Meet us in Ferguson? | ||||||
October 3, 2014 Dear Activist, October 9th will mark 2 months since Michael Brown, an unarmed black teen, was gunned down in the street by officer Darren Wilson. His body left in the hot summer sun to decay for hours before finally being peeled off the pavement and thrown into the back of an unmarked SUV. It will be two months since the people of Ferguson first took to the streets with their hands up, making it clear they weren't going to take it anymore. In cities and towns across America we have also taken to the streets. We have shown our solidarity with not just the people of Ferguson, but with oppressed and criminalized communities throughout the world. We have had conversations with friends, loved ones and neighbors. Many of us have come to understand, or maybe we already knew, that what we have is not a problem with police brutality. We have a Human Rights Crisis. Black and brown communities in the US, much like Palestinians in occupied Palestine and marginalized peoples throughout the world, are not regarded as deserving of human protection or dignity by the police, prosecutors, courts, media, or politicians. Affected communities are drawing the parallels between the realities of oppression and doing the necessary work to build joint-struggle. As people of conscience, we must also understand that without justice there can be no peace and join in this important work. Having seen a ramping up of our local police departments with the tools of war, provided through the same US military that armed Israeli forces against the Palestinians, we have emphatically chosen not to stand silently as any group of people are deemed worthy of lesser protections because of their age, belief system, color, gender, sexual orientation or identity. While we work on interpersonal and internalized forms of oppression in our respective spaces, we unite to speak truth to power and confront structural and institutional forms of oppression and violence. When
institutions of the state act and arm with an ideology that the people
are the enemy, we must unite with and in support of all those we call
allies to challenge these evils. The people of Ferguson have put out a
call for us to show this support by joining them in 'A Weekend of Resistance.' From the 10th to the 13th of October
we will gather in Ferguson Missouri to stand with and support the
activists of Ferguson, especially Hands Up United, as well as the
Palestine solidarity contingent drawing the connections between these
struggles. We will bring our fight to the doors of the prosecutors
office, and the people of St. Louis County. We will break bread and
build community. We will have difficult but necessary conversations and
we will overcome dis-empowerment with understanding that the only
recognizable feature of hope is action. Join us. Our strength is in our solidarity, PS: Want to demilitarize your local police? Email Nathan to plug into our new campaign! |
