Posted by raleighfist on May 9, 2008
By Linda Gomaa
Chapel Hill, N.C.
Gomaa is a member of Student Action with Workers at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and the Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill chapter of the youth group FIST. She has been an active participant in sit-ins against sweatshops at UNC. The following is Gomaa’s report of the arrest of students, in which she was singled out by police after making a press statement.
Five University of North Carolina students have been arrested after 16 days of peacefully occupying the office of UNC Chancellor James Moeser.
Students from Student Action with Workers and the Carolina Sweatfree Coalition began the sit-in because the chancellor had been refusing, for three years, to meet with us as well as his own labor licensing committee to discuss UNC’s ineffective labor codes. These codes still allow UNC apparel to be made under sweatshop conditions, including poverty wages and no freedom of association. Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted by raleighfist on April 29, 2008
Join FIST to Protest Bank of America in Chapel Hill
Friday, May 9th, 12 noon, 137 E. Franklin St.
FIST Youth Fight Back Against the Banks!
Moratorium on Foreclosures and Evictions, Now!
Bail Out the People Not the Banks!
Jobs for Youth, Not Jail!
FIST members picketing in Washington DC in front of Mortgage Bankers Association
to protest Foreclosures and Evictions Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in General, Imperialism, White Supremacy | No Comments »
Posted by raleighfist on April 22, 2008
By Linda Gomaa, Chapel Hill, NC
Several students and workers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill are entering the sixth day of a sit-in in Chancellor James Moeser’s lobby, the longest sit-in at UNC since 1993. About 25 students and workers entered the administration building on Thursday, April 17th and have been occupying it ever since. These students and workers are affiliated with Student Action with Workers (SAW), a UNC group affiliated with United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS) international, as well as several other campus groups that are part of the Sweatfree Coalition and community-based youth group, Fight Imperialism-Stand Together (FIST).
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Blogroll, General, Imperialism, Labor | 1 Comment »
Posted by raleighfist on April 18, 2008
Posted in Labor | No Comments »
Posted by raleighfist on April 17, 2008
By Tyneisha, Miya and Rhapsody Scintilla
Members of New York and Boston FIST
The following is a commentary from three members of the youth group Fight Imperialism, Stand Together (FIST) on the eve of the April 19 march and rally in Philadelphia to demand the freedom of Mumia Abu-Jamal.
here is a man in the state of Pennsylvania who has a street in France named after him. That man is Mumia Abu-Jamal, a journalist and ex-member of the Black Panther Party—an organization classified as “terrorist” by the U.S. government. A former Black Panther, Mumia is now in his 26th year on Pennsylvania’s death row.
Mumia is a hero to Black youth and all people seeking liberation. The “voice of the voiceless,” he chronicles the legacies of people’s struggles worldwide. One of the greatest threats to U.S. imperialism is the uprising of “young Mumias” from the streets of Philadelphia to the streets of Paris. Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted by raleighfist on April 14, 2008
By Monica Moorehead
Raleigh, N.C.
The 25th annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Support for Labor banquet, sponsored by Black Workers For Justice, took place on April 5 at the North Carolina Association of Educators building in Raleigh, N.C. The theme of this year’s program was “We Charge Genocide! Stand Up, Organize & Resist!”
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Fruit of Labor singers.
WW photos: Monica Moorehead
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The impetus for the theme comes from a movement that began in 1951, when African-American activists William Patterson, Paul Robeson and others collaborated on a document called “We Charge Genocide, The Historic Petition to the United Nations for Relief from a Crime of the United States Government Against the Negro People.” It chronicled the countless lynchings of Black people that had gone unpunished since the end of the Civil War.
This historic document could easily be applied today, with continuing racist repression of Black people embodied by the public housing crisis for Katrina survivors, the Jena Six, police brutality, incarceration and much more. Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted by raleighfist on March 31, 2008
By Larkin Coffey and Zac Morgan
The 5th anniversary of the war in Iraq did not pass quietly in Raleigh. On March 20th, students from Enloe, Broughton, Southeast Raleigh, and Cary High walked out of school to demand an end to the war in Iraq. Building on the walkout demonstrations of 2007, student organizers from all over the country worked hard to ensure success this year. In Raleigh, over 150 students picketed and chanted on the sidewalk along Hillsborough Street, near the NC State bell tower.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Counter-Recruitment, General, Imperialism | 1 Comment »
Posted by raleighfist on March 31, 2008
Posted by raleighfist on March 31, 2008
By LeiLani Dowell
FIST in New York City
Now that a Black presidential candidate has a real chance of winning the Democratic nomination and even the presidency, we’re once again asked not to talk about oppression. We’re supposed to reject the teachings of, for instance, Malcolm X, and even Martin Luther King Jr. We’re supposed to deny what, for so many poor and oppressed peoples in the United States and throughout the world, is a clear-cut reality. We’re not supposed to be angry—and we’re definitely not supposed to speak up and fight back.
Such is the case in the media-bashing of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, former spiritual mentor of presidential candidate Barack Obama.
In a media flooded with racist, sexist and anti-LGBT images and voices, the words of a Black man calling the U.S. on its violence and oppression are labeled “hate speech.” Obama’s opponent for the Democratic nomination, Hillary Rodham Clinton, went so far as to put Wright on a par with Don Imus—who is back on the air even after his racist, sexist rants made international headlines.
The attack on the Rev. Wright is nothing less than nationalist baiting and anti-patriot baiting. It is being used not only to undermine Obama’s campaign, but particularly in an attempt to defeat the Black struggle.
The media, as they will often do when attempting to defile someone’s character, have reduced Wright’s comments to mere snippets and sound bites of supposedly inexplicable outbursts against the U.S. Even in that limited context, it is hard to find fault in his words.
For instance, the idea that HIV was created to target people of color (and LGBT people) is not new, and understandable given the overall government attack on those communities. Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted by raleighfist on March 18, 2008
By Dante Strobino
Cleveland, N.C.
A March 4 community event here for the Freightliner 5—members of United Auto Workers Local 3520 who were fired after leading a strike—highlighted support the five are getting from other militant unionists in the South.
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Ken Riley, President of ILA
Local 1422, gives encouragement
at Freightliner 5 meeting.
FIST photo: Dante Strobino
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After the workers refused to accept the company’s concessionary contract and initiated a strike on April 3, 2007, Freightliner bosses fired five members of Local 3520’s bargaining committee—Robert Whiteside, Allen Bradley, Franklin Torrence, Glenna Swinford and David Crisco—along with six other workers.
The contract had 22 articles with no tentative agreement and 86 unsettled sub-issues relating to health and safety. Among the concessions was a two-tier wage structure, which pays newer workers far less than their seniors.
The other six got their jobs back after signing “model employee” agreements; one was subsequently terminated.
Kenneth Riley, a dockworker and president of International Longshoremen’s Association Local 1422, gave encouragement to the 50-plus Freightliner workers at the meeting. Local 1422 is home of the Charleston 5—workers who were put under house arrest in 2000 for leading a picket in Charleston, S.C. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Labor, White Supremacy | 1 Comment »
