Chapel Hill, NC – On April 23, about 100 students gathered for the second time in two weeks to oppose white supremacists organizing on the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill’s campus. Just one week after the racist Tom Tancredo was driven off campus by turbulent protests, the Youth for Western Civilization (YWC), a white supremacist organization, brought former Virginia congressman Virgil Goode to speak about affirmative action and immigration.

60 students gathered in the Pit for a speak-out against racism. A broad united front of political and cultural organizations on campus organized the event. 200 students stopped to listen and debate with demonstrators, while students gave speeches denouncing the white supremacist views of Tom Tancredo, Youth for Western Civilization and Virgil Goode.

“We called on students to boycott the Virgil Goode event. The media makes them out to be the victim, but we understand that YWC is a national organization funded by white supremacists,” said Ariana Lucido, a first-year student at UNC and a member of Students for a Democratic Society and Alianza. “Our protest served to give students a voice that had been silenced by Goode and YWC’s hate speech. We will continue to speak out anywhere white supremacists and racist bigots try to oppress people.”

Inside the event, dozens of protesters greeted Virgil Goode with booing and hisses. Six activists were arrested when they held signs denouncing white supremacy and raised their voices against racism. Students were quick to point out the blatant hypocrisy of the administration in cracking down on the protesters.

“Chancellor Thorp has publicly apologized for the supposed violation of Tancredo’s right to spew hate,” said Carlyn Cowen, a UNC undergraduate. “He has been noticeably silent on the issue of the right of UNC students to speak freely against him and protest on their own campus. He seems more eager to protect the right of politicians to promote their racist agendas here than securing the safety and well-being of his own students.”

#ChapelHillNC #ImmigrantRights #News #Tancredo #YouthForWesternCivilization

Fight Back! is circulating the following statement issued by the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) at Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

Chapel Hill, NC – After the April 14th demonstration against former Republican representative Tom Tancredo, which involved two hundred students from numerous organizations, solidarity letters have poured in applauding the protesters’ actions. The statements have come from local, state and national social justice organizations — including notable immigrant advocacy groups.

“Students and young people in the U.S. have historically been in the forefront of the civil rights and peace movements, and we are inspired that you are setting the example by standing in solidarity with the immigrant rights movement,” said Carlos Montes, an organizer from the Los Angeles-based Latinos Against War, and member of the Southern California Immigration Coalition.

A statement from the Palante Action Network of Durham, North Carolina, said, “It is vital to movements for social justice and human rights that white supremacists like Tancredo are met with strong resistance wherever they go. We commend your willingness to stand up and make it clear that you oppose his racist anti-immigrant hatred and that hate speech cannot be part of a democratic or respectful environment. As citizens and activists, we are honored to express solidarity with you.”

The International Action Center, a grassroots organization founded by former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, expressed its full support.

“The message sent by the UNC students is welcomed by progressive forces in the United States and worldwide. And it is a clear answer to hate speech: No attempt to mobilize a racist, anti-immigrant campaign can be allowed without confrontation from these progressive forces,” the IAC said.

Hatem Abudayyeh, the executive director of the American Arab Action Network in Chicago, said: “As an organization that upholds the rights of immigrants and all oppressed people in the U.S. and across the world, we support your first amendment right to protest Tancredo and the racism, hate, and criminalization of immigrants that he represents. White supremacist formations like the Youth for Western Civilization, the student group that invited Tancredo, should be confronted and denounced at every turn, and the students at UNC who participated in these protests should be esteemed as the heroic fighters for justice that they are.”

Multiple chapters of Students for a Democratic Society, from UNC-Asheville to University of California at Los Angeles, have written letters of congratulations and encouragement.

“It is sickening that people like Tancredo and his supporters, who never missed an opportunity in recent years to cheer for more unlawful detentions, more prison camps, more destruction of families and more suppression of freedom of speech for millions of working people in this country now whine that they have been denied their rights at the first sign of opposition to their hateful views,” said UCLA’s chapter of SDS.

Many of the statements denounced the egregious police violence visited on protesters at Tuesday’s action. They joined UNC’s chapter of SDS in its call for oversight of police activity on campus.

A statement from Philadelphia SDS said, “Campus security's violent escalation against nonviolent student protesters was an outrageous abuse of power. Students who were not threatening bodily harm against anyone, but following their conscience and expressing their freedom of speech should never have been met with violence. We expect UNC security and administration officials to learn from this event not to escalate chaos in tense situations by violently assaulting students.”

As messages of solidarity with the UNC students continue to arrive, they will be posted to the website of UNC-Chapel Hill Students for a Democratic Society (http://www.chapelhillsds.org), one of many organizations involved in the protest.

#ChapelHillNC #ImmigrantRights #Tancredo #LatinosAgainstWar #StudentsForADemocraticSocietySDS #SouthernCaliforniaImmigrationCoalition

Chapel Hill, NC – Over 200 protesters gathered here on April 15 to protest a talk given by the racist former congressman Tom Tancredo. Students, faculty and staff were in the streets and the lobby of the building chanting, “Shut it down – no racists in our town!” Some protesters were inside the room where the talk was being held and challenged Tancredo on his anti-immigration views while holding banners saying “No dialogue with hate,” and “No one is illegal.”

During the protest, the University of North Carolina (UNC) campus police pepper-sprayed individuals without warning and threatened to taser those who did not leave the building immediately. According to a press release by the UNC chapter of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), witnesses also saw campus police throw two women out of the room onto the ground of the lobby and one officer pulling a third woman’s hair when removing the protesters from the building. In response to their conduct, UNC SDS is demanding investigation into the actions of the campus police and is also calling for a standing student review board to oversee all police conduct on campus.

The group who brought Tancredo to speak on campus, Youth for Western Civilization, states that their group exists to “promote the survival of Western Civilization and pride in Western heritage” and calls themselves “the West’s right-wing youth movement.” The Southern Poverty Law Center’s blog has cited that YWC has direct ties to known white nationalist hate organizations. One of YWC’s founders, Marcus Epstein, wrote in an essay, “Diversity can be good in moderation – if what is being brought in is desirable. Most Americans don’t mind a little ethnic food, some Asian math whizzes, or a few Mariachi dancers – as long as these trends do not overwhelm the dominant culture.”

Tancredo himself has become a symbol of hatred and racism across the nation. Tancredo declares multiculturalism to be a “self-destructive belief” and a “cult” and is notorious for his proposed anti-immigrant legislation. The students and staff at UNC have given strength to progressive groups around the country by standing up to Tancredo. Carlos Montes, with the Southern California Immigration Coalition, said, “I support the students right to protest racist Tom Tancredo. Tancredo has to be confronted and exposed wherever he speaks. The students should be commended for their action.”

Students and activists across the country need to stand up to racism and hate. Groups like Youth for Western Civilization and individuals like Tom Tancredo will continue to spew anti-immigrant and racist slogans unless we organize against them and for immigrants, for national liberation, and for progress.

#ChapelHillNC #ImmigrantRights #Tancredo #StudentsForADemocraticSocietySDS #YouthForWesternCivilization

Thousands of articles, commentaries, and editorials have been written on this event. Most of it is a waste of everyone’s time. In typical mainstream media fashion, most of the coverage has completely turned reality on its head. Like Malcolm X would have said, they make the victim look like the villain and the oppressors look like the oppressed.

These ‘respectable’ ruling class commentators – who incidentally don’t give a damn about the most basic human rights of 11 million undocumented immigrants, or the respect and dignity they deserve as human beings – assume the absolute right of racists like Tancredo to say or do whatever they want, anywhere they want. But the minute the oppressed fight back, some kind of horrendous crime against ‘democracy’ and ‘free speech’ has been committed!

So let’s get some things straight.

Tancredo was invited by a new right-wing, racist organization, Youth for Western Civilization (YWC). Who is YWC? Their mission statement says they work “to create a culture that will promote the survival of Western Civilization and pride in Western heritage.” Compare that to the Ku Klux Klan, who say they are a “white rights political organization working to promote western Christian civilization.”

Do you see a substantive difference? I don’t.

Who is Tancredo?

The one-time Republican presidential contender and a former congressman from Colorado, Tancredo is honorary chair of YWC. Last year Tancredo advocated bombing Mecca and Medina to deter ‘terrorism.’ He spoke at a League of the South event in 2006, where, surrounded by confederate flags and portraits of Robert E. Lee, Tancredo joined the all-white audience in singing the confederate anthem, Dixie. Tancredo and his policies are celebrated by Neo-Nazis and on white supremacist websites like Vdare and Storm Front (don’t mind their racist banter about killing immigrants, Jews, and non-whites – it’s freedom of speech, you see).

Tancredo supports the Minutemen, a pack of racist vigilantes who beat up, assault and sometimes kill undocumented immigrants – or anyone with brown skin. He advocates deporting all 11 million undocumented workers in this country. He supports militarizing the border with Mexico. His politics destroy immigrant families. He supports the ICE concentration camps that are crammed with hundreds of thousands of undocumented workers, denied any kind of due process or basic rights. He demands that immigrants ‘assimilate’ to white supremacist culture. Tancredo threatens that, “they [immigrants] are coming here to kill you, and you, and me, and my grandchildren.”

There is more, but you get the point.

Now some people say this guy has just as much a right to speak as anybody else. I don’t. Right-wingers and liberals alike are crying about protesters violating the sanctity of ‘free speech.’ The North Carolina ACLU went so far as to say the protesters engaged in censorship. This just doesn’t hold up. Tancredo can get on any major news media, any day of the week, and preach his hateful message slamming immigrants. And in fact he did that the very next day.

That 200 students rose up to drown this hate speech out is not censorship or violating Tancredo’s ‘freedom of speech.’

The solidarity statement from United Students Against Sweatshops makes this point perfectly clear: “There is nothing in the First Amendment that guarantees anyone the right to a quiet audience or lack of a community response. In fact, the First Amendment actively encourages and protects a community response – including a loud, disruptive response – to people with the power of former Congressman Tancredo and the anti-immigrant policies he represents.”

This is the essence of a genuine right to freedom of speech and assembly – the right for the oppressed to confront the oppressor. ‘Freedom of speech’ is not an abstract question, but something that goes to the heart of the struggle between the oppressed and the oppressors in a society rife with exploitation, oppression and class antagonism.

We understand that when the racists have freedom to incite violence against immigrants; when they have freedom to organize white supremacist hate groups; when they have freedom to paint bigotry and racism as mainstream values; when the oppressors have those ‘freedoms,’, there is not, and cannot be, any real freedom for the oppressed.

A community rising up to deny racists from organizing isn’t censorship, it is justice.

Chancellor Holden Thorp, UNC-system president Erskine Bowles and the UNC board of trustees chair Roger Perry called Tancredo to apologize for the disruption. In other words, all three of the most important figures in UNC’s hierarchy called to apologize to a racist white supremacist. How revealing! Why not apologize to the students who felt threatened by the appearance of a politician who openly preaches hate and supports organizations that commit violence against immigrants? Why not apologize for the police violence that silenced the student protesters right to free speech? Why are they not apologizing for allowing this racist bigot to speak at UNC in the first place?

In fact, the students who protested Tancredo’s event have nothing to apologize for. The protesters are fully justified. It is a good thing that he was stopped. If he comes back, we will confront him again. If the Youth for Western Civilization think they can continue to bring white supremacists and advocates for violence against immigrants and oppressed nationalities, they are sorely mistaken. The people won’t stand for it.

It’s true that there were conflicts between the tactics used by different organizations to protest Tancredo, and those organizations will need to dialog to address the conflict of tactics and aims. But I firmly believe that what unites us is more powerful than what divides us. In the face of media criticism and harsh institutional oppression, we can and must stand shoulder to shoulder in opposition to white supremacy and all it stands for in the fields of North Carolina, on the border with Mexico and in the homes and families of over 11 million beautiful human beings who come to this country to work and to support their families.

At the end of the day, what happened was a great thing. Tancredo and his whole racist anti-immigrant program were shut down and sent packing. That is a victory for the people’s struggle and no amount of slander, disinformation and repression of the protesters can cover up this vital fact.

Kosta Harlan is a member of Students for a Democratic Society and was a participant in the protest of Tancredo and Youth for Western Civilization.

#ChapelHillNC #ImmigrantRights #OppressedNationalities #Editorials #Tancredo