August 28, 2020
Professional basketball, baseball and soccer players are leading a wildcat strike. A political strike for Black lives, withholding their labor to demand an end to police violence and systemic racism against Black communities. They’re following in the footsteps of the WNBA, where women basketball players have held increasingly bold actions in support of the Black Lives Matter rebellion sweeping the country.
Workers’ Dignity stands in solidarity with these political strikes and we hope they spread.
Police violence against the Black community is nothing new. ICE terror against indigenous, black and brown immigrant communities is nothing new. Mass incarceration targeting Black, indigenous and immigrant communities is nothing new. And neither is the centuries-long struggle for freedom, from slave revolts to Standing Rock to daily actions in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
What is new for most of us is the rapidly unfolding upheaval – protests against systemic racism, increased use of federal police agencies and military to crush dissent, emboldened and armed fascist militias killing protesters, and open threats of martial law by Donald Trump. In Tennessee, the State Assembly passed laws to criminalize and disenfranchise protesters.
Millions have immigrated to the United States to flee violence and economic ruin in countries where the U.S. uses military force to protect profits. The 2009 coup in Honduras, the 2019 coup in Bolivia, and “drug wars” that have killed over 500,000 people in Mexico and Colombia are just some of the countless examples in recent history. When U.S. capitalist interests are threatened by workers and peasants abroad, the military and paramilitary response is swift and brutal. Entire indigenous communities continue to be destroyed by colonialism accompanied by profiteering. Now that those same corporate interests are feeling threatened at home, a wing of the 1% and their politicians want to use the same violence on U.S. soil. It should come as no surprise that the call to Defund the Police has become widespread simultaneously with politicians’ calls for “law and order” and cheering on of armed racist militias.
It’s time to get our people. Regardless of what happens in the November elections, these trends will not go away. The old saying “Agitate, Educate, Organize” has taken on profound urgency. We all must prepare. We cannot talk about building worker power without simultaneously standing with our Black siblings to fight for liberation and against rising political repression.
Political strikes like those led by athletes in the WNBA, NBA and MLB are essential. They show us that workers have power when we organize and fight collectively. Marches in the streets are crucial. Locally, the fight of the Nashville People’s Budget Coalition and so many others to defund police and activate black, immigrant and indigenous communities is necessary. We need to know ourselves and trust ourselves. Political education, learning from our elders and ancestors, and listening to our neighbors who have confronted U.S.-backed repression in their home countries are more important than ever before.
We believe in a world free of the capitalist, patriarchal, and colonial exploitation of our people, land, and resources. A world where Black and indigenous folks are thriving and influencing mainstream culture, and the wisdom of all of our people and ancestors is honored. With love, justified rage and the dream of a most humane world, it is time to act.