While we were sleeping, weeds crept in. Police budgets grew, our bills got higher, the slumlords got crueler, and our dreams got smaller. The world began to crumble, and our eyes were too tired to see. What little of it makes the news appear before us like the flash of a fever dream, too intangible to grasp—yet the aftertaste of melancholy remains.
While we were sleeping we weren’t really resting. Savoring seconds spent sedating ourselves, we learned to embrace numbness. We all know there is a problem problems are the air we breathe yet somehow, we never seem to catch our breath.
While we were sleeping, we forgot our power. Did you know that CIW was renovated to make it harder for students to protest? Did you know that the Binghamton area has one of the most robust mutual aid networks in New York State? This university has a long history of resistance. It's a history that has been lost to time, buried by those who would rather us never know how much strength we hold when we begin to stretch our fierce and feeble spirits.
Welcome to Sprout. This is a chronicle of what has been happening in between the headlines. These are the stories that seldom get told, because they were lived. These are the things we refuse to forget. Let's wake up: there’s a world to win.
Table of Contents
Ambush in a Grocery Store Parking Lot - A story about the brutality of Binghamton’s police department and how we resist nonetheless
Thomas J. Watson: A Holocaust Engineer - A history of IBM, Binghamton, and the everyday acts that constitute genocide
UniverCity: How BU Caused a Housing crisis - A study on the divide between Student and Resident, and how SUNY Binghamton exploits all of us
Outreach: An Ode to Mutual Aid - A reminder of our power to organize
Abolish Greek Life - A call to end a culture that ends that ends the lives of its victims
Resource List - A compilation of different groups, organizations, health services, restaurants, and more
Describe the World You Want to Live In - A question to help us practice the radical act of imagining
This is just a fraction of what there is to say. We would love nothing more than for you to submit your own writing. This is only the beginning...
Email submissions to Binghamtonsprout@gmail.com or DM us on instagram @sproutbinghamton
Ambush in a Grocery Store Parking Lot
It happened in an otherwise mundane and unseemingly grocery store parking lot; it happened in a typically liminal space, one wherein controlled chaos thrives and consumer dollars reign. Together, we took control of the Johnson City Wegman’s rush-hour commotion, bringing it to a halt, drawing attention to those suffocating realities obscured by the hectic, grueling nature of racial capitalism: stop your shopping for a moment, we proclaimed, pause your pursuit of fresh salmon filet and pay your respects to those killed under our militaristic police state, to those beaten and bruised by a system designed to maim its very subjects, to those held hostage in their poverty and suffering by wealth-hoarders who have the resources to end this pain but choose not to. That day, the sun visited only for a short while, and winter’s brisk kiss remained biting as ever—it was the first of February, the first day of Black History Month, in Binghamton, New York, after all.
We were peaceful in our demonstration, requesting 17 minutes of intentional mourning, our hearts filling equally with love and sorrow for a world we know we must improve: JUSTICE FOR TYRE NICHOLS, we cried. Nichols had been beaten to death by police only a month prior in Memphis; he was 29 years old. JUSTICE FOR BINGHAMTON RESIDENT HAMAIL WADDELL, we demanded. Waddell’s neck had been knelt on by Binghamton Pig Department officer Brad Kaczynski only a month prior, as Waddell desperately plead for his life and called out “I can’t breathe;” despite being the victim of assault by a pig, Waddell was detained, arrested, and
charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. Officer Kaczynski remained a school resource officer in Binghamton City School District for weeks following this incident.
Just about as soon as it started, the police arrived as an army. A sea of cop cars flooded into the lot, lining the perimeter—one, then two, then twenty—and in a slowmotion instant, an entire parade of pigs swarming to defend the precious consumer dollar. They blared their sirens; we turned up our speakers. They said whose streets; we said ours. With no warning, they deployed their mace, thick and noxious clouds of pepper spray clinging onto our eyes and lungs with a vengeance, rendering us unable to breathe. 16 demonstrators were tackled and arrested, including a former mayor, a minor, and several elders who have led social justice efforts and who have kept the community fed through various mutual aid projects. Victims left with bruised bodies, irritated respiratory systems, stinging eyes, and emotional trauma; regular customers were barred from entering or enjoying the artisanal superstore for the remainder of the night. The ambush itself was calculated, it was procedural, and it was all according to plan.
As always, the police made the first blow. We were given no warning; we had no protection against their attack. In a white haze, hands were cuffed and bodies forced into police vans. Curiously, all of the Black folks were put into one vehicle, and all the white people into another; police failed to inform us of our charges until we were booked. Of the four people whose phones were taken, three of them were Black; we believe that the police sent messages
and copied information in an effort to surveil our activism.
When living in the belly of the beast, to be alive is to resist arrest—and it is a crime met with total brutality. Our clothes were stained with a poison that permeated every surface it touched. Our hair was stained with a poison that seeped into our eyes when we showered. Our dreams were stained with an intangible poison, too, one much deeper than the pepper spray that struck our skin and invaded our lungs—the trauma lingers like a blunt force to the brain, the visual horror of standing and watching as your comrades are battered and imprisoned echoing in the chambers of your mind ad infinitum.
So, we threw away our clothes. We cut off all our hair. We dreamed something different. We taught each other CPR and how to use narcan. We fed each other. We learned. We healed. We prepared. And now, we are stronger. We refuse to let this moment be forgotten. Let it live on in these tattered pages and on our tongues as something to remember.
The Watson School of Engineering is a seemingly average name for a seemingly average school but contained within is a lifetime of violence. That’s because Thomas J. Watson, that beloved patriarch of IBM, was a Nazi collaborator. The history of his contributions to the Third Reich tell the story of how fascism engineers itself, and how quick the financiers of Western capital are to embrace it when confronted with the diminishing of their power. Thomas Watson was the chairman and CEO of IBM, a company that has a long history in Binghamton. The decision to honor his legacy by naming a school of engineering makes sense, if we ’ re willing to ignore who he was and what he did. Under Watson, IBM became a key contractor of the Third Reich. Their Hollerith tabulating machine revolutionized information management, offering states an unprecedented capacity for social control and military intelligence–a kind of protoMicrosoft Excel for murdering millions of people. Watson’s company monopolized the punched cards and tabulating machines used for the first German censuses to record Jews as an ethnicity. Hitler’s takeover of Germany offered Watson and IBM a lucrative partnership, augmented by the prospects of military conquest and the unprecedented bureaucratic undertaking of widespread ethnic cleansing. That’s gonna take a lot of spreadsheets! Nazi Germany also instituted a regime of monopoly capitalism that perfectly served IBM, giving them immense market control. It’s no surprise why so many American capitalists sympathized with the top-down fascist revolutions of Europe. By the end of 1933,
Thomas J. Watson: a Holocaust Engineer
Dehomag, IBM’s German subsidiary, was outperforming all other foreign branches of the company combined, and the invasion of Poland brought the company record profits from Germany month after month. How fitting that Watson was awarded The Order of the German Eagle in 1937.
Developing an emotional attachment to a local business is just internalizing an advertisement. IBM used to supply Binghamton and the Broome county area with many engineering jobs, but that came at the cost of massive pollution of the Susquehanna river. When Binghamton residents protested, IBM left and took their business with them, wrecking the local economy and the local ecology. We all live in the aftermath of IBM’s exploitative practices–let’s not become apologists.
In some sense, SUNY Binghamton naming its school of engineering after Watson is apt. Watson College, through its relationship with the military industrial complex, has become emblematic of the same moral bankruptcy of Thomas Watson himself. Our university has undergone a successful corporate makeover, reflected by Watson student outcomes data. BU engineers are filling positions with extractive corporations and defense contractors; meanwhile, Lockheed Martin scouts students at job fairs and funds their senior projects. Rocketry programs and robot dogs are unsubtle products of a permanent war economy—one where we are the next generation of consumers and producers.
We’re not the first to call attention to this. Five years ago, BU issued a belittling response to students demanding that our school of engineering be renamed to dissociate from Nazi collaborator Thomas J. Watson. Yes, we re-iterate the call for a change in name, but really what we are looking for is solidarity. Solidarity with the engineers, past and present, who refused to build weapons and suffered the consequences; solidarity with students who actually consider who and what they’re building for; solidarity with students who dare to think beyond equations and see the bigger picture. Fascism has to be engineered and facilitated, and it shouldn’t be normalized. Watson is not just a name, it is a sign that Binghamton University does not care about the legacies that it upholds and the legacies it destroys, even when those legacies trace directly to Holocaust complicity.
UniverCity: How BU Caused a Housing Crisis
Broome County’s housing crisis should be on all of our minds. Many factors contribute to the crisis: a lack of affordable housing, corporate control, Binghamton University power, deindustrialization, and unjust evictions stand out as driving forces. The effects of these forces are dispersed, so we don’t see a lot of what is occurring. This enables those who perpetuate the crisis to continue to act without taking accountability. Systems of power, including development corporations, Binghamton University and our local government support big money interests, largely displaying apathy toward the majority of long term residents’ needs. Students are major stakeholders in Binghamton. It is our responsibility to get involved.
Nationally, U.S. residents are experiencing a housing crisis. Conditions are particularly dire in Binghamton as there is a severe lack of low-income housing units, despite the fact that a third of the population lives in poverty. The Binghamton housing industry is spearheaded by oppressive slumlords who are largely apathetic to issues faced by their tenants and the community as a whole. Wealthy landlords bring in immense profit by largely catering to the needs of middle-class and wealthy university students, who are predominantly concentrated in a few neighborhoods. One of the major means by which slumlords oppress tenants is through the eviction process. Slumlords frequently attempt to evict tenants extrajudicially, or outside the legal process. In a recent example of this which received some attention in the community, slumlord Douglas Ritter attempted to illegally evict the Garcias, a local low-income family with seven children, all under the age of 10 years.
It is important to shine light on the University’s role in displacing individuals and families in the community. Within the past two decades, the University has greatly expanded its facilities. The University has taken over 30 plots of land throughout the county to expand the school. This has involved the demolition of 50 single-family homes and apartments. The school established the University Downtown Center (UDC) in the heart of Binghamton in 2007, and a nearly 15-acre building for the Decker College of Nursing and Health Sciences in 2021.
The perception of a safe “student bubble” is a draw for prospective students. Therefore, gentrifying Binghamton helps the university profit. This is an example of what Professor Darren Smith calls studentification: “contradictory social, cultural, economic and physical changes resulting from an influx of students within privately rented accommodation in particular neighborhoods” (Avni et al, 2018). The process of studentification differs from gentrification, in which wealthy individuals move into low-income or working-class areas. Unlike gentrifiers, students lack a long-term commitment to the area. Universities rely on the fabricated split between the safe, clean campus area and the dangerous, dirty periphery. The development of numerous luxury housing complexes, which are exclusively available to students, contributes to the division between university and community.
Amid this, the university works to perpetuate the narrative that gentrification creates exclusively positive change in the community. Story Maps is a website where staff and student researchers track the changes occurring in the Johnson City neighborhood surrounding the recently established Health Sciences Campus. In theory, this is valuable. It is necessary to monitor the ways in which this new building has resulted in displacement of families, the closing of small businesses and other harm for residents.
However, Story Maps paints a utopian picture of the impact the new campus has on the community. The website initiative has gained a reputation of validity. It has even been written about positively in Pipe Dream. This is a clear attempt to hide the ways in which long-term residents are harmed by the expansion of University facilities.
The Binghamton housing crisis continues to get worse. Long-term residents have been severely affected by increased rent prices and the increasing scarcity of affordable housing. While, in New York State as a whole, the average percentage of income spent on rent has slightly decreased in recent years, this percentage has increased in Broome County, where Binghamton is located. LLC’s, wealthy investors from outside the community who are out of touch with issues facing the community, own large portions of land. Corporations shift the local housing market to cater to wealthy students, yet this issue harms long-term residents and university students alike. Many students struggle to make rent or to simply survive under these conditions. In a recent post on a student forum Reddit post, a Binghamton University student discussed their current situation living in their car. To address this housing crisis, students need to recognize the potential to simultaneously address the connected issues experienced by the student and long-term populations.
The partnership between the local government and corporate interests is exemplified by the recent multimillion-dollar tax cut proposed by Binghamton mayor Jared Kraham for the Water Street Corporation. This proposed 120-unit apartment complex is antithetical to what the community needs.
It has only 6 units allocated for affordable housing.
According to the proposed agreement, the Water St. Corporation would receive a payment-in-lieu-of-taxes (PILOT) over the next 28 years worth an unfathomable $11.5 million.
In a triumphant victory, this ludacris proposal was shot down unanimously on July 18th by the Broome County School District Board. Prior to the vote, community members, educators and former students expressed their firm dissent regarding Kraham’s proposal in an open meeting. While this luxury housing development will still probably occur, it seems that the final deal will be more equitable for the community as a whole.
The harmful collaboration between the local government and corporate interests was also demonstrated in the misappropriation of $37 million in COVID relief funds that were part of the federal American Rescue Plan Acrt (ARPA). The funds were largely distributed to corporate development projects, such as revitalization of the Oakdale Mmall, the K-Mart Plaza and the 29 Avenue B Housing Project.
In an Op-Ed piece in The Bridge, Bill Martin highlighted the ways in which the funds should have been spent in order to uplift the community. He stated:
“While lots of groups were funded, no substantial money went to address the health impacts of COVID, the local housing crisis, or the mental and physical health aftermaths of COVID. In the midst of the fentanyl/tranq epidemic exacerbated by COVID isolation and poverty, we cannot fund, for example, the community-based initiatives other cities and counties have launched.”
(January 2023)
This exemplifies the ways in which local officials choose to ignore the needs of community members.
In the face of organized efforts to make Binghamton inaccessible to low-income and working-class, long-term residents, activists and organizers have deployed a multitude of resistance strategies to support the community. It is beautiful to see the ways community members come together in the face of this cruel injustice ty. The Stakeholders of Broome County, a grassroots, nonhierarchical group of community organizers, works to fill the gaps left by the government and nonprofits, to the best of their ability. One of the ways in which Stakeholders supports the community is through frequent houseless outreach, in which meals and essential supplies are distributed to unhoused people. These efforts focus on humanizing unhoused people, providing them with a pair of ears to share their stories within a system that often treats them as if their lives are worthless.
In addition, the Binghamton Tenants Union works to support renters and homeowners in the community. For instance, they host “Know Your Rights” workshops, protecting tenants from law-breaking landlords. The Southern Door Community Land Trust (SDCLT), a community-led non-profit still in its infancy, works to provide permanent affordable housing to Binghamton residents. Community Land Trusts obtains capital from public and philanthropic sources, which is then used to purchase homes in the community which are converted to permanently affordable housing. For example, the SDCLT purchased a multi-family home on the West Side of Binghamton (Florence Street), which had been run into the ground by the previous slumlord. This allowed the current tenants to remain in their homes, avoiding
displacement. The SDCLT is currently revitalizing the units, attempting to not just bring them up to code, but to make them nice homes to live in. These examples of community activism are invaluable, but they aren’t enough in the face of the powerful institutions we are up against. Students need to consider their active role in the housing crisis and work towards mitigating their impact. There has been a glaring lack of student activism since the pandemic. The demeanor on campus is generally one of apathy about issues facing the community and larger scale issues. Students largely underestimate their power to create material change through action. While the majority of empathetic leftist students sit back and watch, maybe occasionally posting an Instagram story about the issues, conservative students organize to promote hate and exclusion. We have the power to see change happen during our time at this university. To get more involved, look at the final page in this Zine where progressive organizations on and off campus are listed.
Outreach: An Ode to Mutual Aid
When the police and social services fail to protect us, we keep us safe. It is this perspective that led to the creation of The Stakeholders of Broome County, a mutual aid group that provides resources to unhoused people throughout Binghamton. Weekly, we are reminded of the ways in which the system functions to erase members of our community—through the removal of benches at the bus station, the locking of police station doors and the covering outlets so people cannot charge their phones. As a collective of students and community members, we do our best to fill in these cracks.
"Outreach! Is anybody out tonight?"
Our voices boomerang off of a tunnel under the Exchange Street bridge. Here is where our fellow neighbors reside, their homes makeshift transformations of existing city infrastructure, their belongings collected as cherished tools for survival. These neighbors of ours have been neglected, mistreated, abused, stolen from, displaced, and blamed for their circumstances by politicians, businesses, police, and ordinary people they have been left to live without shelter or adequate assistance by their own neighborhoods and cities. Stakeholders' Outreach Team recognizes that houseless folks are a valued part of our community that should be given access to healing and material support, and so, we act accordingly. We never forget the responsibility we have to our community, and to each other. We make no judgments, and we make no assumptions; we operate off of a rule of solidarity, not charity, guided by mutual aid principles. We come armed
with meals, essential supplies, and most importantly, open ears. We build and develop trustworthy relationships, we ask what people need, and we try to deliver. We make no promises, but we often go above and beyond—driving folks to the hospital, dressing frostbitten wounds, going on convenience store runs, delivering homemade meals. This work often involves transgressions against the law; to us, trespassing is a moral obligation.
"Is anybody out tonight?" This fundamental question fills me with a poignant sense of togetherness; the humanity, the sheer love contained in simply reaching out, wondering if anyone else is out there, hoping we are not alone. It is late, the night is clear, and when I look up, I see galactic reminders that we are so small, yet so connected to one another.
Abolish Greek Life
Community, security and belonging are essentials which all of us need for our survival. Many students on college campuses turn to Greek Life to find these things that are missing in their lives, yet they are often met with competition, exclusion and even violence, the very opposite of what they are in search of.
The scope of Greek Life on campus is wider than the rate of student participation indicates, as Greek Life dictates various aspects of social life for members and nonmembers alike. Underclassmen, especially first-year students, are particularly susceptible to the influence of Greek Life. Within their first week moving in, they are met with flyers from various fraternities placed under the door of their dorms. This feels like a personal invitation for many students, who are thrilled to be included in the university's social scene. First year students are particularly vulnerable at the beginning of the semester because they have yet to build a network of safety and support. This coincides with the “Red Zone”, the 6-week period between the beginning of the Fall semester and Thanksgiving break where freshmen students are most susceptible to being sexually assaulted. Many studies document the ways in which Greek life perpetuates Rape culture. Fraternity men are 3 times more likely to commit sexual violence than the general population. (Valenti, 2014) Greek life largely perpetuates the idea of sexual endeavors being “conquests” which does not make space for a healthy discussion of consent. Research shows that fraternity men accept myths related to rape at higher rates than the general population- for instance, believing that someone is “asking for it” by being intoxicated or wearing certain clothes.
Rape culture and hazing are deeply intertwined. Within the hazing process, fraternity men frequently place bets regarding having sex with women and creating nonconsensual porn of their hookups. In addition, hazing normalizes and encourages violent behavior. It creates an environment where forcing people to do things against their will is culturally acceptable, which shapes the behavior of fraternity men in every space which they take part in. In 2012, a New York Times article was published exposing the brutal hazing process happening at Binghamton University. The article relies on several student testimonies discussing the danger and abuse they endured through hazing. In an anonymous email to the university, a student stated, “I was hosed, waterboarded, force-fed disgusting mixtures of food, went through physical exercises until I passed out, and crawled around outside in my boxers to the point where my stomach, elbows, thighs and knees are filled with cuts, scrapes and bruises,” (Applebome, 2012) This could not be farther from the idea of brotherhood and friendship. The connection between Greek life and rape culture has been well documented at Binghamton University, largely through @ShareyourstoryBing, an Instagram account dedicated to empowering survivors where students can submit testimonies of their experience anonymously and receive support. The account, which has been largely dormant since 2021, has posted nearly 100 accounts of sexual assault, numerous of which involved Greek Life. We will not be sharing the stories here, as it can be very triggering for survivors. However, If you’d like to read the stories for yourselves, we implore you to go look at @shareyourstorybing on Instagram.
The culture of silencing survivors and promoting rape culture does not just come from individual fraternities themselves, but from national fraternity boards.
@Shareyourstorybing posts have surfaced where frat members have admitted that their national board has either silenced them or punished them for standing with survivors.
Following the murder of George Floyd in 2020, many students disaffiliated from their sorority or fraternities due to the lack of sensitivity surrounding issues of racism and more. Students reported microaggression, social exclusion of members of color, use of racial slurs, and generally a lack of communication surrounding the subjects of race and discrimination. At Binghamton, through @shareyourstorybing, students shared accounts of tokenization, anti-Black sentiments, opposition to conversations surrounding race, and implicit and explicit bias in the recruitment process itself. During desegregation some national organizations legally removed discriminatory language; however, they retained discriminatory practices. The literature about the harmful nature of Greek Life is extensive and a simple internet search will reveal this. Due to the numerous ways in which Greek life perpetuates harm, we join the global movement to fight for the abolition of historically White Greek life.
Student Based Political Organizations
Here is a list of groups that are organized by students at SUNY Binghamton. There are many that could be included, and many more that have yet to be created. Remember your power, and if you can’t find what you are looking for then you may have to create it. If that is the case, we wish you nothing but the best.
UniverCity Tenants Union
Instagram: @univercitybing
Email: Binghamtonunivercity@gmail.com
The UniverCity Tenants Union is a group dedicated to fostering a radical culture through connecting the struggles of SUNY
Binghamton students to revolutionary struggle in Broome County, focusing specifically on housing injustice and building tenant power
Zero Hour
Instagram: @Zerohourbing
Email: zerohour@binghamtonsa.org
Zero Hour is a coalition of Binghamton students working to make the world greener and more just.
The Revolutionary Student Study Group
Instagram: @rssgbing
This new group is Binghamton’s only Marxist political education centering Socialist, revolutionary politics in an effort to translate knowledge into action
Binghamton Abortion Advocacy Coalition
Instagram: @BingAAC
Bing AAC provides resources, support and education through an intersectional lens. Starting this semester, they offer abortion care packages to anyone on campus having an abortion.
Feminist Collective
Instagram: @bufeministcollective
Email: Feministcollective@binghamtonsa.org
The Feminist Collective is an intersectional, abolitionist feminist organization on campus. We take part in direct action, discussions and various events.
Off Campus Groups
You can offer your time, your money, or both. Whatever privileges you have should be weaponized in the fight for a better world. Be respectful and reliable, listen to those around you, and realize that every moment is an opportunity for growth and solidarity.
Binghamton Food Rescue
The Binghamton Food Rescue works to take food waste from local businesses and nearby farmers markets and redistributes them to the community. They operate out of the NoMa Community center at 30 Main Street on Saturdays, and have rescued over 45,000 pounds of food!
There is always a need for more drivers and volunteers! You can find them on instagram at @binghamtonfoodrescue, or email them at binghamtonfoodrescue@gmail.com
Riot Act
Located at 127 Main Street, Riot Act is a leftist bookstore that connects various struggles together under a common love for struggle and collective learning. It is a great place to get any books you want to read and meet people. Great staff, great zines, great people.
You can find them on instagram at @riotactbooks, or email them at riotactbing@protonmail.com
The Southern Door Community Land Trust (SDCLT)
The SDCLT is working toward providing permanently affordable housing here in the community. Email: hajra@nynest.org
Black and Minority Owned Restaurants
Caribbean Patty World: 188 1/2 Main Street, 13905. (607) 203-1753
Coops Latin and Soul Food: 124 Broad Ave, 13904. (607) 217-5703
Jrama’s Barbecue Pit: 1237 Upper Front Street, 13905. (607) 644-7272
Muffer’s Kitchen: 73 Court Street, 13901. (607) 203-1753
Buddhakan: 36 Pine Street. (607) 205 7654
Reproductive and Sexual Health Services
Crime Victim’s Assistance Center ( CVAC )
377 Robinson St, Binghamton, NY and 202 Garfield Avenue, Endicott, NY
Provides trauma focused counseling to all victims of crime in order to suit the needs of each person, individually. 24 hr support through crisis hotline and advocacy to all four local hospitals. Assists victims of crime filing for compensation through the Office of Victims Services for New York. Works with the Broome County Sexual Assault Response Team (SART) to bring together a team of skilled professionals and community members to find solutions around issues of sexual assault.
Family Planning
117 Hawley St, Binghamton, NY
Provides access to contraceptives as well as STD testing, pregnancy testing, and cancer screenings
STAP Prevention Services
206 State St, Binghamton, NY
Provides communities of color free HIV/STI testing as well as PrEP navigation, free condoms, and many other prevention services.
Rise
Provides comprehensive domestic violence services, legal advice, counseling, and emergency shelter. Their hotline is 607-754-4340
VARCC
The VARCC is located in a private space on the third floor of Old Johnson Hall. They are an on campus service which provides a single place for students to report an incidence of sexual violence and gain support. Private and confidential service providers are available provide victims of sexual violence with needed services, allowing them to plan their next steps. Appointments can be booked online and the office is also available for walk-ins.
Email: empower@binghamton.edu
Phone: 607-777-3010
Describe The World You Want to Live In
