"At a challenging moment
in our history, let us remind ourselves that we the hundreds of
thousands, the millions of women, trans-people, men and youth who are
here at the Women's March, we represent the powerful forces of change
that are determined to prevent the dying cultures of racism,
hetero-patriarchy from rising again.
"We
recognize that we are collective agents of history and that history
cannot be deleted like web pages. We know that we gather this afternoon
on indigenous land and we follow the lead of the first peoples who
despite massive genocidal violence have never relinquished the struggle
for land, water, culture, their people. We especially salute today the
Standing Rock Sioux.
"The
freedom struggles of black people that have shaped the very nature of
this country's history cannot be deleted with the sweep of a hand. We
cannot be made to forget that black lives do matter. This is a country
anchored in slavery and colonialism, which means for better or for worse
the very history of the United States is a history of immigration and
enslavement. Spreading xenophobia, hurling accusations of murder and
rape and building walls will not erase history.
"No human being is illegal.
"The
struggle to save the planet, to stop climate change, to guarantee the
accessibility of water from the lands of the Standing Rock Sioux, to
Flint, Michigan, to the West Bank and Gaza. The struggle to save our
flora and fauna, to save the air—this is ground zero of the struggle for
social justice.
"This
is a women's march and this women's march represents the promise of
feminism as against the pernicious powers of state violence. And
inclusive and intersectional feminism that calls upon all of us to join
the resistance to racism, to Islamophobia, to anti-Semitism, to
misogyny, to capitalist exploitation.
"Yes,
we salute the fight for 15. We dedicate ourselves to collective
resistance. Resistance to the billionaire mortgage profiteers and
gentrifiers. Resistance to the health care privateers. Resistance to the
attacks on Muslims and on immigrants. Resistance to attacks on disabled
people. Resistance to state violence perpetrated by the police and
through the prison industrial complex. Resistance to institutional and
intimate gender violence, especially against trans women of color.
"Women's
rights are human rights all over the planet and that is why we say
freedom and justice for Palestine. We celebrate the impending release of
Chelsea Manning. And Oscar López Rivera. But we also say free Leonard
Peltier. Free Mumia Abu-Jamal. Free Assata Shakur.
"Over
the next months and years we will be called upon to intensify our
demands for social justice to become more militant in our defense of
vulnerable populations. Those who still defend the supremacy of white
male hetero-patriarchy had better watch out.
"The
next 1,459 days of the Trump administration will be 1,459 days of
resistance: Resistance on the ground, resistance in the classrooms,
resistance on the job, resistance in our art and in our music.
"This
is just the beginning and in the words of the inimitable Ella Baker,
'We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes.' Thank you."
Although demonstrations and assemblies are often not enough to produce radical change, they do alter our perceptions about who the people are, and they assert fundamental freedoms that belong to bodies in their plurality. There can be no democracy without freedom of assembly, and there can be no assembly without the freedom to move and gather. When the undocumented assemble, or when those who have suffered eviction assemble, or those who suffer unemployment or drastic cuts in their retirement, they assert themselves into the imagery and the discourse that gives us a sense of who the people are or should be. Of course, they make specific demands, but assembly is also a way of making a demand with the body, a corporeal claim to public space and a public demand to political powers. As long as “security” continues to justify the banning and dispersion of demonstrations, assemblies, and encampments, it serves the decimation of democratic rights and democracy itself. Only a broad-based mobilization—a form of embodied and transnational courage, we might say—will successfully defeat xenophobic nationalism and the various alibis that now threaten democracy.
Reflections on Trump
by
Although demonstrations and assemblies are often not enough to produce radical change, they do alter our perceptions about who the people are, and they assert fundamental freedoms that belong to bodies in their plurality. There can be no democracy without freedom of assembly, and there can be no assembly without the freedom to move and gather. When the undocumented assemble, or when those who have suffered eviction assemble, or those who suffer unemployment or drastic cuts in their retirement, they assert themselves into the imagery and the discourse that gives us a sense of who the people are or should be. Of course, they make specific demands, but assembly is also a way of making a demand with the body, a corporeal claim to public space and a public demand to political powers. As long as “security” continues to justify the banning and dispersion of demonstrations, assemblies, and encampments, it serves the decimation of democratic rights and democracy itself. Only a broad-based mobilization—a form of embodied and transnational courage, we might say—will successfully defeat xenophobic nationalism and the various alibis that now threaten democracy.
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