One year into the pandemic, we mourn and honor the many lives lost to state negligence and state violence, as well as renew our commitment to fighting for dignity and human rights of the most marginalized in our communities here and abroad. On Monday, the NLG-SFBA provided legal support to over 100 community members gathered in Mountain View, CA to demand that Moffett Field Nasa Facilities not be converted into cages for children. That same day, despite Biden’s promise of a 100-day moratorium on deportations, ICE and Biden deported 33 Vietnamese refugees on Monday evening. This is following hundreds of Black migrants from the Caribbean already deported. In the wake of the ongoing deportation of and cruelty against immigrants, including anti-Asian racism and interpersonal violence against Asian elders in the Bay Area, we are reminded that the ending to the explicit racist Trump administration is not a shift in deep seated xenophobia, racism, hypocrisy and violence of the US government or population. While removing the Trump administration was important in so many ways including a shift in national response to the ongoing COVID crisis, much of this country's deeply rooted structural violence does not shift from administration to administration. This is particularly true of economic and immigration policies and the US international military, resource extraction and exploited labor role. Towards protecting these interests, the US interferes everywhere. In Haiti, over the last month, hundreds of thousands of Haitians have put their lives on the line to demand an end to the dictatorship of Jovenel Moise. The popular movement is calling for a transition government, a government of public safety (Sali Piblik) that promotes the security and welfare of the Haitian people, that ends the repression against popular organizations, and that moves the country peacefully towards genuine free and fair elections. (See below for Haiti Action’s solidarity statement signed onto by the NLG-SFBA.) In light of these struggles that are intertwined and interconnected, we will be hosting a multi-part CLE series on the Root Causes of Forced Migration, tying in our work from our Immigration Justice, International, Environmental Justice, and Right to Shelter committees. We are also excited to announce that we are relaunching our International Solidarity Committee. This relaunch is part of our ongoing commitment to supporting frontline communities’ struggles within the United States and beyond our borders. We want to contribute to a return to an anti-imperialist, international solidarity framework; this is as true for our work with domestic issues as it is for international solidarity with struggle elsewhere around the globe. (For any questions regarding the work of the International Committee, please contact intlsolidarity@nlgsf.org) As we continue supporting ongoing struggles for liberation near and far, we also turn our attention towards addressing internal dynamics of power within the Guild. Our March Membership meeting on 3/31 from 6-8PM will be a follow up to our two Aorta trainings from February, diving deeper into internal dynamics and interrupting dynamics in live time. As an organization, we ask ourselves: What gets in the way of us interrupting harmful dynamics, and what support do we need to do so? What can we do as an organization to make this a collective practice and expectation? (Please continue to follow this newsletter for updates to register for our March Membership Meeting.) —The NLG-SF Bay Area Team |
