Ivette Ale and Dahlia Ferlito talk with Erin Heaney, director of Showing Up for Racial justice, about the history of white people taking anti-racist action in multiracial coalitions for collective liberation. This is a collaboration between Small Beans and Showing Up for Racial Justice, produced by White People 4 Black Lives.
Listen: Erin Heaney talks multiracial solidarity on the BOLD podcast Read More »
One year later, we’re still asking ourselves, “How did January 6th happen? And what can we do to stop this kind of thing from happening again?”
We know that the majority of actors in the insurrection were white and were motivated by a white nationalist and far-Right agenda And these groups are continuing to recruit and build in white communities. Looking towards the 2022 midterm elections and beyond, for those of us who are white, it’s our responsibility to be offering white people a better alternative.
In this webinar, join Showing Up for Racial Justice to hear about how we organize to stop the rise of white supremacist violence and build political power for justice- and how you can join in the work in your community.
Featured panelists:
Organizing White People to Stop Another Jan 6th Read More »
Beth Howard, Rural Kentucky Campaign Director at SURJ, came up with the slogan “Rednecks for Black Lives.”. She recently shared her story with Soledad O’Brien on Matter of Fact: Promises of Change Listening Tour, where she challenges her fellow rednecks and hillbillies to stand up in defense of Black lives.
Click here to watch the interview on Matter of Fact.
Beth Howard’s interview on Matter of Fact appears alongside John Legend, Dolores Huerta, Bree Newsome, and others. View the full Promises of Change Listening Tour collection here.
‘Rednecks for Black Lives’ Urges White Folks to Fight for Racial Justice Read More »
by Ray Levy Uyeda, Yes! Magazine
A Grassroots Culture Shift for Reparations
Until federal reparations are actualized, grassroots organizations across the country are heeding the call to right these wrongs.
“I felt, if I’m going to wait for the government to get on board with reparations, then how long am I going to be waiting?” says Sue Downing, who pays monthly reparations to individuals in her community in western Massachusetts as well as to her local chapter of the national organization Showing Up for Racial Justice.
When the chapter first started in 2014, organizer Kelly Silliman says, the group was focused on generalized work, such as showing up in solidarity to a protest or knocking on doors to educate white folks about white privilege. The chapter began educating its members on the importance of reparations and encouraged individuals to commit to monthly payments to three local BIPOC-led groups. The chapter’s accountability partners—a SURJ term for people of color, in this case Black, who volunteer to quite literally hold members accountable to their mission and goals—recommended that the organizers narrow their focus. With that in mind, the chapter committed to paying reparations to two Black queer and transgender organizers who had previously experienced racialized housing insecurity.
Read the rest of the article on Yes! Magazine’s website here.
When Reparations Grow From the Grassroots Read More »
You’re going to hear a lot of hot takes about January 6th today. About the Capitol police officers, about the select House committee investigating the attacks and saving our democracy, and about the “wild Trumpers” who went to Washington and stormed the Capitol that day. I’ve been watching the news cycle obsess over the motivations of participants, highlighting the conspiracy theories and radical beliefs that led them to show up. And I’ve been watching- and at times joining in myself- white progressive circles rolling our eyes at their beliefs, distancing ourselves from their racism, and yet uneasily wringing our hands under the table because we know deep down that our hot takes, cynicism, and distancing aren’t going to change much.
The truth is January 6th was one expression of the organizing white nationalist and other far-Right groups are doing every single day to build real political power. Despite all the hot takes today that will continue to pontificate about “how this could’ve happened,” the reality is that this event was not an anomaly, and those who participated are people who have been organized – very intentionally by a well-funded infrastructure – into the positions they hold and the actions they take. As white progressives, we need to commit to out-organizing the Right in our communities.
There are millions of white people who could go either way- who are conflicted or vulnerable to the messages of the Right, who are being bombarded day in and day out with messages on TV, radio and social media, whose doors are being knocked on and who are hearing racist messages when they go to church. We have to fight for them as hard as the Right is.
And there are millions of white people who are already with us – we just haven’t engaged them yet. There are 65 million poor white people in this country who have everything to gain by fighting for justice alongside communities of color. Many of them know who their real enemies are – the bosses, the crooked politicians and billionaires. But we have to organize these folks to join us in the fight.
We don’t need to be organizing all white people, but we do need more than we’ve got now. And we must make sure more white people are not radicalized by the groups and personalities that executed January 6th.
As we witness all levels of government across this country backsliding towards authoritarianism, we know there are dire consequences if we don’t act- especially for communities of color who bear the brunt of the Right’s racist policies and violence. But there’s a cost to white folks, too. Racism is strategically used to keep us divided against our neighbors of color- to make white people blame people of color for their suffering rather than those at the top. When we fight alongside communities of color, we can win things all our communities need- better healthcare and education, just wages, real investment in our communities.
I’ve been organizing white people for the past six years. I was on the ground in Charlottesville on August 12th, have mobilized white communities through multiple uprisings, and have knocked thousands of doors in white neighborhoods across the country. I have seen first hand that when we go talk to people, many come along with us. I know that our solution can’t be to distance ourselves from other white people or to absolve ourselves from engaging with our own. We have to get to work to bring along our people. White people were organized into these beliefs, and at least some of them can be organized away from them towards a racially just future.
Imagine if millions of white people rejected white supremacy and instead joined in multiracial coalitions across the country. We would out-organize the January 6th-ers and build towards a more vibrant future for everyone.
White people: this is our work- finding our people and giving them a better offer than white supremacy.
White People’s Work in Preventing Another Jan 6th Read More »
The Indigenous Solidarity Network, Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ), and Catalyst Project are in full solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en Nation in their struggle to protect their lands, territories and rights of their communities. The Coastal GasLink (CGL) pipeline company, backed by the brutality of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), is attempting to push through a 670-kilometer fracked gas pipeline despite unanimous opposition under ‘Anuc niwh’it’en (Wet’suwet’en law) by all five clans of the Wet’suwet’en. This is Canadian colonial violence and this form of State-sanctioned militarized violence is happening to Indigenous peoples around the world.
This proposed pipeline would carry fracked gas from northeast ‘British Columbia’ to a future liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal on the coast, the largest of its kind ever proposed in Canada. For over a decade, the Wet’suwet’en Nation has asserted their sovereignty to stop fossil fuel companies from trespassing on unceded lands—Canada has no treaties with their Nation and no claim to any jurisdiction over their lands. In September 2021, Coastal GasLink bulldozed an ancient Wet’suwet’en village site despite consistent resistance and legal requirements, and in November, during a two-day siege, the RCMP escorted Coastal GasLink with full military force, arresting 32 land defenders and violently removing Wet’suwet’en people from their own lands. This included the arrest of Gidimt’en Checkpoint spokesperson Sleydo’; Dinï ze’ Woos’ daughter Jocelyn Alec; Sleydo’s partner Cody Merriman (Haida nation); and 2 journalists. In November 2020, Sleydo’ spoke at a webinar hosted by our organizations, while this year during that same annual webinar, Sleydo’ was locked in jail for defending her peoples’ lands.
Take Action.
As organizations primarily based south of the imposed colonial US-Canadian border, which bring white people into fights for racial and economic justice, it is essential we support the Wet’suwet’en in this struggle. This pipeline and colonial violence is funded by many US-based banks. We call for our members and networks to answer the recent Gidimt’en Checkpoint Call to Action which asks people to come to Camp, host a solidarity action, issue a solidarity statement from your organization or group, pressure the government, banks, and investors, and donate. We also encourage people to support the International Week of Action to Defund Coastal GasLink starting December 20, more info can be found in the toolkit, including templates for social media & emails and an action map.
Police are a force of colonialism & racism.
This struggle exposes that police in ‘Canada,’ just as in the ‘US’ are a force of colonialism and racism that work in the interests of massive corporations. The same is true in the struggle to #StopLine3 where police in Minnesota were paid over $2 million USD by Enbridge, a Canadian-based energy company, to target water protectors. Money is allocated to police to repress and arrest Indigenous peoples who are on the frontlines fighting against the climate crisis.
Additionally, extractive projects on Indigenous territories lead to an increase in murdered & missing Indigenous women, girls and two-spirit people, #MMIWG2S as a result of transient man camps for pipeline workers. Preventing pipelines means defending Indigenous women, girls and two-spirit people.
Indigenous sovereignty is the solution to the climate crisis.
Colonialism is a root cause of climate change, and Indigenous rights and sovereignty are the solutions to the climate crisis. The Coastal Gas Link project represents the expansion of the fossil fuel economy and the continued colonization of Indigenous lands. Climate justice demands that these projects stop and that Indigenous sovereignty is respected. A recent report from Indigenous Environmental Network and Oil Change International found that “Indigenous resistance has stopped or delayed greenhouse gas pollution equivalent to at least one-quarter of annual U.S. and Canadian emissions.” It is clear that Indigenous peoples, their rights, their laws and ways of knowing and being offer best practices to sustainably manage land in direct relationship with the natural world. These practices have proven successful for millennia as demonstrated by the fact that 80% of the world’s biodiversity remains in Indigenous lands and territories.
It is imperative to build stronger support with each other across colonial borders. It is in our collective mutual interest to support the Wet’suwet’en. No matter where we are, we are connected by our commitments.
We are in full solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en. We support the sovereignty of all Indigenous nations. We encourage our networks to actively support this and other Indigenous-led movements. Respond to the Call to Action where you are, from disrupting business as usual, to divesting from banks funding the theft of Indigenous lands, there are actions we can all take to be in solidarity and to prevent catastrophic climate change.
Towards the decolonized world we all need,
Indigenous Solidarity Network – Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ) – Catalyst Project
More information and developing stories:
Website: yintahaccess.com / IG: @yintah_access / Twitter: @Gidimten / Facebook: @wetsuwetenstrong / Youtube: Gidimten Access Point / TikTok: GidimtenCheckpoint
#WetsuwetenStrong #AllOutForWedzinKwa #ShutDownCanada #DefundCoastalGasLink
Solidarity With the Wet’suwet’en Struggle & Gidimt’en Checkpoint Read More »
In March of 2020, Yes on Measure R (ReformLA) in Los Angeles won in a landslide and has put into motion the largest reallocation of dollars out of criminalization and into community based alternatives in US history. The coalition was led by Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors and other people of color-led organizations that have been leading the fight against mass incarceration for decades in Los Angeles.
SURJ’s Los Angeles affiliate, White People for Black Lives worked tirelessly to ensure white voters voted for the ballot measure. This piece of the strategy was critically important because of the outsized power and influence white voters have in the county. While non-Latinx white people only make up 27% of the County’s population, they are 55% of registered voters.
SURJ’s contribution to the campaign was talking to white people who didn’t already support the Measure or who we knew were conflicted about closing jails. We used deep canvassing on thousands of doors and had extended, vulnerable conversations on the doors with white voters — and we changed their minds. We mobilized over 600 volunteers to knock over 30,000 doors and had 10,000 conversations with voters. White silence is one of the greatest barriers to winning a racial justice agenda – and so we worked hard to get more white people into action in this critical fight.
Defeating a Plan for a Jail in Los Angeles Read More »
On this webinar we hear from Krystal Two Bulls (NDN Collective, LANDBACK Campaign), Jean-Luc Pierite (North American Indian Center of Boston), Khury Petersen-Smith, Mea Johnson (Indigenous Environmental Network, North American Indian Center of Boston), Annie Banks, Julia Tasuil, Kazi Toure and Jaan Laaman (Jericho Movement) about Indigenous-led frontline movements to resist violence and colonization fueled by the current extractive economic system and gather ways to further and deepen solidarity with Indigenous resistance.
This webinar is an invitation to interrogate so-called thanksgiving, and move beyond the myths of USA history with Indigenous People on Turtle Island. From tar sands pipelines across Turtle Island to Arctic oil and gas drilling, Indigenous campaigns of resistance continue to lead the way in protecting future generations against the destruction of sacred lands and waterways.
Rethinking Thanksgiving: Solidarity with Indigenous Resistance Read More »
By Roberto Roldan, WFPL Louisville
Workers at the jail in downtown Louisville are speaking out about what they see as a growing crisis. They say the jail is overcrowded, understaffed and its infrastructure — like computers, elevators and cell door locks — is in disrepair.
The Metro Corrections union has described the current conditions as “a dumpster fire,” and a majority of its members recently declared they have no confidence in jail leadership.
Advocates who have been pushing for years to limit or eliminate the use of cash bail see themselves as uniquely positioned to help address the jail’s capacity issues. And they say their proposal seems to be gaining traction in light of the crisis.
Every month, members of the local activist group Showing Up For Racial Justice (SURJ) knock on doors in mostly white, working-class communities to organize support for issues that disproportionately affect their Black neighbors.
They’ve focused in recent years on criminal justice reform and more specifically the issue of cash bail.
Bill Allison and his wife Pat spent a recent Saturday morning speaking with residents living along Shingo Avenue in Louisville’s South End. Bill, a local attorney who has worked with the ACLU of Kentucky, usually starts by explaining what cash bail is.
“If somebody gets arrested, the judges say, ‘You have to post money to get out of jail,’ even before their trial,” he explains to a woman and her elderly mother, both immigrants from Albania.
“A lot of people — poor people, working-class people — cannot post this bond.”
Oftentimes, though, Bill doesn’t have to explain anything. He said many of the people he meets know what being arrested is like, or they have a family member who’s been to jail.
Those people are eager to sign postcards in support of ending cash bail. The SURJ organizers then send those notes to local judges, who have wide discretion when setting bail.
“When you can talk to people at home, most times they’ll sign the postcard,” Bill said.
In fact, SURJ has a 78% success rate when it comes to gathering signatures. Democrats and Republicans alike sign it. In three years, the group’s members have knocked on 3,000 doors and had more than 700 conversations about cash bail.
With the Louisville jail in crisis, advocates are pushing harder for bail reform Read More »
By Adrian Florido, NPR
Adrian Florido: Police and vigilantes, says Erin Heaney (National Director for SURJ), respond less aggressively when there are white people in a crowd. The fact that Rittenhouse was acquitted despite his victims being white, she says, drives home the threat that nonwhite protesters face if the verdict emboldens more vigilante violence.
Erin Heaney: It reaffirms the need for those of us who are white to be putting our bodies on the line and also, you know, doing the long haul organizing.
Adrian Florido: She says many of the white people her group organizes are new to racial justice work. And though many are shaken by Friday’s news…
Erin Heaney: One thing we are seeing is that, like, many, many new people are finding our organization and, you know, signing up saying, I want to do something – really just, like, in the last couple days. So I think there is a risk that people are going to be more scared. But I also think that the news also is moving more people into wanting to fight for racial justice.
After Rittenhouse verdict, activists fear for their safety at future demonstrations Read More »
