The recent actions and subsequent explanations for the removal and banning of upwards of 60 – the majority of whom are African- American or Hispanic – children from a North-East Philadelphia swim club serves as a reminder of the fact that even though the United States recently elected the first African-American to the “highest office in the land,” America has not come any closer to realizing the so-called “post-racial” society that the bourgeois press repeatedly states as if it were an axiom.
Archive for category Racism
Drown Racism!
Jul 19
According to a newly published study by the Pew Center on the States, America once again leads the world-this time in the number of individuals under some form of law enforcement supervision. As of 2008, 1 in 45 American adults is now either on parole or probation. This number, when combined with the number of adults currently incarcerated, puts the total at 1 in 33 adults-3.2% present of the total US adult population-that are under some form of state correctional control.
Israel’s declaration of independence on May 14th, 1948 from British colonial rule was marked by worldwide celebrations. Palestinians, however, had a very different take on the situation; for the last 60 years they have referred to Israel’s creation as the Nakba (catastrophe in Arabic). From 1947 onwards there were mass land grabs by Zionist settlers culminating most grotesquely in April 1948 with the Deir Yassin massacre. It was a small village on the path to Jerusalem where Zionist gangs (Irgun and Lehli) massacred upwards of around 120 unarmed Palestinian villagers. This was hardly an isolated incident, with villages and towns being blown up routinely across Palestine to make way for the new Zionist state. It is estimated that at least 750,000 Palestinians were uprooted and forced into permanent refugee camps in Syria and Lebanon, and, consequently, never able to return to their homeland. One could make the argument that for Israel to exist as it stands right now – as exclusively a Jewish state -the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians is a necessary undertaking.
REVOLUTION USA utterly and unequivocally condemns the reactionary nationalist-inspired wild cat strikes taking place across Britain. Furthermore, it denounces the support the strikes received from certain groups on the British Left. In principled fashion, Workers’ Power correctly identified the reactionary nature of the strike, its divisive character, and its potential to play into the hands of the far-right, e.g. the British National Party.
By rejecting a proposed bill designed to make Nashville, Tennessee an “English only” city, the American working class demonstrated that it will not accept attempts to create ethnic or racial divisions in our communities. Had the bill passed, immigrant workers who do not primarily speak or write in English would find themselves unable to obtain government-administered social services or future legal documentation, i.e. drivers’ licenses, Green Cards, etc. While motives varied, the resounding defeat of the bill, which received only 43% of votes in favor, was welcomed by a cross-section of the Nashville community.
The murder of 22 year-old Oscar Grant on New Year’s Day by Bay Area Rapid Transit [BART] police testifies to why the working class needs a protective organization separate from and in direct conflict with the capitalist police. Departing from the West Oakland train station at approximately 2:00 A.M., Grant and his friends were apprehended by transit police forces the instant they got off the train. BART police were informed that a fight broke out on said train, and that Grant and his friends were responsible for or involved in the scuffle. No evidence, however, was presented suggesting Grant or his friends had anything to do with the supposed fight.
Report from the International REVOLUTION site. Check it out here.
Violence in the Gaza Strip escalated to a degree not witnessed in recent memory after a six-month ceasefire agreement between the Hamas-led government in Gaza and the state of Israel formally expired. Israeli F-16s pummeled government installations deep inside Palestinian territory in an attempt to pacify resistance to Israel’s long-running apartheid campaign. The BBC reported that over 225 people were killed and approximately 700 wounded in the raids.[1] Hamas asserts that Israel violated the terms of the cease-fire agreement by not removing the blockade allowing little more than humanitarian aid into the territories. These latest military maneuvers on the part of Israel suggest that it has no interest in the proposed “two-state solution,” and will go to any means necessary to ensure the deprivation and submission of the Palestinian people.
On December 6th, protests took place in cities across the world in support of Mumia Abu-Jamal and the injustices that surround his conviction of the murder of police officer Daniel Faulkner. In Philadelphia some 200 individuals turned out in support of Abu-Jamal and his long struggle against racial oppression in the justice system. The demonstration began outside Philadelphia District Attorney Lynne Abraham’s office and ended at the Federal Court building where Abu-Jamal gave oral arguments on May 17th, 2007 regarding the “fairness” of his original 1982 trial hearing. The march stopped briefly at 13th and Locust – the site of the incident – to allow Journalists for Mumia the opportunity to present new photographic evidence in support of Abu-Jamal’s innocence.
Philadelphia, PA
December 6, 2008
12:00 PM
Meet at 2 South Penn Square, District Attorney’s Office (East Side of City Hall)
Followed By March to Federal Building at 5th and Market