Tallahassee, FL – On Thursday, April 24, Tallahassee Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) organized a rally demanding the FSU administration stop allowing manifestations of white supremacy on campus.

The protest was called in response to a mass shooting by a white supremacist on April 17 that resulted in the deaths of Robert Morales and Tiru Chabba, as well as the injury of six others. As confirmed by former classmates, the shooter frequently spewed white supremacist rhetoric both in class and in extracurricular clubs.

SDS convened at the Legacy Fountain on Landis Green and marched to the Westcott building, where the administration offices are located. The demands of students were clear throughout the protest. SDS demands that the FSU admin make a public commitment to never allowing a white supremacist speaking event to occur on campus ever again. SDS demands that the FSU administration work with identity-based student union groups, such as the Black Student Union, Pride Student Union, and others to develop comprehensive student conduct policies targeting hate speech. Using those new policies, SDS demands that FSU act against students who engage in racist and bigoted harassment of other students.

About 30 students and supporters rallied at the Westcott building. This event hosted speakers from a variety of organizations including the Tallahassee Immigrants’ Rights Alliance (TIRA), the Freedom Road Socialist Organization, Food Not Bombs, and Graduate Assistants United (GAU).

Towards the end of the protest, Lain Dorsey, head of communications with the SDS chapter, turned on a microphone with a hidden speaker and pointed it toward the admin building. She then started chanting, “Prevent another tragedy! Smash white supremacy!” One FSU police officer gave Dorsey a trespass warning for using amplified sound, but she ignored it. A swarm of police descended upon Dorsey, arresting her as she chanted, “Robert Morales and Tiru Chabba! Say their names!” The rally continued for about ten minutes, as protesters chanted in anger at FSUPD and admin.

Protesters left campus to gather at the Leon County Jail and demand Dorsey’s immediate release. JJ Glueck, co-chair of communications for SDS, stated “Lain was arrested for honoring the lives that were lost to tragedy, but people who are hateful like Charlie Kirk are allowed not only amplified sound but uplifted by FSU. It’s just a double standard that shows where FSU‘s priorities are; their priorities are with repressing progressive students while they protect racist white supremacists and IDF soldiers.”

After about five hours, Dorsey was released on $500 bail, to an awaiting crowd of 20 supporters. She rejoined her fellow activists to chants of “Shame on FSUPD! Now Lain is free!”

Following the release, Dorsey stated, “We have been demanding for years now that FSU stop allowing white supremacists like Charlie Kirk to come to our campus. Last week, one of the white supremacists who supports Kirk murdered members of our community. Loudly declaring our anger with admin’s complicity, was the right thing to do. It was the only thing to do to honor those we lost.”

Tally SDS will hold a press conference on April 25 to condemn FSUPD and FSU admin for the arrest of Lain Dorsey and continue their demands for action to be taken against white supremacists on campus. The press conference will be held outside of Common Ground Books (1102 S Adams Street) at 2 p.m.

#TallahasseeFL #FL #StudentMovement #PoliticalRepression #WhiteSupremacy #ImmigrantRights #SchoolShooting

On Saturday, May 14, Masao Suzuki, chair of the Joint Nationalities Commission of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO) expressed outrage at another white supremacist mass murder. “Three years ago, white supremacist Patrick Crusius drove hundreds of miles to kill Chicanos and Mexicanos in El Paso, Texas,” said Suzuki. “Then today another young white supremacist, Payton Gendron, also drove into Buffalo, New York to attack the African American community.” Eleven of the 13 people Gendron shot were African American, and ten died.

Both Crusius and Gendron had posted manifestos repeating the lies of “replacement theory,” a neo-Nazi idea that white Americans and Europeans were being displaced. This theory is a call for ethnic cleansing and mass murder of people of African, Asian, and Latino descent. Gendron livestreamed his killing spree to further spread hate and violence.

“These events are just the modern-day versions of mass lynchings historically aimed at African Americans, Asian Americans, Chicanos and Latinos, and indigenous people,” said Suzuki. “This country was founded on the genocide and seizure of land from Native Americans, and enriched by the chattel slavery of millions of Africans kidnapped from their homelands.” Suzuki added, “These white supremacists are trying to start a race war, and our communities need to prepare to defend themselves.”

“Today the white supremacist movement is funded by parts of the monopoly capitalists, and their poison spread by Fox News and anchor Tucker Carlson. These same capitalists are the ones jacking up prices,” referring to the record profits being reported by big businesses such as Shell Oil and Tyson Foods. “Wages can’t keep up, more and more people are turning up at food banks, and the numbers of homeless keep rising,” said Suzuki, “Our organization sees the need to replace this racist and exploitative system with socialism.”

#UnitedStates #Editorials #WhiteSupremacy #massShooting

On August 3, a Trump-supporting gunman carried out a massacre of at least 20 people in El Paso, Texas, which he justified in racist, anti-immigrant statement.

Suzuki added, “Racist violence, from the massacres of Native Americans to the lynchings of African Americans to the mass shootings of Chicanos, Mexicanos and Central Americans today are part and parcel of the national oppression that the United States was founded on. Now is the time to say enough is enough. We have to step up the struggle against the Trump regime. We have to organize to defend our communities from future white supremacist attacks.”

#WashingtonDC #ImmigrantRights #US #PeoplesStruggles #ChicanoLatino #WhiteSupremacy #Antiracism #Antifascism #Trump #DonaldTrump #ElPaso

Jacksonville, FL — 200 people gathered at Memorial Park on August 13 in support of the victims of the right-wing attack in Charlottesville, Virginia. The call for an emergency rally came after reports from major news outlets about Nazis marching at the University of Virginia. The Nazi march the next day left Heather Heyer dead, and many others wounded.

“We saw white supremacy for what it really was on Saturday. This is not something that is brand new. This is something that has been growing for a while now. We would be foolish to respond to this violence with inaction,” read a statement by University of North Florida Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), delivered by Tony Alvarez.

The protesters at this event braved the rain and wind to stand in solidarity with the victims in Charlottesville. They chanted, “No Trump, no KKK, no fascist USA,” and “No justice, no peace.” There were speakers from various local community organizations, then a candlelight vigil to remember Heather Heyer. Heyer was killed by white supremacist James Alex Fields, who drove his car through a crowd of progressive and leftist counter-demonstrators.

#JacksonvilleFL #WhiteSupremacy #Florida #Antiracism #antifascism

Tallahassee, FL — On August 13, over 400 students and community members rallied on the steps of Tallahassee’s historic Old Capitol building in solidarity with the victims of white supremacist terror in Charlottesville, Virginia.

“On Saturday August 12, an anti-fascist protest in Charlottesville was attacked by neo-Nazis, murdering 32-year-old protester Heather Heyer and injuring 30 others. During the protest, the white supremacist James Alex Fields Jr. accelerated his car into the crowd. This is a wake-up call; the far-right is dangerous and is carrying out violent terrorist attacks,” read a statement by Tallahassee Students for a Democratic Society (SDS).

The protesters chanted in the rain, “Charlottesville means, we got to fight back!” and “No hate! No bigotry! End white supremacy!”

“It was important to show up tonight because these white supremacists already have the upper hand on us. They have organization, they have power, they have political structure. We need to show them their days are numbered. We need to show them we have a militant resistance to them,” said Maddie Hen, a member of SDS.

Protesters held signs reading, “From Charlottesville to Gaza, stop fascism,” “White silence is violence,” and “Punch Nazis.”

Satya Stark-Bejnar lead the protesters in song, It Could Have Been Me, But Instead It was You and Step by Step the Longest March. Bejnar then led a short moment of silence for Heather Heyer — the woman murdered by white supremacist James Alex Field Jr.

The crowd marched down College Avenue to the Francis Eppes statue on Florida State University campus. Katherine Draken explained, “The Francis Eppes statue is as much a symbol of racism as the Robert E. Lee statue in Charlottesville. Both honor people who upheld slavery and provide figureheads for white supremacists to rally around. We need to remove these symbols of hate and remember the victims of slavery and genocide, not the perpetrators.”

At the end of the protest, the organizers of the event urged protesters to continue the fight against white supremacy. A tradition of Tallahassee SDS, the rally ended with the quote by Assata Shakur that begins, “We have a duty to fight for our freedom.”

#TallahasseeFL #PeoplesStruggles #WhiteSupremacy #Florida #Antiracism #Antifascism #CHarlottesville

White supremacist Michael Page opened fire on the temple August 5, killing five men and one woman and injuring two more.

The memorial had the caskets of the Sikh victims, which included Ranjit Singh and Sita Singh, two brothers in their 40s; 84-year old Suvig Singh, a former farmer from India; Praskash Singh, a priest; and Paramjit Kaur, a 41-year old mother who worked over 60 hours a week to provide for her family.

Nikki Rehal is a young member of the Sikh temple and spoke to Fight Back!.

She said her parents immigrated from India to the U.S. in 1972.

Rehal spoke about the discrimination her family faced after 9/11 and said all she and her family wanted was a safe community

“We believe in equality and are against discrimination,” she said. “People must get to know other people before they make a decision about who people really are.”

“This tragedy still has not hit me. I'm staying busy attending memorials and helping clean the temple,” she said.

Rehal then spoke of the two brave Sikh children, a brother and sister, who were outside playing when they saw Page open fire. They rushed inside the temple and were able to warn people, saving many lives.

#OakCreekWI #WhiteSupremacy #Sikh #MichaelPage #SikhTempleOfWisconsin #SikhTempleMassacre

Charleston, WV – Hundreds of people rallied and marched here at West Virginia’s capitol building, Nov. 3, to demand justice for Megan Williams and an end to hate crimes in the United States.

Megan Williams, a 20 year old woman from West Virginia, was held captive by six people for days while being raped repeatedly. Her captors forced her to eat human and rat feces, lick blood off the floor, beat her with switches and at one point had a noose around her neck while raping and stabbing her, saying, “This is what we do to n_____s down here.” When asked about her experiences, Megan said, “I was scared. I didn’t know what to do. I was thinking about my momma and I just wanted to come home. Every time I close my eyes now all I see is that knife from when they kept stabbing me and stabbing me.”

The rally at the capitol building including preachers, professors, activists and lawyers who spoke out against sexual violence, racist violence and hate crimes. Megan Williams and her family spoke at the end of the rally thanking those who came out to support her, then led the march through downtown. Protesters chanted, “No justice, no peace!” and held signs saying “Stop racial violence” while marching through downtown Charleston from the capitol building to the courthouse.

Malik Shabazz, Esq. – of Black Lawyers for Justice and head of the New Black Panthers Party – has been aiding Megan Williams and her family in advocating for federal hate crime charges to be brought against the six defendants in the case. In a moving speech at the capitol, Shabazz said, “Hate crimes are on the rise. Nooses are being hung, we are being shot and our women are being raped. We want this to be tried as a hate crime… from a legal and spiritual standpoint, I don’t care what happened before, all I care about is that this is one of the worst hate crimes in recent U.S. history.” Shabazz also spoke out against local black organizations, including the local NAACP, that declined to support the rally and march.

Many speakers linked racial oppression to sexual oppression and spoke out in favor of black women and against rape regardless of the nationality of the oppressor or the oppressed. Another speaker at the rally, Rev. Mary Kay Jacquet of the First Baptist Church in Charleston, said, “Sisterhood is not a privilege – it’s an obligation. No woman, regardless of race, creed or color should be subjected to the emotional and physical consequences of such barbaric actions.”

The recent events of Jena 6, the noose hangings across the United States, the murder of Sean Bell and the rape and torture of Megan Williams show the harsh oppression that the Black community faces on a daily basis. There is a growing African American movement to resist racist attacks and police killing and which insists on complete liberation.

#CharlestonWV #News #WomensMovement #AfricanAmerican #torture #WhiteSupremacy #brutalRape

Chapel Hill, NC – Haley Koch and six community activists had their first court date June 1, for their participation in the Tom Tancredo and Virgil Goode protests that took place in April. These protests were in response to a far right-wing organization, Youth for Western Civilization, that brought two anti-immigration speakers, Tom Tancredo and Virgil Goode, to the University of North Carolina campus within a week of each other. Hundreds of students and activists protested the racism, xenophobia and white supremacy that these speakers promoted and seven demonstrators were arrested by campus police in response. They all pleaded not guilty, even after being offered a deal by the district attorney which would lighten their sentence in return for admission of guilt. The seven are standing strong in their belief that they did no wrong in protesting racism and white supremacy on UNC’s campus and will represent themselves in their next court date, Sept. 14.

UNC students and community members came out to the courthouse in large numbers to stand in solidarity with the activists. A rally and a press conference organized by the UNC Protesters Defense Committee (PDC) put forward the following demands: drop the charges against all the activists; dissolve Youth for Western Civilization; UNC must adopt an official hate speech policy to prevent such events from happening again; an independent police review board should be created. The rally included speeches from Haley’s father, Chris Koch, Reverend Harris from Saint Joseph’s Church, along with former UNC students and community activists who spoke in support of the seven activists and called for the university to meet the demands of the Protesters Defense Committee.

Although the next court date is not until September, the community is continuing to rally strong around this issue. The community solidarity is already beginning to produce results. Last week the student movement gained an important victory when the advisor of the YWC announced he would no longer serve as an advisor to the group, saying that the organization has built a reputation that is “an obstacle to constructive dialogue” due to the resistance it met on campus. “I’m not willing to sponsor an affiliate of the national YWC,” Professor Clemens said. If the organization does not find an advisor within 30 days, it will no longer be an official campus organization. Because of the reputation the organization has gained on campus, many faculty members may be reluctant to take it on. If this happens, Youth for Western Civilization will be without a home, and that would be a blow against organized white supremacy and anti-immigrant politics in the community.

The Protesters Defense Committee is continuing to build support around the creation of an independent review board, exploring the possibility of partnering with UNC’s student government to write a resolution for it. The PDC is also working to keep up support for the seven activists and prepare for the court date in September. The PDC is calling on all those who oppose racist hate-mongering and anti-immigrant politics to stand in solidarity with the PDC and other popular forces in the community in struggling against national oppression and racism.

#ChapelHillNC #News #Racism #YouthForWesternCivilization #WhiteSupremacy