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Workers’ Rally Says Mass Action Needed to Fight White Supremacy

Photo credit: Fernando Lopez
By Jennifer Lin

On Sunday, August 11, Take ‘Em Down Nola hosted a “Rally to Unite and Fight Back Against White Supremacy” in response to recent white supremacist attacks waged by ICE and the El Paso, TX shooter. Several hundred people gathered in front of Jackson Square to hear community members speak, including representatives from the New Orleans People’s Assembly, New Orleans Workers Group, the Hospitality Workers Alliance, Congreso de Jornaleros/Congress of Day Laborers, New Orleans Renters Union, and the American Federation of Government Employees.

The ICE raids in Mississippi and the massacre in El Paso are violent expressions of the white supremacist ideology that the U.S. was founded upon. From the genocide of indigenous peoples and the enslavement of Africans to the for-profit imprisonment of immigrants and people of color, racial hatred continues to be a tool used by the rich, mostly white ruling class to keep workers and oppressed people divided. When the people are divided, they cannot effectively challenge the institutions that oppress them.

Ashlee Pintos, a member of the Hospitality Workers Alliance and the New Orleans Workers Group, spoke to the importance of showing solidarity for migrant workers who are at risk of being deported the moment they step foot on U.S. soil: “We have to build up our communities so that we can actually protect our community members.” Her words were echoed by Yolanda, a member of Congreso, who denounced the El Paso shooter for claiming that America was being threatened by the “Hispanic invasion.” She called the ICE raids the “true invasion,’’ emphasizing the need for solidarity with migrant workers.

Jessie, a resident of Gordon Plaza, warned the crowd of the extent to which white supremacy has been internalized and institutionalized in New Orleans. Speaking of Mayor Cantrell, who had refused to acknowledge the residents of Gordon Plaza until recently, he said, “The white supremacists control the Black puppets…If we had been white, we would have been relocated.” The residents of Gordon Plaza have been fighting for over 30 years to be relocated off of a toxic landfill. The city has always had more than enough money to provide the residents with a fully funded relocation; however, 63% of the city budget continues to be allocated towards jails and the police, who uphold white supremacy and capitalism.

White workers must also organize to educate one another and dispel the propaganda that continues to fuel racism in the U.S. As Gregory, a member of the New Orleans Workers Group put it, “We have to build a movement that can bring white workers into the struggle as well, along with workers of color, who are sick and tired of this brutal system, who are sick and tired of being murdered in the streets by crooked, racist cops…We have to stand united.”

Our political power lies in our ability to organize against our oppressors. If we want to see a better world, we must actively create that world by organizing in our communities and by educating ourselves and others. We must collectively resist all forms of oppression: capitalism, racism, sexism, imperialism, and attacks against LGBTQ people. Only then can we begin to build a world in which people are truly free.

Photo credit: Fernando Lopez
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Mass Shootings Are Part and Parcel of US Political Culture

By Malcolm Suber

“Violence is as American as cherry pie.” These words were first spoken in 1967 by H. Rap Brown (now Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin), a Black revolutionary leader of the Student National Coordinating Committee (SNCC). A reporter had asked whether Brown would renounce calls for violent resistance to the oppression of Black people. He replied that the U.S. white ruling class has always embraced violence against those whom they want to control. They have no right to request from the oppressed that which they will not renounce for themselves.

The entire settler state created by European colonizers was founded on the violent taking of indigenous lands and the kidnapping and forced enslavement of Africans.

Throughout its history, the U.S. ruling class has been determined to wipe out indigenous peoples through genocide. Following the Civil War, to maintain the now-freed Black workforce as cheap, exploitable laborers, the ruling class imposed over 150 years of racist tyranny through Klan terror, public lynchings, and racist pogroms such as those in Rosewood, FL and Tulsa, OK. To this day, white supremacist terrorists serve as an auxiliary to police forces, from the FBI down to the local cops. The USA has created the world’s largest police and prison system, primarily to contain and control its Black, formerly enslaved population as well as other non- whites and poor people within its borders.

Despite all the posturing by Republican and Democratic party spokespeople, there is no admission of the violent nature of the U.S. state or criticism of the murderous history of white supremacist rule.

The U.S. has a 500-year history of using mass killings as way to enforce its will on other countries and peoples. The crocodile tears now being shed by the white supremacist ruling class over the mass shootings in Gilroy, CA, El Paso, TX and Dayton, OH are just a cover to hide this history. Despite all the posturing by Republican and Democratic party spokespeople, there is no admission of the violent nature of the U.S. state or criticism of the murderous history of white supremacist rule.

The ruling class media and leaders of the twin parties of capitalist rule have finally had to call the armed white nationalist right wing “terrorists.” These latest atrocities have even compelled white supremacist-in-chief Donald Trump to verbally condemn “racism, bigotry and white supremacy.” However, U.S. police forces from the FBI on down are reluctant to attack their auxiliary forces. That is not the enemy they joined the police force to subdue. Their racism forces them to identify with fascist elements.

The military budget consumes 60% of all U.S. tax dollars. These funds are transferred to the billionaire owners of Pentagon-contracted companies that comprise the Military Industrial Complex. Domestically, the white supremacist rulers allow the mass distribution of weapons to right-wing armed white supremacists as well as urban gangs. These urban gangs engage in fratricide that helps to create a lack of trust among the working class masses.

The U.S. is the world’s largest arms dealer. It forces its junior partners to purchase its weapons and disperses millions of weapons and ammunition to right-wing governments and reactionary fascist movements all over the world. As a result, from Venezuela to Yemen, thousands of innocent people die daily.

The intent of the U.S. ruling class is to keep the multi-national working class divided. Our task as class-conscious freedom fighters is to uproot these white supremacist poisonous weeds that have been and are presently being sown by the U.S. ruling class. We must overcome their efforts to divide us and unite to overthrow the capitalists and their state.

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Halt Property Tax Increase

Real Estate Tax Hikes = Evictions for Black Homeowners

Mayor Cantrell issues a new press release daily praising new programs. Working class New Orleanians, especially the Black community, need to ask ourselves a few questions. Is my situation today better or worse? Have my rents, taxes, utility bills gone down? Has my income gone up? No! The main policy of the city is to displace New Orleans communities to make way for the high paid, mostly white yuppies who are moving here. Black music, food and traditions draw tourism bucks but communities aren’t seeing any benefits from it. The government proves once again that it works for the capitalists, not the people.

Despite the Sewerage & Water Board illegally squandering tens of millions of dollars, not one former Board member has gone to jail—even worse, they’re collecting huge pensions on our dime. The S&WB gives out huge profit-making contracts with no accountability. Meanwhile, the S&WB workers’ jobs have only been getting harder and more terrible.

A new Board has been appointed headed by Neil Abramson, a major Cantrell backer, who works with real estate developers and who pushed through the destruction of public community education in favor of charter profiteering. The new Board is mainly made up of millionaires. Like before, the City Council, with all their contributions from big business, tries to pretend they have no role and can do nothing. So whose interest are they really representing? Now they want us to pay for higher bills with a new drainage fee on the October ballot.

In 1999 a new fee and higher rates increased bills by 50%. Thousands are still struggling with the robbery the S&WB carried out with false high bills. A fee is a pretty word for a tax, and we cannot afford another expense coming out of our stagnant or falling incomes. We need an elected S&WB run by working class people, not the robber barons.

VOTE NO TO NEW DRAINAGE FEE
NEW TAX ASSESSMENTS are ANOTHER WAY TO GENTRIFY

RACIST REAL ESTATE VULTURES RESPONSIBLE, GOVERNMENT AIDS THEM

The new tax assessments, some 50% higher, are pushing thousands of working class and middle-class homeowners into foreclosure and eviction. This is a crisis for those on social security, pensions, and disability especially, but with low wages and no raises this is devastating. Taxes and insurance are swallowing incomes up, and this crime is abetted by government officials—city and state—who are owned by the developers and insurance industries.

Many Black communities like Treme are barely recognizable as rents and home prices and new taxes are driving Black people out. Hospitality workers can no longer afford to live in areas close to the Quarter or CBD. Gentilly homes are now selling for $350,000 because that’s what real estate vultures charge. So, based on that, long-time homeowners are seeing their homes that were purchased for $80,000 reassessed for higher amounts, regardless even of condition.

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Workers Have No Interest in Another Rich Men’s War for Oil

Who’s threatening whom? Dozens of U.S. military bases and 125,000 U.S. troops surround Iran.

“Of course it’s about oil, it’s very much about oil, and we can’t really deny that.” —Four Star General John Abizaid, the former commander of CENTCOM, speaking about the U.S. war on Iraq

“People say we’re not fighting for oil. Of course, we are. They talk about America’s national interest. What the hell do you think they’re talking about? We’re not there for figs.” —Former U.S. Secretary of Defense and Republican Senator Chuck Hagel speaking about the Iraq war in 2007

“I’m interested in Libya if we take the oil. If we don’t take the oil, no interest.” —Donald Trump, one month after the US/NATO bombing of Libya in 2012

“I was the CIA director. We lied, we cheated, we stole. It was like—
we had entire training courses.” —Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at Texas A&M University, April 15, 2019

Beware Of Lies To Justify War on Iran

Lie: In 1964, the U.S. went to war because North Vietnamese small boats fired on a U.S. warship in the Gulf of Tonkin.
Fact: In 2019 it is confirmed this was a total lie to get us to back a war. Former navy pilot James Stockdale reported from the air, “There was nothing there but black water and American fire power.” The result: 3 million Vietnamese and 56,000 U.S. troops dead and thousands of Vietnam veterans left homeless in the streets.

Lie: Iraq attacked the World Trade Center towers. That’s why the U.S. went to war with Iraq.
Fact: The 9/11 commission confirmed that Iraq had nothing to do with the World Trade Center tragedy. The U.S. invaded Iraq and took over the country and its oil fields. After 500,000 Iraqi children died, Bush finally admitted on 9/11 2006 in a TV speech that Saddam Hussein and Iraq had no hand in 9/11.

Lie: Iraq had weapons of mass destruction that threatened the U.S.
Fact: From November 2002 to September 2004, 1,625 US and UN inspectors searched 1,700 sites and found no weapons of mass destruction. It has since been admitted this was a lie to justify the invasion and occupation.

Lie: The U.S. wants democracy in Iran and Iran’s 80 million people want U.S. intervention.
Fact: In 1953, the CIA carried out a coup against the democratic and secular president Mossadegh. They put in power the Shah (means king) who ruled the country with an iron fist until 1979. Iranian people will never forget his reign of terror.

Lie: On June 13, Iran attacked oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman with a mine.
Fact: The Japanese crew of one of the damaged ships stated that this was not true. The crews of both tankers were rescued by Iranians in their territorial waters. On the same day, the Japanese Prime Minister was in Iran for a historic meeting with the leader of Iran, the first meeting of its kind in over forty years. An attack on a Japanese vessel would be the last thing Iran would want to do.

Lie: Iran is a threat.
Fact: Iran has not invaded or attacked another country in 100 years. Over the same time period, the U.S. has carried out over 100 invasions. UN inspectors stated that Iran was not building nuclear weapons and it was the U.S. that pulled out of the nuclear deal, not Iran. The U.S. has recently pulled out of other international arms treaties such as the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty with Russia. There are 125,000 U.S. troops in bases circling Iran.

Lie: This is about national security.
Fact: This is about oil and selling weapons for profits. The federal budget is being looted by giant war profiteering companies for $1.2 trillion a year. This money could be used to meet people’s needs.

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FIFA Uses Slave Labor For World Cup

By Joseph Rosen

Fans looking forward to the Men’s 2022 World Cup ought to know about and show their outrage over the conditions of slavery that many of the workers suffer from in Qatar. Construction work for the World Cup in Qatar is mainly carried out by so called guest-workers who make up over 90% of the country’s workforce.

Mainly migrating from South Asia, these workers are tricked into paying high recruitment fees and then are forced to work in order to pay off the impossible debts that their companies saddle them with. Held against their will, workers often have their wages withheld and are denied exit visas by their bosses. An investigative report by the German broadcaster WDR recorded the testimony of some of the workers: “We are captured,” said Nepali worker Dil Prasad.

“Every day we nourish ourselves on water and bread. Without money we can’t do anything else. Month on month our situation gets worse and worse.”

The hiring companies often warehouse these workers in crowded, dirty and unsafe labor camps. Many of the enslaved workers are forced to work in the extreme heat without the proper safety precautions. The Nepali government reports that 1,426 migrant workers in Qatar have died between 2009 and 2019. This year, at least 111 workers have already died, many on the job.

In 2016, the Global Slavery Index estimated that on any given day there were 403,000 people living in conditions of modern slavery in the United States.

Of course slavery is not unique to Qatar. In 2016, the Global Slavery Index estimated that on any given day there were 403,000 people living in conditions of modern slavery in the United States. Many of these people care for the sick and harvest our food. Many labor in detention camps and prisons.

In Louisiana less than 10 years ago, more than 350 Filipino guest-workers were defrauded and held in debt bondage by labor contractors. These workers—many teachers in the East Baton Rouge Parish School District—had their passports and visas confiscated by their recruiters. They were forced into unfair contracts under threat of deportation.

In Mississippi more than 590 Indian welders were lured to work for Signal Corporation, a company that got contracts to repair oil platforms in the gulf that were damaged by Hurricane Katrina. Promised permanent resident visas by their recruiters, many of these workers took on debts that were equivalent to two or three years’ salary in India. They were housed in guarded labor camps on the company’s property—24 men to a 24-by-36-foot trailer. For “room and board” each worker had more than $1,050 per month deducted from their pay. The company never delivered on their permanent residency visas.

If you are worker trapped by your employer, contact the New Orleans Workers Group for help.

None of us are free if one of us is chained!

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Cenikor “Rehab” Facilities Are For-Profit Labor Camps

Cenikor Foundation profits from free labor of “Residents” at facilities the company operates in Louisiana and Texas..

By bell lee

The Cenikor Foundation runs 12 so called “rehab” facilities in Louisiana and Texas. Cenikor claims that its program rehabilitates people struggling with addiction. Instead, people who have sought in-patient treatment—or are court-ordered to complete the Cenikor program—often find themselves working up to 80 hours a week while Cenikor pockets their earnings. When they spoke out against the abuses that they experienced, those that were there voluntarily were told to leave. Those at Cenikor under court order are often threatened with more jail time so that they will comply.

Cenikor has used cruelty and emotional abuse to hold power over the people in their care, claiming that this was a type of “behavioral management” that would help the residents. The residents were routinely denied the counseling that they were promised because the foundation only cared about extracting free labor from the so called “residents.” Many people who went through Cenikor have confirmed that the goal was never to rehabilitate them, and that the only purpose was for the business to generate profits. Staff and management routinely turned a blind eye to residents getting taken advantage of and sexually abused, as well as getting high at job sites because Cenikor was only interested in exploiting their labor.

Not only were the residents forced to work, they did so for long hours and under dangerous conditions, without proper training or protective equipment.

Some residents were denied critical healthcare until they collapsed at their job sites. Others were made to go right back to work without rest after undergoing surgery. Residents were made to work at hard-labor jobs in often dangerous conditions, with no pay at all, and were also denied visitation with their families if they resisted the abusive conditions at Cenikor. Before work they were given old and moldy food and sent to work in the summer without cold water. After working grueling hours, some report that they were denied sleep, which is a torture technique. The way that the management treated the people in their custody is nothing less than disgusting.

Because those at Cenikor were in an incredibly vulnerable position—either in rehab, or already in the criminal justice system—Cenikor’s board and managers believed that they could abuse and exploit the people in their custody. The merciless logic of capitalism has meant that corporations such a Cenikor hold people in servitude in order to extract the value of their labor. Until human rights are respected the way that profits are, assaults on workers’ rights and human rights will continue, and the poor and working class will remain subject to capitalism’s violent tendencies. The only way to change a system horrible enough to produce something Cenikor is to resist it, to demand better, and get organized.

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Free Mama Glo!

Gloria Jean Williams, mother of five, has spent 48 years behind bars. Her pardon hearing takes place on July 22, 2019.

By LaVonna Varnado-Brown

Gloria Jean Williams, affectionately known as “Mama Glo,” is Louisiana’s longest serving incarcerated woman prisoner. On May 12, 2019, a clemency campaign was launched to get her released. Postcards have been sent to Gov. Edwards requesting that he use his ability to free this woman from Louisiana’s prison industrial complex.

After 48 years behind bars, Gloria has a pardon hearing, which will take place on July 22, 2019, at 8 am. The request is to give her credit for the time she has served and allow her to return to her family.

“Mama Glo is a confident spirit who uses her wisdom of dealing with a life sentence to encourage other women to not give up,” says Fox Rich, a formerly incarcerated woman who is leading Mama Glo’s clemency campaign. “I know the power of clemency to restore a family. When our system fails us, [actions like] clemency give the system an opportunity to correct its own wrongs.” Fox and her husband Rob, along with Fox Rich Ministries, have been doing the much needed footwork around getting the community both informed and involved in this matter.

Mama Glo left five children orphaned when she was taken into police custody. For almost five decades her children have had to live life without their mother who has nurtured and mentored countless women while incarcerated. There is a record of someone else confessing to the crime for which Mama Glo was jailed. Still, she is in chains. Free Mama Glo and all prisoners who have fallen victim to capitalism’s choking grip via the prison industrial complex.

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Mayor Cantrell and City Council Want More Jail Space to Warehouse Mentally Ill People

By Tina Orlandini

Mayor Cantrell and City Council have been going back and forth with Orleans Parish Prison about a plan to build a separate wing of the city jail to house inmates with mental illnesses using funding from FEMA.

But this will only mean increased incarceration with new beds opening to be filled with poor and working people of the Parish. Mentally ill people should not be in prison. The New Orleans Prison Reform Coalition is putting pressure on Cantrell and Councilmembers to halt the jail expansion and reduce the city’s incarceration rate. However, the city remains uncommitted to care for the mentally ill. Mental illness is a disease—not a crime—and needs to be treated medically.

The Unites States incarcerates more people than any country in the world, including the inhumane caging of people in need of mental healthcare.

According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), approximately 20 percent of state prisoners and 21 percent of jailed prisoners have “a recent history” of mental illness. Nearly 70 percent of young people in the juvenile justice system have at least one mental health condition and approximately 20 percent have a serious mental health illness. NAMI reports that between 25 and 40 percent of all Americans living with mental illness will spend time in jail or in prison at some point in their lives.

Given the disparities in race and class within the prison system, and its lineage to slavery as a mechanism for upholding the capitalist state, it should come as no surprise that the majority of those incarcerated are people of color, poor whites, and/or members of the LGBTQ community.

Mentally ill people are forced into the streets

In 1963, a bill named the Community Mental Health Act called to shift mental health care from asylums and state hospitals to community-based mental health centers. But before it was passed, the bill was gutted, removing all funding for personnel and leaving money only for buildings. By the 1980s, this policy was completely failing mentally ill patients. “States proved more enthusiastic about emptying the old facilities than about providing new ones” (Chicago Tribute, 1989).

In 1980, the Mental Health Systems Act granted direct support to community mental health centers, but this support was quickly repealed with the arrival of the Reagan administration which cut federal mental health funding by one-third (The Atlantic, “America’s Largest Mental Hospital Is A Jail”). The demise of mental health infrastructure, coupled with the parallel defunding of public housing and other social services, has brought us to where we are today: the caging of the mentally ill in jails and prisons.

Prisoners get torture instead of treatment

Approximately 80 percent of people incarcerated under Louisiana DOC have substance abuse problems according to VOTE (Voice of the Experienced) Deputy Director Bruce Reilly and Dr. Anjali Niyogi, who co-wrote a column for the Advocate last month. The piece explained, “There are FDA-approved drugs proven to help people overcome opioid addiction, and yet these drugs are not made available to them.” Instead, they reported that the DOC had authorized the profiteering healthcare company BioCorRx to perform experiments on inmates for the non-FDA approved implant, Naltrexone.

In Alabama, the state was given a strict deadline in May to make improvements to its prison system after atrocious photos were released documenting the inhumane conditions in its prisons in violation of the 8th Amendment, which is meant to prohibit cruel and unusual punishment. Alabama prisons have reported the highest suicide rates in the country and often mentally ill inmates, including those on suicide watch, are subjected to the cruel torture of solitary confinement. Some Alabama prisoners are shackled to toilets for 5 days as punishment.

Abolish the U.S. prison system

Examining the prison system from the perspective of mental health care simply deepens what we already know—behind the prison walls is torture, exploited labor, and experimentation. For those who can’t find or afford mental health support, it is a pit to fall into and crawl out of, only to fall back in. For these reasons and many more, we call for the abolition of the U.S. prison system!

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New Beginnings Charter School Scandal: Children Pay the Price for CEO’s Greed

By Gabriel Mangano

One month after their scheduled graduation ceremony, 80 of 155 Kennedy High School seniors will not be able to graduate until they make up state requirements. This is the latest scandal from New Beginnings Charter Network (NBCN). Other charter schools are failing, with sudden closings and outrageously excessive punishments and financial corruption. The toll on our children in this failed experiment will continue to grow until we demand the return of our schools as public schools operated by an elected community school board.

In March, New Beginnings administrator Dr. Runell King alerted New Beginnings CEO Michelle Blouin-Williams to 17 illegal, manually changed final grades in Algebra III from F to D. These changes were made to increase the school’s graduation rate and allow it to retain its charter, even though it received an F on standardized performance. Blouin-Williams was forced to resign over these grade irregularities, as well as forging board minutes to approve a busing contract. However, for Kennedy seniors, the horror has just begun.

King’s exposure of grade change irregularities led to the state and New Beginnings to investigate all graduating seniors and other student records. New Beginnings hired a consulting firm TenSquare, LLC at $90,000 to manage the Charter, and the firm’s research found nine distinct problems. End of Course (EOC) tests were not given, were failed or results were not recorded; incorrect class coding and failure to record final grades were frequent; transfer students had incomplete transcripts; and some students were over the state absence limit. Most outrageous was that the leadership had failed to correct the problem that allowed staff to be able to change grades. After the report, five Kennedy administrators resigned.

As a result, 80 of 155 seniors have still not been cleared to receive a diploma. New Beginnings says it will develop individual plans for credits and skills for those students who are not eligible to receive a diploma. For these students the lack of a diploma is forcing many to wonder if they will be able to attend college or trade programs or even get jobs until this mess is resolved.

So far, the pro-Charter Orleans Parish School Board has only “considered” revoking NBCN’s contract over improper grade changes and financial malfeasance (stealing). It’s clear that NBCN and the entire charter experiment has failed our children. It’s time for parents, teachers, and students to demand high quality public schools run for the education of our children instead of large paychecks for profit -making company executives who are doing a worse job than the OPSB.

Join the Erase the Board Coalition, which is fighting for our children and their right to a quality public education.

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Cops & Corporations Out of Pride! Stonewall Means Fight Back!

Take Back Pride March celebrates the revolutionary LGBTQ movement.

By Sally Jane Black

In an effort to destroy the heroic history of the Stonewall rebellion on its 50th anniversary, the city rolled out New Orleans Pride with floats sponsored by corporations like G.E. (one of the world’s largest arms dealers), Walmart (currently funding the attacks on reproductive rights), Walgreens (with a policy of allowing their pharmacists to refuse to serve LGBTQ patients), and Shell (9th largest polluter in the world). They celebrated the police and the U.S. military, rather than the fight against capitalist patriarchy that is the root of LGBTQ oppression. They partied while currently LGBTQ access to housing, education, healthcare, homeless shelters, public bathrooms, and jobs are all under attack.

“Many of the corporate sponsors of Pride, including Shell, have contributed to the destruction of traditional homelands and the ways of life of Louisiana’s coastal indigenous communities, while police have always targeted and harassed us,” said local indigenous activist George, who spoke at the protest.

“As a two-spirit indigenous person it was vital for me to march against the involvement of these groups in Pride. Queerness is an essential part of Native culture, and we should be free to celebrate that without the presence of those of who have colonized and oppressed us.”

The Take Back Pride March of LGBTQ people and allies from around the city stood up against the appropriation of the struggle. The marchers spoke out against the ongoing murders of trans women of color in and out of police and ICE custody, against the attacks on LGBTQ rights, and against the other attacks on workers in New Orleans. At the core of their demands was a reclamation of Pride from the hands of those who have turned it into nothing more than a platform for making money off the LGBTQ community. Marches to Take Back Pride from corporations and cops were held all over the south and the rest of the country.

While most participants in the parade were there to celebrate their identity, many were unaware that behind the scenes, the corporate sponsors of the parade work with the right wing forces to attack that identity.

June 28, 2019, marked the 50th anniversary of Stonewall, a rebellion by LGBTQ people fighting police violence and oppression.

So the New Orleans Workers Group sponsored a Take Back Pride March. As the New Orleans Pride parade approached, protesters, holding banners demanding cops and corporations out of Pride, stepped in the way of the massive truck carrying members of local law enforcement and Mayor Cantrell. Nearby, members of the city council were forced to wait in their cars as the parade ground to a halt. Leaflets explaining corporate ties were given out to parade goers.

As the police proved when they swarmed the protesters, their purpose at the parade was not LGBTQ liberation but to protect rich politicians and the major tourist attraction that is New Orleans Pride. They were there to protect property over people, including the white supremacist statues that are so prominent in the French Quarter.

Organizers of Take Back Pride vowed to continue this struggle.