Call Out to People of Color From the #OccupyWallStreet People of Color Working Group
This was forwarded for posting, though publication does not mean endorsement. This is merely to contribute to conversations on race and Occupy Wall Street.
To those who want to support the Occupation of Wall Street, who want to struggle for a more just and equitable society, but who feel excluded from the campaign, this is a message for you.
To those who do not feel as though their voices are being heard, who have felt unable or uncomfortable participating in the campaign, or who feel as though they have been silenced, this is a message for you.
To those who haven’t thought about #OccupyWallStreet but know that radical social change is needed, and to those who have thought about joining the protest but do not know where or how to begin, this is a message for you.
You are not alone. The individuals who make up the People of Color Working Group have come together because we share precisely these feelings and believe that the opportunity for consciousness-raising presented by #OccupyWallStreet is one that cannot be missed. It is time to push for the expansion and diversification of #OccupyWallStreet. If this is truly to be a movement of the 99%, it will need the rest of the city and the rest of the country.
Let’s be real. The economic crisis did not begin with the collapse of the Lehman Brothers in 2008. Indeed, people of color and poor people have been in a state of crisis since the founding of this country, and for indigenous communities, since before the founding of the nation. We have long known that capitalism serves only the interests of a tiny, mostly white, minority.
Black and brown folks have long known that whenever economic troubles ‘necessitate’ austerity measures and the people are asked to tighten their belts, we are the first to lose our jobs, our children’s schools are the first to lose funding, and our bodies are the first to be brutalized and caged. Only we can speak this truth to power. We must not miss the chance to put the needs of people of color—upon whose backs this country was built—at the forefront of this struggle.
The People of Color Working Group was formed to build a racially conscious and inclusive movement. We are reaching out to communities of color, including immigrant, undocumented, and low-wage workers, prisoners, LGTBQ people of color, marginalized religious communities such as Muslims, and indigenous peoples, for whom this occupation ironically comes on top of another one and therefore must be decolonized. We know that many individuals have responsibilities that do not allow them to participate in the occupation and that the heavy police presence at Liberty Park undoubtedly deters many. We know because we are some of these individuals. But this movement is not confined to Liberty Park: with your help, the movement will be made accessible to all.
If it is not made so, it will not succeed. By ignoring the dynamics of power and privilege, this monumental social movement risks replicating the very structures of injustice it seeks to eliminate. And so we are actively working to unite the diverse voices of all communities, in order to understand exactly what is at stake, and to demand that a movement to end economic injustice must have at its core an honest struggle to end racism.
The People of Color working group is not meant to divide, but to unite, all peoples. Our hope is that we, the 99%, can move forward together, with a critical understanding of how the greed, corruption, and inequality inherent to capitalism threatens the lives of all peoples and the Earth.
The People of Color working group was launched on October 1, 2011. We can be reached by email at unified.ows@gmail.com. We can also be found online at pococcupywallstreet.tumblr.com We meet Sundays @ 3 PM and Wednesdays @ 6:30 PM under the large red structure in Liberty Square.
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Im in Atlanta, an obviously Black city. Occupy Atlanta is a white event even here. Im wanting to relate to it but that desire doesnt seem politically realistic. The white activists involved here have systematically ignored Black struggle. And have, themselves contributed to the social isolation that allows and facilitates some methods of Black oppression.
Encouraging Black sisters and brothers to stand alongside these acitivsts destroys my credibility and creates additional barriers to doing work in the most strategic communties here in Atlanta.
Any thoughts/suggestions would be appreciated.
I understand the concern of this article but as a brown person I sometimes wonder why should we make everything intentionally brown?
I don’t see how this helps. The last thing the movement needs is splinter groups, when there is still a lack of strategic focus in the wider movement and the movement’s aims are still in formation. While I understand people alienated, and that the stated aim is to unite, not divide, I think dialogue at the site helps, instead of creating a sub-movement, counter-movement or parallel movement, even in the form of a working group. Solidarity towards common goals will help. The other side has been moving in unity for a very long time– it’s time the “people” start by moving in unity.
Marcg, I feel your frustration. We have to organize around the objective reality that we are own our. Nobody but us cares about our plights and we are going to have to do some serious political education in regards to how to meet our political objectives, otherwise we will always be used as cannon fodder for whatever “movement” arises at a particular time. The objective reality is that Black people suffer from a lack of sovereignty as opposed to a lack of civil rights. We have the same rights in theory as the true citizenry of this country, but we know that is just empty idealistic rhetoric. We know that if Black folks, Latinos, Indigenous people were to argue from the position that America has subverted our sovereignty, the first thing you are going to get is , “You fools are crazy!” That’s at best! It doesn’t take civil disobedience to get beat down by the cops for us. It’s amazing how these forces want to minimize the colonial (race) question, and use rhetoric such as, “Let’s all come together!” No! It doesn’t work like that. How many times do we have to lower our expectations, table our objective realties of our communities just so it can have “broad appeal” for the acceptable “leftist” forces.
In 2011 we need to get serious and ask what do we really want? Do we want to assimilate? That’s what we’ve been doing for centuries now, assimilation is the negation of oneself, and ultimately doesn’t relinquish any power to our respective communities; what it does is say that “if we make ourselves malleable to the powers that be then maybe they will let us in!” Is that a real political line that we want to continue? We have to be instructed by correct political action, and that doesn’t mean mere spontaneous action. As colonized (misnomer minorities) people, all of our actions must be informed, and guided with a clearly stated objective in mind, otherwise we will never win. Also, we need to define what winning really is; otherwise we will always be supporting somebody else’s political agenda, with benefits for some individuals in our community, but none for us collectively.
Ultimately you judge a nation by its collective wealth and when you like at the subjugated nations (misnomer minorities) on this land mass, you understand the realization that we have never been and never will be members of this nation, the polity of this system would cease to exist with incorporation, thus the permanent denial of colonized (misnomer minorities) communities grievances thrust on the outskirts of all “mainstream” discourse.
I was just writing about this. I sent out some emails of the same call-out. Haven’t gotten responses but will check-out the group at Wall street.
http://garagesociology.blogspot.com/2011/10/water-marked-again-ows-movement-and_02.html
I am very pleased to read the comments posted because that proves my point and it shows that not all of us are asleep and waiting to jump at white people’s call to come out and get beat, we have been down that road before. Marcg your correct you will lose all credibility with our people by leading them to white people and their agenda when we have our own; and they refuse to speak on or better yet help us bring into reality! And IKONOKLAST you hit the nail on the head the real issue is sovereignty!!! You two have laid out the position that all of us should stand on because it’s right! We can’t afford to turn ourselves over to the children of our oppressor! They lie and say it’s leaderless but someone had to pay for things and this came out of somebody mind!! We must not follow them. They have an agenda that is not in our best behave. Like one White Lady said “it used to be the rich the middle class with money and the poor and now i’m among the poor something is wrong with that, that’s why I’m here”. We must reject the call from them, when they were ok they didn’t think about us!! So don’t think about us now!!
The fact that colonized people objective realities are referred to pejoratively as “sub-groups” or “splinter” groups speaks to the frustration of MarcG and others who are critically of this “movement”. I guess if colonized people’s concerns are reduced to being called “sub-groups” concerns I guess white people’s concerns are universal, and therefore take precedence. Also, you don’t have to be Black or Brown to understand objectives truths about this existing polity, a white person that’s honest can easily understand the colonial realty. As far as not understanding the how the issues raised in this article helps the “movement”, one can see clearly who benefits from negating the legitimate concerns of the colonized from the “bigger picture”.
Honestly, if you want unity and solidarity it can’t be achieved by telling people not to voice their concerns because it makes one feel uncomfortable, and try to cloak this negation of the colonized under the euphemism of “universality. Also, since when did we all have the same goals? That speaks to the lack of understanding and arrogance that this “movement” has, to just assume that our goals are the same is just politically and fundamentally wrong. To actually believe we all share a standardized experience in this country is an error, and the experience that is put forth as the “universal” is always, to no one’s surprise, never of Black or Brown (colonized) people (and this might surprise some people but not all people of color share the same experience either, Black and Brown people have their own unique colonial relationship to America. To lump us together as just one big “melting pot” of color speaks again to the arrogance and ignorance of people in this “movement”), it’s the experience of a people whom claim the “universality” of humanity.
@IKONOKLAST – Brother you need to post your message every where you are speaking correctly. Dr. West needs to sit at your table to be taught!
My biggest stumbling block with “Occupy Wall Street” is the word “occupy” itself. I am Palestinian, and cannot wrap my mind around occupation as emancipatory. I have spoken to an Afghan friend who feels the same way. If we want to avoid whitespeak, we must “Liberate Wall Street,” “Liberate” Seattle, “Liberate” Atlanta… Not “Occupy.”
@Lina – This is supposed to be a horizontal movement. Part of horizontalism in South America is the autonomy of working groups like POC, Workers, Women, and Youth. Each local group can have their own demands to make to the group as a whole, but because the mass tends to ignore the needs of the oppressed, these groups organize together with others to create a demand for their needs everywhere in the country while each local remains autonomous, both from their own local group, and from the national groups. White men are just not going to fight for the rights of others unless challenged to do so every second. And I say this as a white male. This is the model OWS is based on, which was designed by the people. The idea is that as more and more people join, any elites that formed in the early days will be destroyed through concensus and horizontalism. This is a organizational form designed to be taken over by the masses. The autonomy of People of Color, Women, Youth, LGBT and Workers prevents their movements from being derailed by those who are not part of it.