A wake up call: March against racism to honor Dr. King's legacy

Download NYC and national flyers in English and Spanish

In New York City: Jan 21 - 1Pm - Rally West 32nd St. and 7th Ave. and march to West 58th St. and Columbus Circle: demonstrate against Imus/ABC and Lou Dobbs/CNN

The International Action Center and the Fight Imperialism, Stand Together (FIST) youth group are initiating an important call to action around the U.S. for Jan. 21, 2008, the official Martin Luther King Jr. birthday holiday. The call motivates people for solidarity and unity in the struggle against racism and all forms of injustice at home and abroad. It also calls for a national march in New York City along with other mobilizations around the country on this day focusing support for the Black community and immigrant rights:

There is a time for celebrations and there’s a time for fighting. Now is a time that we need to fight. On this King Holiday we must organize and march against the forces of racism, reaction and war, not just the war abroad but the war raging here at home.

The racism is not just coming from the fringes; it’s been deemed respectable and popular, and it’s being pushed by the mainstream corporate media. What’s more, the storm is gaining strength at a time when the economy is heading into a crisis that is bound to make economic survival for those who are already impoverished more difficult, while tossing millions more, who thought they were getting along okay, out of their homes and jobs.

The system is setting up its scapegoats for the hard times by gearing up for racist hate. Lou Dobbs has suddenly become very important. Why? Because in times like these, the system’s biggest worry is that poor and working people will come together and demand social and economic justice. If we fail to unite and fight racism we should only expect much more of the same.

Reports of nooses in locker rooms across the country are up 1,000 percent. Mychal Bell, one of the Jena 6, will have to stay in prison for almost another year, but “shock jock” Don Imus is back on the air, with presidential candidates and VIPs tripping over each other to get on his show. Immigrants have been turned into the “Willie Hortons” of the 2008 presidential election as candidates compete with each other over who can sound the toughest against undocumented workers.

From New Orleans to Harlem and in every other part of the country, Black people are being pushed out of their homes as the drive by the wealthy to gentrify, helped by hurricanes and mortgage foreclosures, is barreling full steam ahead. The wholesale incarceration of a generation of young Black people is not slowing down; it’s accelerating. The police war against Black youth is not easing; it’s growing.

More immigrant workers have been arrested in raids, denied housing and health care, locked up in concentration camp-type detention centers, deported, harassed, beaten up or murdered, than at any time since the infamous anti-immigrant Palmer raids 90 years ago. And just like 90 years ago, anti-immigrant bigotry and repression are being used to derail labor union organizing.

Bush’s endless war is not only against people thousands of miles away, it has made Muslims and people of Arab, African or South Asian origin fair game for harassment, persecution and torture. Lest we forget, from the Supreme Court to bigoted cops, jailers, judges and anti-gay thugs, the rights of women are under attack, and there is war against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. Along with anti-immigrant bashing and attacking Mexico and China, Dobbs has lately begun to call on union members who are “American citizens” to rise up against “treacherous” labor union leaders who dare to organize undocumented workers.

Combating the divide-and-conquer strategy is going to take work, time, courage and commitment. One of the most obvious ways to fight it is to work to make sure that the thousands of white people who will get on buses to go to a protest against the war in Iraq will also get on the buses going to support a Jena 6 rally or an immigrant- rights rally. When that happens it makes demagogues like Dobbs weaker and all of us stronger.