SURJ: Showing Up for Racial Justice

*Keep updated on the GLAHR web site (Spanish language radio show, updates on the work, hosting volunteers, planning mega-marches, come to volunteer in GA, offer database skills to support from where you are)

*Make a donation on GLAHR website

*Also go to: altopolimigra.com for national level work.

*The best way to support AZ and GA is to get involved in your own community to stop the spread of S-Comm, 287(G) and SB1070 Copycat bills. You can lobby to get the state out of secure communities acts.

*E-mail B. Loewe to get connected with local work in your area: bloewe@onpointconsortium.org

*Keeping up the political pressure and boycott which impacts the economic viability of the state can help intervene and spread the messaging about GA not being an economically stable state with these legislations.  One of the key things the governor is doing is courting big businesses into the state of GA. We will need a lot of support and capacity to target those businesses and corporations to add leverage and pressure.

*Media work and letters of support are helpful from folks outside of the state.

*In order to work for migrant rights you don’t need to be a migrant rights organizer. We are organizing in every sector we are located in. We have radical teachers, health care workers, engineers etc.

*Check  out what’s happening in you communities on economic crisis organizing — cities going broke, teachers laid off, etc — and if you can, get involved, join organizing efforts that already exist.

*Build relationships and then begin to raise the anti-racist frame in discussions. We need to be able to popularize conversations about race with other white people.

Support Freedom Inc.

*Visit aboutfreedominc.com and make a donation to support the ongoing work of Freedom Inc. This has been a time of huge fundraising for unions and the democratic party.  We can also make it a huge time for donations for grassroots groups like FI.

Support Take Back the Land-Madison

*Stay tuned for updates on how to support the Take Back the Land campaign against M&I Bank and for the human right to housing.  We will be sending updates to the US for All of Us list serv.  Visit tblmadison.wordpress.com for more information.

*Here is an article about the recent rally and kick-off of Take Back the Land-Madison’s campaign to defend tenants from eviction, have a duplex turned over to the community, and make policy changes to address the foreclosure and housing crisis.  These are all steps towards the broader goal of the Take Back the Land-Movement to elevate housing to the level of a human right and gain community control over land.

THE TEA PARTY DOESN’T SPEAK FOR US

The Tea Party has a very loud voice, amplified by the media, but the Tea Party does not speak for us.

We, like the Tea Party, are mostly white people whose ancestors came from Europe. But unlike the Tea Party, we want to build a U.S. for ALL of us, with no room for racism.

The Tea Party-influenced Senators denied youth their dream of getting an education, simply because the youth have no papers. The young people protested, bravely asserting that they are ‘undocumented and unafraid.’

We support the youth.  Our ancestors may not have had papers, but they still dared to dream that their children would be educated.  Honoring the spirit of our ancestors, we say,  “Education is a human right.”

The Tea Party purports to believe in ‘family values,’ yet they organize for Arizona’s anti-immigrant SB1070 and California’s ‘three strikes and go to prison for life’ laws that gave license to ICE and police to raid Latino/a and African American homes, drag the parents off to prison, leaving defenseless children crying in terror.

How do these violent actions protect family values? Unlike the Tea Party, we organize to stop the criminalization of Brown and Black communities.  We believe that you can’t build strong families when 2 1/2 million members of their communities are locked up in prisons or deported.

The Tea Party shouts, “Abolish the 14th amendment!”  so that children born to migrants of color in the U.S.A. will not  have automatic citizenship.   As we recall, the Fourteenth Amendment granted citizenship to formerly enslaved African Americans.  So we wonder:  Does  the Tea Party really want to return African Americans to slavery?’

Unlike the Tea Party, we believe in expanding democracy, so that everyone who is born here and resides here, has the right to become a U.S. citizen. We believe that citizenship is a human right.

The Tea Party purports to support the U.S. constitution. Yet they would shut down every Muslim religious and cultural center if they could get away with it.  We wonder: Does the Tea Party remember that the First Amendment of the Constitution guarantees  all U.S. residents freedom of religion? Or it that another amendment they would like to abolish?

Unlike the Tea Party, we are people of many religious and spiritual persuasions, and we believe that practicing one’s religion and culture is a human right.

The Tea Party shouts, “We want our country back!”

The Tea Party looks back longingly to the ‘good old days’ when ‘their country’ offered most white people the opportunity to buy a home with only one wage earner; to get a low income loan from their local banker for their children’s college education; and to look forward to a comfortable retirement after 65. The Tea Party laments that those ‘good old days’ are probably gone forever.

We have a slightly different take on those ‘good old days.’  The 1950′s were the days of legal apartheid in the South; and legal institutional racism in the North. We recall that those lovely homes had ‘whites only’ signs dotting their communities, or in the fine print of their real estate contracts. Bankers did not loan college education money to African American or Chicano parents; and employers denied most workers of color the kinds of jobs that would allow them someday to retire.

Unlike the Tea Party, we work to help make a new history for our grandchildren to read in their history books:  one in which the U.S. is truly a land of opportunity, equality and justice for ALL its residents, not only for white people.

The Tea Party insists that they’re not racist;  they’re just very upset about the economy. The banks are foreclosing on their homes.  Employers have moved their jobs to China.  Their pensions have been ripped off by Wall Street investors. And the banks won’t lend their small businesses any money, although the bank CEO’s are getting millions in bonuses.

We agree that ordinary people are suffering while the rich are raking it in.  Millions of people are going without nourishing food each day, a secure place to call ‘home’, health care when they need it, schools which respect the cultures of their students.  And a tiny group are making so much money they don’t know what to do with it.

But we don’t agree with how the Tea Party addresses  the economic problem.  On the contrary, we think it is racist at its core.

Who does the Tea Party blame for  their present economic woes? Not the corporations and their pocketed politicians that have run the economy into the ground.  They focus their rage on African American youth, Latino day laborers, and Muslims in mosques!

This is scapegoating, pure and simple, and scapegoating communities of color is racist politics. Scapegoating promotes hatred and fear of these communities; and hatred and fear justify vigilante and state violence. Scapegoaters set the stage for killing people of color, even if they personally don’t pull the triggers.

The Tea Party may deny that it’s racist, but we say, “Don’t try to guess their intentions. Just check out the effects of their actions.”

Unlike the Tea Party, we assert that all people have the human right to live, to thrive,  and to love; and we dedicate ourselves  to helping to make this world a better place for all human beings to call their home.

And, as white people committed to working for racial justice, we think that white silence in the face of racism is consent to that racism.  If you, too, want to live in a U.S. for all of us,  where there is no room for racism, please join us and Lift Up Your Voice.

By U.S. for all of us:  No Room for Racism

Dear Editor,

The Tea Party does not speak for me.  I believe that all people have the human right to live, to thrive, and to love.  Imagine what we could do together if we dedicate ourselves to helping to make this world a better place for all human beings to call their home.

As a white person committed to working for racial justice, I must speak up. If I do not, my silence in the face of racism is can be seen as consent to that racism.  If you, too, want to live in a U.S. for all of us, where there is no room for racism, please join me, and Lift Up Your Voice.

Sincerely, (name and city)

Dear Editor,

As a white person, I believe it is necessary for me to state that Tea Party voices do not speak for me.  Divisive rhetoric and the targeting of immigrants and people of color do not build the kind of America we must create if we are to solve the problems facing our nation.  I join others who believe in expanding democracy, so that everyone who is born here and resides here has the right to become a U.S. citizen. Citizenship is a human right.

Sincerely, (name and city)

Dear Editor,

A dangerous racist backlash has been unfolding in this country in the wake of the election of the first Black president.  With demands to “Take Our Country Back”, Tea Party voices are promoting the scapegoating of communities of color for the systemic challenges facing our nation due to corporate greed and “profits first” economic policies.

Scapegoating promotes hatred and fear.  Hatred and fear justify vigilante and state violence. Scapegoaters set the stage for violence, even if they don’t pull the triggers personally.  As a white person, I feel I must speak up and say the Tea Party crowd does not speak for me.

Sincerely, (name and city)

Dear Editor,

Ordinary people are suffering while the rich are raking it in.  Millions of people are going without nourishing food each day, a secure place to call ‘home’, health care when they need it, schools which respect the cultures of their students, and escalating wars continue to leave our own and other peoples injured and dead.

The Tea Party does not speak for me. Promoting racism and the scapegoating of people of color, the poor, and immigrants dehumanizes all of us and undermines democracy.  Only a starting point of inclusion can result in solutions that address the challenges we face as a nation.

The Tea Party has a very loud voice that is amplified by the media.  With too many white people silent, assumptions are made that we support the racial hatred.  But I join a growing number of white people who are speaking up to say: The Tea Party does not speak for me.

Sincerely (name and city)

Across the country, counties are recognizing the damage to communities and public safety caused by police/ICE collaboration programs, such as “Secure Communities” or S-Comm. We’ve seen racial profiling and the diversion of scarce local resources when counties are coerced into conducting federal civil immigration enforcement. We’ve heard from families too afraid to approach police. And we’ve decided to end it. Counties, including Arlington, VA; Santa Clara County, CA; and San Francisco, CA have all voted to “opt-out” of ICE’s dangerous S-Comm program.

Unfortunately, Secretary Janet Napolitano has gone back on her word and is trying try stop counties from opting out of S-Comm.

Join us today in signing your individual letter to Secretary Napolitano to demand that she respect the right of counties to opt out of S-Comm now!  Click here!

* Write a letter to the editor challenging the racism happening in your town.

* Track media that spreads racism in your community and work with others to challenge it.

* Find out what people of color in you town are doing to challenge inequity because of racism and ask what you can do to support those efforts. To find out: look for it in the news, on the web, in people of color publications, ask your friends.

* Reach out to community organizations working on immigration, health care and other causes to share the Call to Action. Ask if there are ways you can work together to challenge racism in your community.

* Reach out to local churches, synagogues, schools, PTA’s and community clubs. Ask if you can arrange a discussion about how racism is impacting your community and develop a plan to change those conditions. Click here for lots of useful tools for developing a plan: http://www.racialequitytools.org