“Before long they must know that their government has sent them into a struggle among Vietnamese, and the more sophisticated surely realize that we are on the side of the wealthy, and the secure, while we create a hell for the poor. Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak for the poor of America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home, and death and corruption in Vietnam. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken.”
-Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Beyond Vietnam – A Time to Break Silence, 1967
To kick off Martin Luther King Jr. weekend, thirdworld people and allies have shut down the Oakland Federal Building to demonstrate our support for the heightened struggle for Blackliberation, power, self-defense and self-determination in the U.S. The verdicts in the cases of Michael Brown, Eric Garner and Tamir Rice, have drawn renewed attention to the ways that policing and the “justice system” are used to wage war on Black communities in service of imperialism and white supremacy that continues to undergirdthis country. For MLK weekend, we are reclaimingthe militancy and internationalism that was the hallmark of the last phase of Dr. King’s life.
We join international movements for the liberation of Palestine, Haiti, and the Philippines, for indigenous sovereignty in Hawaii, for native peoples in the U.S. and Mexico, and for immigrant, worker, queer/transgender, and youth justice in communities in solidarity with the resurging calls to build “Black Power” and “Black Resistance” alongside the original nationwide galvanizing statement that “BlackLives Matter!”
Today’s action targets the Oakland Federal Building because of its role in promoting a war on Black people and people’s struggles for self-determination in the U.S. and around the world. Protecting their imperialist economic interests, the U.S. and its collaborators like Israel and its puppet states like the Philippines are co-developing and deploying military and policing tactics in an attempt to perfect techniques of counter- insurgency, crowd and population control, surveillance, and the militarization of local police forces. In the Bay Area, people struggling against surveillance, policing,detention, forced displacement, deportation, and militarization of their schools and communities, both here and in their homelands, are connecting the dots and linking these issues with the systemic problem of settler colonialism in places like Palestine.
As the state attempts to tamp down the rising fists of dissent, people’s movements in Ferguson, Haiti, Palestine, the Philippines, and across the globe are only intensifying. And as an extension, today in the Bay Area, we are organizing together and deepening our collective commitment to the increasingly militant struggle for Black liberation and self-determination. We know that we cannot fight imperialism abroad unless we fight its domestic manifestation - violent racist policing- in our own streets.
The West has built and structured this world on Black death, while systematicallywaging attacks on third world people in their struggle for self-determination. By exposing and confronting these systems, we seek to weaken their foundations, and strengthen our movements, our communities and our families.
For centuries, the devastating consequences of U.S. imperialism have been the order of the day for third world people from Vietnam to Korea, from the Dakotas toHaiti, from the Philippines to Palestine to Pakistan, from Hawaii to Mexico, and from Ferguson to Staten Island. We stand together today in the name of Dr. King, Malcolm X, the Black Panthers, Brown Berets, Red Guard, and AmericanIndian Movement who took on the state-sanctioned attacks on our communities directly, elevating the struggle against state violence and for an end to the capitalist system that deploys killer cops and militarized repression against our people.
In the words of Malcolm X:
“It is incorrect to classify the revolt of the Negro as simply a racial conflict of Black against White, or as a purely American problem. Rather, we are today seeing a global rebellion of the oppressed against the oppressor, the exploited against the exploiter.”
Justice for Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice and all victims of police: End State Violence!
From Palestine to Ferguson to Haiti to the Philippines: Fight Back!
Long Live International Solidarity!
“THIRD WORLD RESISTANCE” Participating Organizations and Allies: Anakbayan-USA, AROC: Arab Resource & Organizing Center, Asians4BlackLives, AYPAL, BAYAN-USA, BASAT: Bay Area Solidarity Action Team, BLIS: Black/BrownLatin@s in Solidarity, Catalyst Project, Critical Resistance, Freedom Archives, Gabriela-USA, Haiti Action Committee, HOBAK: Hella Organized BayArea Koreans, IJAN: International Jewish Anti Zionist Network, the International League of People’sStruggles, Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, Ruckus Society, VietUnity, Xican@Moratorium
#3rdWorld4BlackPower #MLKShutItDown #BlackPowerMatters
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