We know this. People are tired of saying this. Even more terrified of living it.

Just goes to show..."Go to school and get your education!" doesn't change our being black, being oppressed, and being discriminated and terrorized.

Respectability be damned.

Sometimes her bruise needs a day or two to heal up.

Sometimes she's an introvert that hasn't recharged in MONTHS!!

Be patient, be loving, be a village!!

-Toni Morrison

Under cispatriarchy, naming a fact as simple as "I am hurt," becomes weaponized as if we are the ones with malevolent intent. This cycle of punishing women and femmes for speaking out continues because we so often participate in one another's oppression. Men and masculine people are too lazy to do the labor of patriarchy so they expect us to do it for them by silencing one another.

No longer! Shout to all of the women and femmes who are out here speaking truth to power and claiming space and being called ungrateful because of it! Your rage is beautiful, necessary, immediate, and transformative. Your rage is ancestral, healing, and a site of profound knowledge. Your rage is what has and continues to propel any actual movement for social justice. Thank you <3

Contrary to popular opinion, the rise of Nelson Mandela and the ANC to the seat of government did not represent political freedom for the Black majority but a new stage of the struggle that emphasizes “Economic Freedom in Our Lifetime.” In the late 1980s, the ANC began secret meetings with the racist apartheid government that culminated in the land and economy still under the control of the white settler class. Today, even movement leaders like Winnie Mandela and Ronnie Kasrils acknowledge this “negotiated settlement” for what it was: A SELLOUT!!

We, as Black people in the United States, understand the negative impact of sellout leadership to a real people’s movement. Many members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) co-sponsored and voted for the 100:1 crack-cocaine and “three strikes and you’re out” legislation that facilitated the expansion of the prison industrial complex. Our own leadership accepts the neoliberal policies of the Democratic party that produced a student debt bubble of $1.3 trillion. This student loan debt is disproportionately borne by Black students. We have seen as the stun grenades were used by the ANC government against student protestors. In the US, 80% of CBC members voted to preserve a program that distributes military equipment to local police departments. This same military firepower was used on us when we protested in Ferguson.

In the tradition of Marcus Garvey, Queen Mother Moore, Kwame Ture, Assata Shakur, and many other great Pan Africanists, we are in solidarity with our brothers and sisters in the #FeesMustFall movement for free education. Our struggle for Black liberation and self-determination in both of these European settler states are one.

#FeesMustFall
#NeocolonialismMustFall
#BlackLivesMatter
Amandla (Power!!)
Black Power!!

Jennifer BryantNino X BrownToussaint LosierGarrett Carter F. HarrisMlungisi RapolileEugene PuryearNetfa FreemanAlhaji ContehAndile MngxiBrian KwobaSean A. BlackmonAjamu BarakaEric DraitserDanny PforteBruce A. DixonYejide OrunmilaAnthony MonteiroAnthony RatcliffLatif TarikJulius UMmeli Ka-mdluliEff university of LimpopoEconomic Freedom FightersEFFSC University of Pretoria BranchDiallo KenyattaAjamu NangwayaSonja WoodsMjiba FrehiwotUCT: Rhodes Must FallMoipone MogodiBanbose ShangoKali AkunoBrandon KingGlen FordZukiswa Bolani-ButheleziSukant ChandanLaurie Kwame RichardsonDayvon LoveAdam J. JacksonNicholas BradyGeorge Ciccariello-MaherNtombi Mzimela-NkiwaneSindile DlaminiJustin HansfordFor HarrietL. Eljeer HawkinsAshton RomeAshley AkunnaLatif TarikZoliswa NgindoIrvin jim

Together, we’re organized to demand that our lives, our communities and our futures be made a priority. The police chiefs who belong to the IACP, and their local departments have a debt to pay for the lives and the resources they’ve stolen and we’re here to collect.

From Chicago to Oakland, New Orleans to New York City, Black people live under police occupation everyday. Black folks who are poor, women, formerly incarcerated, working class, LGBTQ and gender non-conforming, differently abled, and/or undocumented are particularly vulnerable to police violence and hyper-surveillance. As a people living in Black bodies, state-sanctioned violence is always a clear and present danger. This must end.

Among the many measures we believe are needed:

We demand all local, state and federal budgets to defund the police and invest those dollars and resources in Black futures.
We want reparations for chattel slavery, Jim Crow and mass incarceration.
We want to end all profit from so-called “criminal justice” punishment – both public and private.
We want a guaranteed income for all, living wages, a federal jobs program, and freedom from discrimination for all workers.
We want the labor of Black transgender and cisgender women (unseen and seen, unpaid and paid) to be valued and supported, not criminalized and marginalized.
We want investments in Black communities that promote economic sustainability and eliminate the displacement of our people.
The global nature of the IACP conference is not lost on us. We know that American police officers train with defense agents occupying other lands where Black Palestinians and African migrants experience double oppression. State violence is connected not just from local police station to police station, but also globally among various occupying forces.

Black people deserve to live with human dignity. We are building a movement rooted in people who understand why we must fight. We are constantly at risk of experiencing anti-Black violence by state and its accomplices.

Today, we are putting ourselves at risk to take power over our futures because we know that our liberation will not be handed to us, we have to build it ourselves.

With Power and Love,

BYP100, Assata’s Daughters, We Charge Genocide and OCAD