Why I didn’t listen, and why I should have
This contribution to this conversation is about 8 years too late. I had an early chance to intervene in Dave’s toxic pattern of power and abuse in the anarchist community in Denver and didn’t. I want to share some thoughts along with this story about what I did and didn’t do as a message to anyone who is in a working relationship with Dave presently, and is in shock or disbelief at the other stories on this blog.
I met Dave around the time of Democratic National Convention in Denver in 2008. Shortly after, I started to see him around Denver more. He was sitting in the kitchen of a collective house I frequented one day when he informed me that he was going to move to Denver, to take over business operations at a local print shop. I was impressed by his breadth of knowledge and drive to make this worker owned print shop into an anarchist collective, and excited to have someone who I perceived as really experienced to the struggle join our community and contribute this valuable resource. I was 19 at the time.
Shortly after Dave moved to Denver, I ran into his ex-partner from Lawrence at an anarchist gathering. I remember clearly when she asked if we could talk about something, and took me aside to talk about Dave. In my memory we were walking through a wooded area in the summertime, and she told me vaguely that Dave had a problematic history in Lawrence, had left on bad terms, and was not to be trusted. I nodded, said okay, I don’t remember contributing that much to the conversation. I imagine it seemed like I took the conversation seriously, but I certainly didn’t, and didn’t ask for more detailed information. I liked Dave, he was very communicative, seemed kind and reasonable and like a total anarchist badass, and I also did not have a strong relationship with his ex-partner, didn’t think too much about her warning, and soon after, didn’t think about it for years.
This was a terrible mistake, and one that I hold onto to this day.
Dave and I never became really close personally, but I did consider him a respectable comrade for a long time. I would stop by the print shop to hang out, he would print materials for my organizing projects, I went to his wedding. I volunteered sparingly with projects at the community space he helped to run and thought of him as a friend until near the end of his participation with Denver ABC and the print shop. However, I always was wary of Denver ABC and kept it at an arm’s length- going to a letter writing night here and there and helping with events but I never wanted to get fully involved. There was a culture surrounding it that I didn’t feel right about, and in time began to notice a particular pattern of queer and femme folks who were involved with the collective leaving, and venting to me about the ways they felt shut down and shut out. In my head I eventually decided it encompassed a culture of misogyny and manarchism (although I generally liked everyone I met who worked with DABC) and spent the last few years of Dave’s Denver heyday living in another city and mostly out of touch.
By the time I returned to Denver a couple years ago, Dave was ending his involvement with the print shop and Denver ABC. I began to deepen my friendships with most of the other former collective members and learned about what had happened with Dave, and put together that the culture that repelled me was deeply created by and enforced by him, although to my face he was always charming and helpful, but often sought pity for some misfortune or another- I later pieced together how these behaviors are in line with his tactic of manipulation. I also learned I really liked all the other people core to the collective and in Dave’s absence I no longer sensed any hint of the toxic masculinity that kept me away before.
The below explanation of Dave’s behavior in Lawrence breaks my heart. I feel heavy with sadness because in the last couple of years I have learned from many different people how these behaviors were repeated almost exactly in Denver for years, and left a trail of trauma, hurt, emotional and material loss, on the lives of many people I love and deeply respect. It is not, as he has attempted to narrow it down to, solely a conflict between him and an ex-partner. There are literally scores of people he has hurt deeply. It is hard not to feel responsible for this pain by not intervening early on- although I try to be easy on myself because of where I was at in my life, but this kind of oversight is something I am dedicated to never repeating again. I feel deeply sorry to the survivor who I outright ignored and cannot change the past, but can dedicate myself to a more thoughtful future. It is important to believe people, and to at the very least take the time to thoroughly investigate the past of someone who is trying to work with you when someone else tells you that this person has hurt them.
I acknowledge that at the time in 2009, I lacked the life experience to understand how to take the warning about Dave seriously, it came from someone I hardly knew and I brushed it off. I felt like I knew Dave and thought he was great. It’s strange because I also thought his ex-partner from Lawrence was a super cool older anarchist whose approval I desired- but I did not take her words seriously. I attribute my disregard in part to my own internalized misogyny (I am a female socialized queer person) and discounting a female person’s experience of abuse. I could have made space for a larger conversation, asked her more questions, and made the space to hear exactly why she felt it was important to tell me this. I could have listenly closely. I could have learned all the information shared here years ago, instead I am just now learning the details. Following that, I could have asked more people in Lawrence for verification of his history, I could have put at least a little tiny bit of effort into exploring the past of this charismatic individual who was inserting himself prominently into my community, and then made steps to prevent him from rooting himself and organizing with people I love. I could have been part of a stop gap that prevented nearly a decade of abuse. I did not do this, and I think it is a dangerous mistake for anyone who cares about the safety of their radical community to repeat, with anyone new to them, and in this particular case of working with Dave Strano.
It’s entirely possible that I could have done all of these things and nobody else would have listened, some would and others not, it would have had no effect and he would have set roots in Denver anyway, I don’t want to conflate or blame myself as the only reason he was able to establish himself. However, I certainly played a role, and learned a lot from it.
To those of you who are working with or close to Dave presently and want to ignore these cautionary tales, and feel compelled to jump to have the back of your comrade, I get it. I’ve been there. Dave is really good at speaking eloquently, he excells at saying exactly the right thing to get people to support him. I think there is beauty in the way that anarchists and leftists prioritize specific and intentional language, but in the same light that many people with their hearts in truly the right place are ostracized from community for lacking the “right” ways of speaking (and yes, this is often based in class and access to certain education), our focus on language can be used as a weapon against us. It is the perfect tool for manipulation. Please take the time to look at the actions Dave or anyone else has taken, and continues to take, rather than only hearing the story he tells.
I think some part of me filed away his ex-partner’s caution as some inconsequential community drama that wouldn’t have an impact on Denver. I could not have been more wrong about that. He is an abuser on a grand scale, a patriarch, a liar, and a manipulator. I do not make statements like that lightly, and I don’t believe in internet callouts until someone has proven themselves completely unwilling to change in any other way.
I only ask that you do what is best for yourself and your community, and disassociate with Dave Strano and continue doing whatever work you are doing without him. You are intelligent and capable enough to do your organizing on your own, and I promise that if you don’t, some years down the line you are going to think about this blog and try and unravel why you did not get out now, why you didn’t listen. If he were to be truly responsible and accountable, he would take ownership of his patterns and step back entirely from any political organizing- for years, or forever, and dedicate himself entirely to changing his behavior without any social capital to gain from it. I do not believe he is going to do this, and I definitely firmly believe that nothing positive will result from any accountability process a community tries to take with him that allows him to maintain his position of power and continue organizing.
I do not want to see anyone else hurt by this person, or carry the weight that I do knowing that I could have prevented it. Do yourself and everyone you love a favor, and listen.