| by reed |
NEW AFRIKANS & OCCUPY WALL STREET
The Malcolm X Grassroots Movement struggles to defend the Human Rights of African people in the United States and around the world. The Occupation of Wall Street is an important opportunity to highlight the economic struggles of the 99% and in particular those of New Afrikans (people of African descent in the diaspora). Corporate and national wealth continues to be built on the stolen land of indigenous peoples and on the backs of New Afrikans, immigrants and poor people of European descent; profits are made because of our suffering.
The agricultural and industrial strength that laid the foundation for U.S. economic power exists because of the blood, sweat and tears of the Afrikans who were enslaved. Enslaved Africans literally built Wall Street, the very wall from which Wall Street gets its name, where Africans were bought and sold. The sale of our Black bodies enriched the early traders and bankers. Now, everyday Wall Street bankers desecrate our ancestor’s graves and dishonor their work by trading this blood money on top of an African burial ground.
New Afrikans’ incredible contributions to the strength of the U.S. capitalist economy are continuously unacknowledged and devalued. From numerous inventions to forms of art, the history books remain silent about our contribution to this country’s wealth. We demand reparations that honor the immeasurable value of our work!
There is a direct link between corporate profit and New Afrikan suffering. While New Afrikan people suffer under the stress of under-resourced communities, high unemployment and high imprisonment rates. Our people are kicked out of our homes, off our land, and lose small businesses. Meanwhile private and public prisons benefit on our cheap labor to earn billions of dollars a year and media moguls make billions of dollars a year on the sexual degradation of our people and the glorification of violence in our communities. As a result of these and other racist policies and practices, the officialunemployment rate for New Afrikans in some states higher than 34% and the wealth gap between white and New Afrikan households has grown even wider in the wake of the mass scale thievery orchestrated by Wall Street. We will c ontinue to fight back against our economic oppression!
We will continue our struggle for collective self-determination, human rights, and reparations! We do not expect the powers that be to willingly change systems of exploitation that benefit the top 1% and are resolved to build our own alternatives.
We stand in solidarity with occupy wall street’s outcry for economic justice because it speaks to the realities of Afrikan people in the U.S. and around the world, and our members are in the streets, in solidarity, from New York to the S.F. Bay Area, Atlanta to Dallas and in D.C. and Philadelphia.
कोई टिप्पणी नहीं:
एक टिप्पणी भेजें