Elizabeth Schulte reports on
organizing for the August 27 Bay Area Rally Against Hate--and a new call for
solidarity actions to take place around the U.S. that weekend.
August 18, 2017
Heather Heyer's mother: "I'd
rather have my child, but if I've got to give her up, we're going to make it
count."
ANTI-RACIST activists in the
Bay Area who are mobilizing for a counterprotest against the far right when it
rallies in Berkeley, California, on August 27 are calling on people everywhere
to join them in a National Weekend of Solidarity.
The national call for support
on the day of the Berkeley counterdemonstration came about after the white
supremacist terror attack on anti-fascists in Charlottesville, Virginia, which
took the life of Heather Heyer.
Amid the national and
international outpouring of solidarity, the coordinating committee of the Bay Area Rally Against
Hate, which has been organizing for the 27th, voted unanimously for this
resolution:
We ask that people all over
the United States take some kind of local action on August 27 in order to
demonstrate solidarity
with
Charlottesville, San Francisco, Berkeley and all the other locations targeted
by white supremacists. Whether solidarity takes the form of a rally, public
forum, movie-screening or social gathering, a show of support from around the
country will go a long way toward raising the political cost of racist
violence. We can push the neo-Nazis and other far right racists back into the
shadows. Please join us in this critical struggle!
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THE FAR right has made
Berkeley, with its reputation as a bastion of progressive ideas, a target. In
particular, the reactionaries have brought their hate to the home of the Free
Speech Movement of the 1960s in an attempt to twist its democratic legacy for
their own purposes.
In February, when former
Breitbart News editor Milo Yiannopoulos came to the University of California
(UC) at Berkeley, thousands of people turned out to protest, and campus
officials eventually canceled the event.
Several more confrontations
followed, with the bigots strengthening their turnout each time. In April,
several factions of the "alt right" and "patriots movement"
mobilized from up and down the West Coast to descend on downtown's Berkeley's
Martin Luther King Jr. Plaza, leading
to a far-right rampage in the streets.
With school getting underway
for the fall, the same forces that turned Berkeley streets into a scene of
chaos and violence are coming back for two protests on the August 26-27
weekend.
But after the alt-right's
murderous attack in Charlottesville, people around the country have a much
clearer view of what far right organizing produces--violence and terror.
Charlottesville has been
called the largest mobilizations of far-right groups in decades. And Donald
Trump's response in the aftermath showed he is unwilling to take a stand
against the fascist groups that rampaged that day--on the contrary, he put the
blame on anti-racists, several dozen of whom were victims of a white
supremacist car terror attack.
The lesson from Charlottesville
is that if we are going to stop the right from growing, our side will have to
stop them.
Around the country, the
overwhelming response to what happened in Charlottesville was horror, sorrow
and outrage--followed by action, as thousands of people took part in protests
and vigils in solidarity with Charlottesville.
Heather Heyer's mother has
courageously lent strength to those determined to stand up against the bigots
who took her life. "I'd rather have my child," she told those
attending her daughter's memorial service on Wednesday, "but if I've got
to give her up, we're going to make it count."
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MAKING IT count has to start right
away. On August 19, the
alt-right is returning to the Boston Common, and anti-racists are hoping
the wave of solidarity with Charlottesville will bolster their
counterdemonstration.
Then comes August 27 in
Berkeley, where opponents of the right have been organizing for months to turn
out a resistance. Along with the call for national solidarity, this will be an
opportunity to show the strength of our side--that there are many more people
willing to stand up to racism than those who want to spread their message of
bigotry.
The organizing in Berkeley has
involved a broad coalition of groups and individuals coming together: "an
ad hoc working group composed of residents of the Bay Area--people of color,
working-class people, immigrants, queer, gay, bi, and trans people, Muslims,
Jews, Christians, liberals, leftists and others," reads a press release
from the rally organizers. "We think that it is time to get together,
celebrate our differences, show our solidarity, and speak out against the
hateful currents in American society."
Endorsers include the Alameda
County Labor Council, Alameda for Black Lives, Berkeley Federation of Teachers,
Council on American-Islamic Relations-San Francisco Bay Area, several area
chapters of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), the International
Socialist Organization (ISO), NARAL Pro-Choice California, the Muslim Student
Association at Berkeley and more.
According to Alex Schmaus, an
ISO member who has been part of organizing for the August 27 rally:
When Charlottesville happened,
it became clearer than ever that this isn't just a local fight--it is a fight
taking place across the country. This also made us appreciate what we have
accomplished in the Bay Area, organizing many different social forces,
including unions, student groups, political organization and faith groups.
Hopefully, this will help
people around the country pull together the forces they all need to win this
fight.
Many of the people that first
came together to plan this are member of groups that were on the ground in
Charlottesville, including the DSA, the ISO, the Industrial Workers of the
World and others. We felt that tragedy personally and this was a way to make
meaning from it.
The organizers of the Berkeley
protest have emphasized building a united stand against fascism that can
include as many groups and individuals who would like to fight the right as
possible. According to Alex:
The street fighting that took
place in Berkeley in the spring between the far right and the far left created
a situation where anti-fascism had become a spectator's sport in Berkeley. What
we want to do is provide a space for people in the Bay Area to see that there
are many of us that want us to take a stand against racism and the far right,
and we can keep each other safe when we come together.
The solidarity vigils and
protests that took place after Charlottesville, echoing in many ways the
protests that came in the days after Trump's inauguration, show there is a
growing layer of people who want to come out and be part of defeating the far
right.
Abdullah Puckett, a member of
the Black Student Union and Muslim Student Association at UC-Berkeley, talked
about organizing for the rally:
The main thing on my mind
after Charlottesville was the importance of doing this now. We have to come out
and show people that there is a voice of reason, inclusion and civility here in
Berkeley, and that closed-off hateful mentality is not welcome here and is not
a representation of this community. Another important thing is a peaceful
demonstration.
One of the things I have been
trying to do is bring people together. There is too much division and isolation
from one another. The more that people come together and have meaningful
discussions, the more we will realize what we have in common and that we can
disagree civilly.
The wonderful thing about the
planning process for this rally is that at each meeting, we've had more people,
more organizations, more voices coming out to support this demonstration. It's
been wonderful seeing how many people are out there who wanted to do something
like this and have now found a group that is putting it together.
We should reach out to
everyone who is trying to send a message of peaceful unity and civility, and we
can't isolate ourselves from people who potentially want to work together with
us. Reach out on campus, got to union halls, everywhere people want to get
involved.
Berkeley organizers encourage
you, wherever you live, to organize whatever action you can, big or
small--rallies, marches, public meetings, speakouts, cultural events or
teach-ins. For more information, check out the Bay Area Rally Against
Hate Facebook page, and join the call for a National
Weekend of Solidarity Against Hate and add links to you statement, action
or events here.
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