Category Archives: Human Rights

680 Immigrant Workers in Mississippi Taken off their Jobs by ICE: An Injury to One is an Injury to All!

A Call to Labor and Community Organizations from the Southern Workers Assembly

On August 7, the US Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) conducted raids on Workers in 7 food-processing plants in six Mississippi cities. 

These workers came to the US to try to earn an honest living, because conditions in their home countries prevented them from living in peace and supporting their families. They faced danger from military and social violence and climate change impacts.  US foreign policies in Latin America, the Caribbean and Africa contribute to the conditions faced by the majority of these immigrant workers.

Continue reading →

Condemning the Massacre of 49 Muslims in New Zealand

T

We are outraged at the horrific murders of 49 Muslims at the Masjid Al Noor and Linwood Masjid in Christchurch, New Zealand. This cowardly attack on innocent worshippers is the latest attack perpetrated by those in service of an international movement of white supremacy and white nationalism. We mourn for their families and community. Continue reading →

Black Working Class Will Never Abandon Venezuela!

“The struggles of the Black working-class, united around a national program must have international solidarity and must be understood within the context of an anti-imperialist struggle against global capitalism and the US-led imperialist global economic, military and political infrastructure. For the Black working-class and the Black liberation movement not to struggle against capitalism, is not to be engaged in a struggle for Black liberation.” —Saladin Muhammad, Black Workers for Justice

We must remind our people that over 150 million Africans live throughout the so-called Americas. We especially must raise this reality at critical moments like this when the corporate media and establishment opinion is legitimizing U.S. gangsterism that could kill thousands of people in Venezuela.

Afro-Venezuelans contacted Black Alliance for Peace to ask us to remind our people in the United States that military forces will target Afro-Venezuelans if a military intervention occurs because they represent a core constituency of the Bolivarian revolutionary process in Venezuela.

When a so-called opposition takes down the flag of its own country and raises the U.S. flag—after also displaying the Israeli flag on its podium during a demonstration—the true nature and interests of this element are exposed. This is an opposition that burnt Afro-Venezuelans alive because they assume all Black people support the government.

We know what will happen if a U.S.-led military intervention takes place. It will be a re-play of the 1989 invasion of Panama, where U.S forces turned the Black community of El Chorrillo into a “free fire zone,” resulting in the complete destruction of the community and the deaths of over 3,000 Panamanians.

The U.S. state has demonstrated repeatedly that it has no regard for non-European life, from Iraq through Libya to Yemen and a dozen nations in between.

It is imperative we separate our folks from this naked imperialist move on Venezuela. It is important for African/Black people to be clear where we stand on these kinds of issues. The war and militarism being waged against us by the domestic military we call “the police” in our communities—along with the mass incarceration complex—is part of the global Pan-European Colonial/Capitalist White Supremacist patriarchy that is now conspiring against the Bolivarian revolutionary process in Venezuela. The European Union Parliament’s decision to recognize the puppet government being imposed on the people of Venezuela demonstrates why we have a common enemy in the U.S./EU/NATO “axis of domination.”

There can be no confusion—despite the sectoral fights inside the capitalist class that is currently playing out in their struggle against Trump, they are united when it comes to projecting the dominance of the Pan-European imperialist project. They are prepared to fight to the last drop of your blood and mine to defend their privilege.

That is why the Black Alliance for Peace is clear: We say “not one drop of blood from working class and poor to defend the interests of the capitalist oligarchy.” We want peace and People(s)-Centered Human Rights, but we recognize that there is no peace without justice. Real social justice, which requires radical structural change, cannot be realized without struggle. And there can be no effective social change without clearly identifying the enemy—the source of our oppression—and being able to imagine an alternative.

The people of Venezuela have made a choice. We will not debate the merits of their process—its contradictions or problems. Our responsibility as citizens/captors of empire is to put a brake on the U.S. state’s ability to foster death and destruction on the peoples of the world.

BAP is calling on all African/Black organizations to oppose U.S. intervention in Venezuela. Create public educational materials for the groups you are working with. You can pull from BAP’s statement on Venezuela, which raises the important principles we must defend: https://blackallianceforpeace.com/bapstatements/defendvenezuela

We are also joining with organizations from across the country to support a national day of action against U.S. intervention February 23. We will share more information on that on our site as that information is produced. If you might be interested in organizing actions on that day, please get in contact with us at info@blackallianceforpeace.com.

Also feel free to distribute this information on Venezuelan actions: https://blackallianceforpeace.com/newsletter/whitesupremacyofusinterventions

HANDS OFF VENEZUELA!

STOP U.S. SUBVERSION AND LAWLESSNESS!

CLOSE U.S. AND NATO BASES!

U.S. OUT OF AFRICA—SHUT DOWN AFRICOM!

Media contact: info@blackallianceforpeace.com

BWFJ DENOUNCES THE MURDER OF PALESTINIANS; SUPPORTS RIGHT TO SELF-DETERMINATION, RIGHT OF RETURN

Date: Mon, 14 May 2018

Black Workers For Justice (BWFJ) calls on all Black leaders and activists to speak out and call for an end to the recent Israeli killings of Palestinians who are protesting in their own territories of Gaza and Jerusalem!  The Trump Administration and  U.S. government are supporting the Zionist colonial state and their murders of over 53 people and over 1000 injured!
Dr. Martin L. King stated in 1967, that the U.S. is the greatest purveyor of all violence in the world today. And as we approach Malcolm X’s 93rd birthday, we must remember his words that capitalism and Imperialism  are like vultures, preying on the oppressed.
Jerusalem was home to Muslims, Christians, and Jews, until the Zionists killed and expelled the Palestinians from their land in 1948. Today, the pro-Zionist Trump Administration is continues to force oppressed Palestinians from their homes. By declaring Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and moving the US embassy there amid controversy and protest, the Trump administration has insulted the Palestine Peoples Nation and struggle for liberation from Zionism and US/European  Imperialism.
BWFJ is calling on all African Americans to recognize and examine the connection between the Black struggle for self-determination here in America, and that of the Palestinian people. Our people here in America face attacks on our communities through gentrification, attacks on our bodies through police brutality, and attacks on our livelihoods as the cost of living rises but wages remain the same. Our sisters and brothers in Palestinian face similar threats as they remain severely oppressed under an Israeli system of apartheid.
We must hold rallies, informational pickets, student teach-ins, lunch and learns, and other activities to publicize and support the struggle of the Palestinian people!
Self Determination for African-Americans  and the oppressed Palestinian Nation!
End the murders of all Blacks, Brown, Palestinian, and oppressed people at home and abroad!

North Carolina Teachers Rising Up

May 16, 2018 represents North Carolina educators’ entry into the nationwide teacher rebellion against the attacks on public schools. Following the courageous efforts of teachers in West Virginia, Arizona, Colorado, Kentucky, and Oklahoma, North Carolina educators are part of the growing resistance to the failures of state legislators to provide children with a sound basic education. That education includes adequate and safe facilities, up to date learning materials and highly qualified and well-paid teachers and education support personnel which includes teacher assistants, social workers, psychologists and bus drivers.

In this moment education workers are on the cutting edge of the struggle of public employees and the people of this country to keep our institutions in the public domain and not be offered up to greedy profit seeking corporations who care nothing about our well being and quality of life. Their only concern is the bottom line. This means that bus drivers, sanitation workers, fire fighters, caseworkers and so many more have a common fight.

This fight requires many tactics. Taking to the streets is key to making the others, like voting and lobbying, effective. We cannot outspend the 1%. At the end of the day, withholding our labor is the key device in our toolbox. The teachers realize this and at the same time have been clear on making sure that our children are safe and fed because this fight fundamentally is for our children and our families.

We support these demands (in addition to others) regardless of what political party has control of the legislature:

  • Increase per-student spending
  • Increase pay for educators with a plan to get to the national average and immediate across the board pay raises for all state employees. Repealing corporate tax breaks can pay for this.
  • Increase funding for textbooks, supplies and materials so educators do not have to spend hundreds of dollars of personal funds to do their jobs.
  • No performance-based pay but a pay scale that values veteran educators, and provides pay incentives for advanced degrees.
  • Increase teacher retiree pensions by 3%; provide state funded health insurance
  • Freeze any increases in health care costs for public employees, which require no additional resources from the State. Maintain comprehensive health insurance coverage for all State employees.
  • Accept federal funds to expand Medicaid, giving affordable health care to the one-quarter of North Carolina students who live in poverty.
  • Stop the attacks on public schools by placing a moratorium on new charter schools and private school vouchers.
  • We also demand the repeal of NC General Statute 95-98, which denies public employees the right to collectively bargain for higher wages, better and safer workplaces, and stronger protections against discrimination.

As the parents and grandparents of Black children we call on education workers and unions to join us in the fight to end the “school to prison pipeline”, eliminate the achievement gap, create a historically accurate and anti-racist curriculum and implement restorative justice instead of punitive discipline and remove School Resource Officers (SRO’s).

Education is a Human Right!

All out for May 16th!

All out for the Poor Peoples Campaign!

 

(Black Workers for Justice*bwfj.org)
[gview file=”http://bwfj.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/North-Carolina-Teachers-Rising-Up.pdf”]