9-28-2001     

To Stop a Racist War Abroad We Must Fight Racism at Home!

All Out to Cincinnati, Ohio on October 23!
Join the New Civil Rights Movement!
 
Defend Affirmative Action & Integration!

 
The question of the direction of American society is now posed more starkly than it has been for a generation and a half.

War looms on the international arena. The US government is talking about a prolonged series of military operations stretching over many years. Bush and other officials have been talking about a "real war" in order to prepare the American public for thousands of American young people coming home dead.

At the same time, at home we are in the midst of a historic struggle in defense of the gains of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s - a struggle that will determine whether the nation moves forward toward greater integration and equality or backward toward greater segregation and injustice. Either way, every thinking person must understand that our society will not stay where it has been. In this new war context we will move either forward or backward.

To be most effective, the social struggles that have developed in response to these two historic domestic and foreign policy questions must be united. The new civil rights movement that has emerged in response to the attack on affirmative action in higher education must be linked with the emerging anti-war movement. The anti-war movement must take up the fight against racism in an energetic way, both opposing the shameful racist scapegoating and attacks on Arab-Americans, Muslims, Sikhs and others caused by the national-chauvinist war hysteria and by fighting against the fundamental racist inequality and segregation that still characterize our whole society. The political forces pushing for the broadest and bloodiest war policy are the same forces driving the attack on affirmative action and integration.

Victory in the pending affirmative action cases is imperative:

The immediate do-or-die battle of the new civil rights movement is the fight to defend affirmative action. Victory or defeat in this fight now means two very different futures for our society.

 On Tuesday, October 23, in Cincinnati, Ohio, arguments will be heard in the federal Sixth Circuit Court appeal of the two University of Michigan affirmative action cases. These cases are our generation's Brown v. Board of Education. It is imperative that we win these cases at the Appeals Court level. A defeat on October 23 will mean all colleges and universities throughout Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio and Michigan are immediately banned from using affirmative action. At stake is all we have achieved in the way of integration in higher education since the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. The anti-war movement must have its voice heard at this court date.

It is a glaring injustice and an untenable contradiction for this society to have an aggressive affirmative action policy for black and Latino people (and poor people of all races) to kill and die in the armed forces at the same time as opportunities in higher education and in the professions are being narrowed further and further. Effective opposition to the war must include standing against this injustice.

Link the Emerging Anti-War Movement with the New Civil Rights Movement:

The University of Michigan chapter of the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action and Integration and Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary (BAMN) played a leading role in initiating what has become the Coalition to Stop Scapegoating and the War. Our demonstration on Thursday (9.20) was shown and referred to in newspapers and on TV across the oceans in Asia, Europe and the Middle East. The National Day of Action Against Anti-Arab Scapegoating and to Stop the War on September 20 had 130 participating demonstrations in 36 states according to USAToday. This is a huge early success. We must build from here.

We need a mass antiracist, antiwar movement. We need a linked movement where democracy in the movement is a fundamental principle. This will be a protection against bureaucratic and careerist sell-out of the movement. All decisions at a local, regional and national level must be made democratically. We must have majority votes, and elected, accountable and recallable leaders.

The war has already and will for the next period embolden what is reactionary and racist in American society. There will be pressure for us to fold our struggles for justice under the hypocritical guise of "national unity." However, war makes people think and that increased velocity of thought is a key opportunity for the anti-war/anti-racist movement. Broad layers of American society are now confronted with questions of war, and of the corrupt role the U.S. government plays around the world and at home. The dreadful loss of innocent life in New York has simultaneously awakened a sense of compassion and dignity in people, a sense of the preciousness and fragility of human life, of our mutual dependence on each other. These awakened sensibilities can and must be turned into anti-racist and anti-war sentiment. We must teach our fellow Americans that we are all sisters and brothers no matter what skin color, no matter what religious background, no matter what country we were born in and no matter what country we live in.
 

National Green Arm Band Campaign The Green Arm Band Pledge: . I oppose scapegoating - I stand in solidarity with Arab, Muslim and Middle Eastern people. . I will speak out against scapegoating and offer to escort and come to the aid of any Arab, Muslim or Middle Eastern person facing racist harassment or attacks.

Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action & Integration and Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary (BAMN)