The fight for a National Plan of Action for Racial Justice
is not just a fight targeting the federal government. Nor is it a fight to just
create more government policies and institutions for monitoring rights abuses
with few resources and no real accountability measures. This fight is
ultimately a local fight, one that must be waged
and won on every block, neighborhood, city, county, and state.
The “national” component of the demand for a National Plan
of Action for Racial Justice is to ensure that no one state can opt out of
complying with the demands for racial justice. We want to make sure that there
is no recourse to “state’s rights”, which have been used for centuries to
reinforce white supremacy and apartheid, particularly in the south and the
southwest against Indigenous nations, New Afrikans and Xicanos.
The demand for a National Plan of Action for Racial Justice
is a demand for structural change at every level of government – city, county
(parish, borough, etc.), state, and federal. But, as already stated, it must
first be waged and won on a local level. This
battle starts with individuals and organizations adopting the demand for a
National Plan of Action for Racial Justice. Upon adoption, individuals and
organizations must then engage in mass outreach to educate more people about
the National Plan of Action framework and what it would enable. Following the
education work, the next step is to organize people to support a campaign of
struggle to win the demand. After you have established a base of organizers to
wage this campaign, the next step is to build strong local coalitions that are
prepared to engage in various self-defense activities and offensive campaign
initiatives that seek to transform the institutions and practices of local,
county, and state governments by having them adopt action plans for racial
justice.
Some of the initiatives of self-defense that are suggested
entail:
- · Organizing Cop or Police Watch forces that canvass communities and directly monitor police practice, document police harassment (i.e. racial profiling, stop and frisk, etc.) and abuse, and serve as deterrence against police terrorism, particularly in communities of oppressed peoples.
- · Organize Peoples Self-Defense Coalitions and Campaigns that seek to: a) educate communities to know their fundamental human rights and their basic civil rights as a means of providing protection against police and other forms of state terrorism (i.e. surveillance, entrapment, etc.), b) create legal coalitions and clinics to partner with Cop or Police Watch forces to fight cases of police terrorism, and c) serve as an organizing base to launch local legislative campaigns and initiatives.
- · Organize People’s Hearings or Tribunals to thoroughly document local incidences of police terrorism and state repression to continue to educate and inform local communities and to gather evidence that can be used to pursue legal remedies both domestically (in US courts) and internationally (through Inter-American Commission or the United Nations) the and to reinforce demands of various organizing campaigns.
Some of the offensive campaign initiatives suggested entail:
·
Campaign
for City, County, or State level
Plans of Action for Racial Justice that would entail:
o
The creation of comprehensive Police Control
Boards, that are elected by local communities and possess definitive authority
over the police, including the power to fire and take legal and other
corrective action against the police for violations of human rights.
o
Local control ordinances and legislation that
would specifically stop repressive policies like “stop and frisk”, racial
profiling, programs like secure communities or S COMM of Homeland Security[1],
and local law enforcement collaboration with Fusion Centers[2].
o
The creation of Human Rights Commissions that
would legally be empowered to ensure that local, state, and regional laws and
practices comply with international law and standards of protection for
oppressed peoples and groups (racialized communities, Indigenous peoples,
oppressed peoples and nations, immigrants, etc.).
o
The creation of Human Rights Charters for city, county,
and state governments that refashion the articles of incorporation and
constitutions that establish the legal framework for these entities to ensure
maximum protections for Indigenous and oppressed peoples residing in these
locales.
These are just a few ways in which the demand for a National
Plan of Action for Racial Justice can be and is relevant to local, statewide,
and regional struggles for social justice. The Malcolm X Grassroots Movement
(MXGM), Black Left Unity Network (BLUN), and the National Alliance for Racial
Justice and Human Rights (NARJHR) calls on every individual, organization,
coalition, alliance, or network that believes in racial justice and is fighting
to liberate oppressed peoples in this country to join us in the effort to fight
for a National Plan of Action for Racial Justice to ensure that there are NO
MORE TRAYVON MARTINS.
For more information on the No More Trayvon Martins Campaign
visit www.mxgm.org.
To sign the petition for a National Plan of Action for
Racial Justice visit http://mxgm.org/trayvon-martin-is-all-of-us/.
To endorse the campaign email kaliakuno@mxgm.org. To get
started on organizing on its behalf see the tasks outlined in our Appeal Letter
at http://mxgm.org/no-more-trayvon-martins-campaign-appeal/.
[1]
For more information on the Secure Communities program visit http://www.nnirr.org/~nnirrorg/drupal/End-S-COMM.
[2]
For more background on what Fusion Centers are visit http://www.aclu.org/technology-and-liberty/whats-wrong-fusion-centers-executive-summary.
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