that low at this point.
1hr 20min

We're doing a new round of introductions. Several people who've been muted to this point say hello so we can instantly regret unmuting them. Not because any are particularly toxic, but because most of them have terrible internet.

Jarring doesn't quite cover it.
Wait, wait, wait... "Chief Mas", is a "Chief", and he had to introduce himself?

So you can be a "Chief" nobody's met before? Then what about all the ones calling themselves "Comrade"? One girl even specifically said "I'm not a Chief, I'm just a Comrade".

"Chief" of what?
1hr 25sec, their compression reaches its limit, video becomes a gigantic digital rainbow with just audio.

Oh. My. God. They have a theme. Like, honest to goodness 'gameshow from the 1990s' theme.
Oh fuck, Gazi K... THIS princess...

He's been on screen for 1min and I'm already exhausted.

He's rambling about Trump for, fuck if I know why. But he introduced it by saying "So I've been seeing this new guy".

Now gay-adjacent jokes about... Bernie Sanders?
"I'm gonna miss Trump".

Non-stop bitching about hwyte people with a pic of Karl Marx behind your head.

Gazi, you are an honest to god cliche. Spend as much money on 'the revolution' as you do on your skincare regimen and I'll be impressed.
Anco *wishes* he was as long-winded as Gazi. One day he'll learn the secret: dramatic hand gestures. Even if your speech is incoherent the audience still feels involved.

I've dated guys like Gazi. They ramble for an hour about how hard they work, then stick you with the check.
"The vaccine doesn't even work"

Ding fries are done.
Oh my god, his eyes are scanning. He Wrote This! This bizarre nonsensical wannabe slam poetry bit is SCRIPTED!
1hr 40min

"We've read about genocide, we've read about the Trail of Tears".

"Read"...?

Little boy, do not tell me that you had to learn about oppression in a text book and then flatter yourself that you're The Vanguard who speaks my pain.
Gazi definitely thinks he's the lovechild of Langston Hughes and Malcolm X.

He is wrong. Not, as one might expect, because of his conceit or grandiosity (which he has in spades), rather his abject ignorance of basic lived experience, let alone the literary critiques both used.
"I left a 6-figure income to begin this project."

Princess, I would have known you're a trustifarian without you ever saying it.
1hr 50min.

"I'll end on this..."

1hr 55min.

Still going.
"We don't allow depression in the Hammers."
"How many people just need a hug??"

For anyone who hasn't researched cults, look up the intersection of giving and withholding affection and cults. Also, check out "hugboxing".
chief t:

"Thank you for that sermon, I don't usually cry when someone's speaking but..."

This isn't a bad sign, why do you ask?

"Now open your cash app, open your venmo."

Nope, still no bad signs, everything looks GREAT! ๐Ÿ™ƒ๐Ÿ™ƒ๐Ÿ™ƒ๐Ÿ™ƒ๐Ÿ™ƒ๐Ÿ™ƒ๐Ÿ™ƒ๐Ÿ™ƒ๐Ÿ™ƒ
chief t: "Donation from France. Well, thank you, but I still don't respect the French. All their food is terrible."

chief t, you're dead to me.
2hr 2min

Just reading every single donation that's come in from the beginning of the stream to now.
"We have an economics and development committee to help keep the money coming in, but totally not in a capitalist way".
Chief Suh:

"Birth and science are inventions of the colonizer".
2hr 10min

Chief Suh:

"Join my committee, the Science committee. Email me, [forgets email address]... I do science, I don't do words! Also I don't respect the English language. Land Back!"
Now we move into an actually useful section discussing how to treat one's self and care for others who are "Long Haulers" or, people with long-term symptoms of COVID infection.

Even fairly useful info like 'sometimes just a walk is a workout' and 'don't ever call yourself lazy'.
It should surprise no one the Long Hauler section has been one of the briefest so far clocking in at barely 5mins at the tail end of 2hrs of nonsense and a sermon.

On to Chief Olu who feels they need a radio station and TV show.
2hr 20min

Chief Ali "And now to wrap this up. But first, there's a bit more."

I'm shocked Ali.
Chief Ali "This isn't just pie in the sky, we're very very close to getting this land!"

Wait, I thought they'd got the land...?
2hrs 22mins

All together now: "LAND BACK!"
For anyone who wants to view this for themselves, it's a publicly available Facebook video from the org's website. Just hunt around for their "Hammer City" tab then click on "All Posts About Hammer City".

"Press Release: Land Liberators announce change of location" has the link.
Anyway, hope you all got what you needed. I've no idea whether this is a cult, a grift, or just dreamers with no life experience. Either way, people could get hurt.โค๏ธ

I guess this is where I say I have links in my bio if ya wanna see my work.

Be good to each other. ๐Ÿ‡
PS, a friend shared this little tidbit and I think it's worth mentioning
-No closed caption and no sign interpreter
-No actual tribal reps spoke
-No one gave any financial accounts

These people are many things, but 'doing their best' is not on the list:
Longer than I expected if I'm honest. https://twitter.com/RabbitThoughts/status/1390506257937846273
You can follow @RabbitThoughts.
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