We Will Not Comply

I was in Tucson on July 29, the day that SB1070 went into effect. The day before Federal District Court Judge Susan Bolted issued an injunction on portions of the bill, including the section requiring police officers to ask for papers from people with "reasonable suspicion" of being in the US without authorization. Another part of the bill that will target day laborers still went into effect. The injunction is a respite, but it doesn't return things to the status quo, which already polices migrant status on a daily basis. Nor can the injunction be seen as a victory. As National Day Laborer Organizing Network organizer Pablo Alvarado states: “A split decision only serves to split our communities. There is no partial solution to denials of our humanity. There is no partial solution to hatred.  If this is a step, it is another step toward increased encroachments on the human rights of the people of Arizona and a dangerous precedent for the country.”

For these reasons, people took the the streets in cities across the country.  A direct action in Phoenix shut down the Arpaio's jail for several hours, which prevented him from continuing to sweep neighborhoods checking migrant status.  In New York, people spanned the length of the Brooklyn Bridge and shut the bridge for two hours.  There were also direct actions in Los Angeles, and other gatherings in San Francisco, Austin, Atlanta, Chicago, Syracuse, and elsewhere. 

In Tucson, my day began with a march from the Southside Day Laborers Center to the demonstration gathered outside downtown's state and federal buildings.  Across town a group calling themselves Freedom for Arizona blockaded I-19 and dropped a banner.

I-19 blockade, Tucson

Like NDLON's Pablo Alvarado, they explained that they shut down the freeway because: "Partial justice is no justice at all! Despite Judge ruling to block parts of SB 1070, racial-profiling, raids, deportations and the militarization of the border will continue unchallenged."

We arrived downtown at around 10am to form a lively gathering of about 300 people.  We were also met with 50-60 counter-demonstrators who flew a lot of US flags and hurled a lot of invectives.  They left by 1130 and did not return. 

Throughout the day we received text updates about actions going on in the city and in Phoenix, and we were all happy to hear that Arpaio had to stop neighborhood sweeps because of the jail blockade.  The Brown Berets occupied A Mountain and hung a No to SB1070 across the top.  When we went up to see the action, one of the women told me that the police had kept the park closed for an extra hour that morning, so they hiked up the hill.  The police also tried to tell them they were defacing a federal monument, but the land is not federal, nor are there any restrictions on using the space or hanging banners. 

People remained gathered downtown in the heat all day.  Food Not Bombs showed up with food and there was a medic tent and plenty of water for folks to stay hydrated. 

More people joined the crowd so that by the late afternoon, we were 300-400 strong.  Sometime around 4pm, groups of three carrying three 20 foot long banners worked to close down the intersection with the help of most of the people gathered.  We kept the intersection closed for over two hours, and kept the energy high with chants, a bit of dance, marching, and observing the police. 

A street theater troupe staged an extended depiction of how free trade policies are the problem not migrants.  Enslaved workers, chained together with pieces of American flags, were led around the intersection being whipped by their boss.  As the workers tried to free their their hands in resistance, their boss continued to berate them, but they eventually broke free and chased away their boss. 

Well over an hour after the shutdown, the police issued an order to disperse.  Most people moved to the sidewalks, and the police directed their attention to the folks who intended to be arrested.  Squads of six riot police brought out each of the 13 people who were arrested. 

The solemnity of their resistance to unjust laws was broken by the arrival of the Critical Mass bicycle ride.  The rest of the crowd had not dispersed, and the police were visibly deflated by this new addition.  Cyclists rode through the lines of police and changed the dynamic of the demonstration, once again making it feel like these were our streets. (I'll publish more images as I process them.)

The 13 people who were arrested were held for a little over 2 hours and were released with misdemeanor charges.   This was apparently the largest number of people arrested in a civil disobedience action in the city's history.

For other coverage of the day, see Arizona Indymedia: http://arizona.indymedia.org/ and Jordan Flaherty's article in Truthout on Phoenix happenings.

Sin papeles

Sent by phone from somewhere

Southside day laborer March joins Congress Street demo, Tucson

Sent by phone from somewhere

SB1070 is not New

SB1070 is just the latest in a long process of criminalizing migration in Arizona and at the federal level. The injunction doesn't challenge the idea of "reasonable suspicion," a polite way of saying racial profiling. (Take a look at what "reasonable suspicion" looks like where I live.) The injunction doesn't challenge laws like SB1070, which empowered an already brazen Sheriff Joe Arpaio to detain thousands of migrants. Local law enforcement agencies have formal agreements with the feds in jurisdictions around the country. Nor does it challenge Secure Communities, a program that is even more sweeping in its ability to pinpoint migrants who are in police custody. I'll share more information about these programs in the coming days. For now, check out the timeline of these laws produced by ColorLines.

The Injunction Does Not End the Fight

I arrived in Tucson this evening after a day of following the border from Texas. I met people gathered for a demonstration and candle light vigil downtown and then returned to read news of an amazing banner drop in Phoenix for a day of actions tomorrow, including a workers' march, mass mobilizations at the state building at noon and four, and more I'm sure to find out about. I'll try to post news tomorrow, and catch up on some thoughts from the drive over, but for folks who aren't on facebook, check out some highly selective photos.

This injunction on sections of SB1070 does nothing to prevent the ongoing collaboration between local law enforcement and federal migration officials. Homeland Security policies, known as ICE ACCESS (such as 287g agreements that deputize local law enforcement as federal migration agents or Secure Communities that share data from local law enforcement to migration) are in effect in Arizona and throughout the US, and are not stopped by the injunction, in Arizona or elsewhere. Arizona shines a light on these practices, and it's showing the rejection of them here and throughout the country. Actions on July 29, whether marches or concerts or vigils or art projects, are planned to show solidarity and oppose the borders in their communities. More events are undoubetdly happening, so check in with your communities.

Thinking John Brown

One of the interesting things being at Harpers Ferry was hearing the words John Brown uttered so many times. Seeing the site where he planned to raid a federal armory was not the only reason people were coming to visit. The town sits on the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers, where the C & O Canal and railroad made it a transport center. It was also an important manufacturing site, including the guns with replaceable parts. Given this, not surprisingly there was a Civil War battle here where the Confederacy scored a win.

But what did we actually learn about John Brown? The wax museum's portrayal of a man who hated slavery from a young age, and whose eyes flashed with mad passion, was not that different from the National Park Service programming. The NPS provided more context, but this was not context that would help make palpable the conflict over slavery and dispute over strategies for change. The word abolitionist is used freely on site without any discussion of what that movement meant (much less its different strands), what John Brown meant to people in that movement, etc. While John Brown is portrayed as an uncompromising idealist, often a beloved trait, the depiction treats him more like a demigod than a person who connected with hundreds and thousands of others to create freedom.

Frederick Douglass, who had met with John Brown, found Brown far more significant than just an enigmatic idealist, but saw his raid as the first volley of the Civil War. In his speech delivered in Harpers Ferry in 1881, "Did John Brown Fail?", Douglass reminds us of the conflicts that were so left out of the programming:

With eighteen men this man shook the whole social fabric of
Virginia. With eighteen men he overpowered a town of nearly
three thousand souls. With these eighteen men he held that large
community firmly in his grasp for thirty long hours. With these
eighteen men he rallied in a single night fifty slaves to his stan-
dard, and made prisoners of an equal number of the slave-hold-
ing class. With these eighteen men he defied the power and
bravery of a dozen of the best militia companies that Virginia
could send against him. Now, when slavery struck, as it certain-
ly did strike, at the life of the country, it was not the fault of
John Brown that our rulers did not at first know how to deal
with it. He had already shown us the weak side of the rebellion,
had shown us where to strike and how. It was not from lack of
native courage that Virginia submitted for thirty long hours and at
last was relieved only by Federal troops ; but because the attack was
made on the side of her conscience and thus armed her against
herself. She beheld at her side the sullen brow of a black Ire-
land. When John Brown proclaimed emancipation to the slaves
of Maryland and Virginia he added to his war power the force of
a moral earthquake.

There is a lot more in the essay, but in taking up the debate over John Brown's legacy, he was of course talking about how to go about ridding oppression. The concluding line:

Until this blow was struck, the prospect for freedom was
dim, shadowy and uncertain. The irrepressible conflict was one
of words, votes and compromises. When John Brown stretched
forth his arm the sky was cleared. The time for compromises was
gone — the armed hosts of freedom stood face to face over the
chasm of a broken Union — and the clash of arms was at hand.
The South staked all upon getting possession of the Federal Gov-
ernment, and failing to do that, drew the sword of rebellion and
thus made her own, and not Brown's, the lost cause of the cen-
tury.

My Library

I packed a small library for the road, listed in no order:

Raider Nation, volume 1: on Oscar Grant’s murder and organizing for justice
Terry Bisson’s novel Fire on the Mountain
W. E. B. Du Bois, John Brown
Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience
Angela Davis, Are Prisons Obsolete?
Timothy Dunn, The Militarization of the US-Mexico Border 1978-1992: Low-Intensity Conflict Doctrine Comes Home
Juan Gonzalez, Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America
Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
Haruki Murakami, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
Fergus Bordewich, Bound for Canaan
Leonard Richards, The California Gold Rush and Coming Civil War
Some other articles and stuff

And the best find so far is Du Bois' The Suppression of the African Slave-Trade to the United States of America, 1863-1870. I found the book, which was his doctoral dissertation, in Harpers Ferry. DuBois, as part of the Niagara Movement, held a conference at Storer College in 1906.

Where is the Border?

i can't get arizona off the brain, so i'm driving down. i'm leaving from brooklyn today and arriving in tucson next wednesday, july 28. while i'm there i'll be working with no more deaths on their organizing and documentation projects, and visiting with other arizona friends & organizers.

what's going on? on july 29, arizona is set to implement sb1070, a law that would require state employees to stop and arrest people suspected of not having proper migration papers. arizona is being portrayed as unique, but its laws are the culmination of local police-federal collaboration policies that are already being enforced nationwide. at least 11 states around the country are also considering implementing policies like sb1070, and president obama is deploying national guard troops to the border on august 1.

today a department of justice lawsuit calling for an injunction on sb1070 will be heard, so we're not sure what's going to happen, but people in arizona and elsewhere have been doing some remarkable organizing against criminalization. i want to learn from and contribute to their efforts.

how do i as a brooklyn dweller respond to calls for solidarity from arizona? the road trip to and from arizona will give me a chance to think through finding the border. having lived in upstate new york, i know that "the border" is not just the us boundary with mexico, but it's also a boundary with neighboring canada and first nations territories. and the border is also wherever people have their documents checked.

so what does it mean to travel from one border state to another? what does new york's history have to do with arizona's history? i'll be stopping at places that were important in the abolitionist movement against slavery. some of these involve finding the mason-dixon line and others are about trying to locate the shifting boundary with mexico. boundaries and freedom were and are tied up with one another. what were the routes to and spaces of freedom created through the underground railroad? what does the history of abolition and maronage mean for resistance to unjust laws look today?

there are protest and solidarity actions planned around the country on july 29, so keep an eye out for ways to get involved in where you are.