Posted on

Jail the Bosses at Sewerage and Water Board

One of two explosions caused by Sewerage and Water Board in December 2019.

By Sally Jane Black

The Sewerage and Water Board has in the past month caused two explosions, one in the French Quarter and one at the Carrollton plant in Uptown, where two workers were injured. They have considered pouring waste into the river. They have been charged with not paying payroll taxes to the IRS, and they continue to send excessive bills to workers in New Orleans. This is on top of the criminal neglect they have subjected the city to for more than a decade, culminating in repeated flooding, billing issues and cut-offs, boil advisories, and—inevitably—more scandals to come. After claiming the drainage basins were clear for years, they found not one, but two entire cars clogging one of the canals.

These failures would be funny if they weren’t hurting workers. But every flood means someone’s home or transportation is destroyed. Every boil advisory means health risks for the elderly, immune-compromised, and children. Polluting the river would mean ecological disaster in a city already overwhelmed by toxic air, soil, and water. The broken billing system leaves workers unable to pay bills and keep the water on. No one can even predict whether their water will be turned off or not. And the fines and fees for the lost payroll taxes will be passed on to the rate-payers. 

The S&WB should serve the people, not the rich. The New Orleans Workers Group demands that the bosses at the Sewerage and Water Board be held accountable and charged for their assault on the workers of New Orleans, and that billing be suspended until a reasonable system is in place. All outstanding debts by working class residents should be canceled. The bosses at the S&WB cannot continue to punish the citizens of New Orleans for their own incompetence and greed.

Posted on

LGBTQ Workers Benefit from a Union

National union leaders and LGBTQ activists and allies at the Pride at Work Triennial Convention.

By Sally Jane Black

Whether it’s being fired for who we are or harassment over what bathroom we use, sexual assault from customers or offensive homophobic jokes from our bosses, LGBTQ workers often face hostile work environments, especially from bosses and owners. 22% of LGBTQ people face discrimination on the job, with LGBTQ people of color facing it far more often. Nearly half of all LGBTQ workers are in the closet at work because they fear discrimination.

To whom can you turn?

Laws Don’t Protect Us
Though Title VII laws were reinterpreted under Obama to allegedly protect LGBTQ workers, the current administration has rolled that back. The issue is now in the courts. There is no state-level law to protect you, and the city ordinance has no teeth (though the New Orleans Human Rights Commission has recently gained investigative powers, they still have no power to enforce the ordinance on the books). Even if there were laws to protect you, you don’t have the money to take anyone to court.

The cops won’t do anything. They’re on the side of the bosses. For most, there’s no way to fight back.

Solidarity is the Answer
In some workplaces, however, LGBTQ workers can turn to the union.
In 1988, workers in Boston organized and went on strike, taking on Harvard University. On their list of demands were raises, healthcare benefits, and protections for gay workers. The university came back with everything but the protections, and the workers refused to go back to work. After a few more days, Harvard conceded. They won the protections in their union contract.

Around the country, LGBTQ protections have become a common part of union contracts, and in union workplaces, LGBTQ workers have their contracts to protect them and the union to back them up.

“An Injury to One Is an Injury to All” is the spirit in which the organization Pride at Work fights against discrimination. Founded in 1994, Pride at Work supports LGBTQ union members around the country. The fight for workers’ rights must include ALL workers; by standing together, we win not just better wages and benefits, but protection from harassment, discrimination, and violence in the workplace. Only as organized workers standing in solidarity can we protect ourselves from homophobia and transphobia.

Posted on

We Need a Tenants Union, Rent Control!

By Sally Jane Black

There is more than enough housing for everyone.

The housing crisis in New Orleans is not caused by a shortage. It is caused by predatory developers and landlords who see every opportunity to develop as a chance to gouge workers and raise rents. Meanwhile, the few rights tenants have in Louisiana are often impossible to uphold because there is no support for workers in civil courts, and most of these laws were written by landlords in the first place.

There are thousands of housing units sitting empty in New Orleans and thousands of workers struggling to afford apartments that are often infested with vermin, rotting or covered in mold, over-crowded, and with no guarantee they won’t be kicked out tomorrow.

Recent attempts at relieving the housing crisis have included inclusionary zoning, limitations on short-term rentals, and property tax loopholes that all fail to address the fundamental issues: high rents and unsafe, inadequate housing options available to the working class. 64% of renters in the city pay more than a third of their income on rent (and a third of renters pay over half of their income). History shows developers will drop affordability requirements (which usually last a few decades at most) the instant they are able to, as they did at the American Can apartments. The city’s legal eviction rate (5.2%) is twice the national average and does not include the many who are evicted only with a threat, forced out with rising rents or harassment, or simply come home to find their possessions on the curb. Tenants cannot even withhold rent to force a landlord to make vital repairs to their homes.

Without a powerful tenants movement, this will not change. We must demand rights for tenants that empower workers, and we must demand rent control.

Unless a powerful tenants’ movement puts pressure on law-makers, “solutions” will always favor the rich. There is no way to make a tax cut big enough to make raising the rent less profitable. While working class homeowners deserve relief from the property tax increases, landlords need to be restricted more directly. Shelter is a basic human need, and landlords know tenants will pay anything to keep a roof over their heads. Strong rent control laws can put a limit on what landlords and property managers can charge tenants, including those who are already cost-burdened.

In New Orleans, every new development is taking tax payer money to build hotel rooms and condos while workers are being pushed out of neighborhoods by gentrification. The failed Amendment 4, backed by local nonprofits and conservative law-makers, was designed as a concession to developers before the fight had even begun. In Germany, mass movements have won rent control and have succeeded in forcing landlords to shut down developments and concede to demands for better housing regulations.

The laws we have are a reflection of the class struggle; law-makers answer to us only when we take militant and mass action against them, loud enough to drown out the money of the capitalists who fund their campaigns. With a tenants union strong enough to pressure the landlords, the people can fight back and protect the rights they win.

Posted on

Supreme Court Will Not Stop LGBTQ Struggle

By Sally Jane Black

Nearly a year ago, a leaked memo revealed that the Trump administration was trying to reinterpret Title VII in order to allow discrimination against LGBTQ people. The flimsy policy that included LGBTQ people under “sex” in Title VII (the law that protects against job discrimination on basis of gender, race, etc.) was established under the Obama administration as an effort to buy LGBTQ votes without effecting any change. With no real protections in place, it has taken almost no effort for the current administration to reverse almost every gain LGBTQ people have made.

The unelected, notoriously bigoted Supreme Court will be deciding on three cases this October that will determine whether this legalization of discrimination will be upheld, endangering millions of people’s jobs, insurance, and well being. Trump’s Department of “Justice” has aggressively fought for the reinterpretation, often using the argument of “religious freedom” to mask their dangerous homophobia and transphobia.

“RELIGIOUS FREEDOM”
The use of “religious freedom” as justification for these policies is not an attempt to protect anyone but to divide the working class against LGBTQ people. The capitalist class knows that if they claim that this is a matter of religion, LGBTQ people and allies will blame religion for these attacks instead of the real enemy: the rich, powerful capitalists that benefit from our oppression. Meanwhile, the capitalists are pandering to workers who are religious, hoping to incite them against the cause for LGBTQ equality.

RISE IN VIOLENCE
It is no coincidence that Louisiana candidates for governor are insulting trans people in campaign ads, or that celebrities like Drew Brees are avoiding consequences for working with anti-LGBTQ hate groups like Focus on the Family; the capitalist class is funding the complete reversal of every right won by LGBTQ people. This has also served as an open call to violence against queer and trans people. Hate crimes are at a record high. So far this year, 20 trans people—almost all black trans women—have been murdered, including one killed in an ICE concentration camp. As with every marginalized group, when our rights are under attack, our safety is threatened as well.

SECOND CLASS CITIZENS
The past year has seen attacks on LGBTQ people on every front: housing, healthcare, emergency shelter, education, and more. The attack on Title VII is at the heart of this. Allowing job discrimination against queer and trans people would effectively cut us off from everything needed to survive. By legalizing job discrimination and ramping up anti-queer and anti-trans bigotry, the ruling class is making sure that unemployment remains high enough to weaken the working class.

FIGHTING BACK
Resistance is growing. Although the mainstream LGBTQ rights movement has been co-opted by corporate interests and nonprofits, in June people around the country honored the 50th anniversary of Stonewall with militant, anti-corporate, anti-cop actions at Pride events, often opposing the nonprofit boards that erased the militant politics of the original Pride marches. LGBTQ people have won victories for trans healthcare in Wisconsin, and an immigrant trans woman, Alejandra Barrera, has won her freedom from an ICE concentration camp. In September, activists in New Orleans held a march protesting the anti-trans Crimes Against Nature in Solicitation law during the corporate-funded Southern Decadence.

LGBTQ people should be protected against discrimination and violence, not forced to be second class citizens. Only militant action will win us our rights and protect us from these attacks. We must resist every attempt by the capitalist class to divide us against one another. It is only through unity and working class solidarity that we will liberate ourselves from the oppressive rule of the capitalists.

Posted on

Epstein: Sex Predator and Trafficker to the Ruling Class


By Sally Jane Black

Sex trafficker, pedophile, extortionist billionaire Jeffrey Epstein was a typical member of the capitalist class. He died August 10, taking with him secrets that would have exposed the fact that the capitalists that run the United States and much of the world are debauched, violent parasites who prey on children and women. He allegedly committed suicide. Most people believe he was killed given the danger he posed to other members of the ruling class.

Depravity and Extortion
Epstein trafficked girls as young as 14 on one of his private islands, officially called Little St. James, referred to by locals as Pedophile or Orgy Island. Epstein would invite rich men to one of his properties, and he would force young girls he had lured to have sex with them. He would then gather details of these incidents to extort these men and make child pornography. His network of extortion and sexual violence operated on a massive scale for decades, hidden in plain sight.

Epstein had ties to the CIA and the Mossad (Israeli intelligence agency) who counted him as an asset. The sexual extortion Epstein engaged in was useful to both organizations. When Epstein was first convicted of sex crimes in 2007, his intelligence connections kept him immune from any real consequences: he was sentenced to only 13 months in minimum security prison for soliciting sex with a minor.

Epstein owned a money management firm catering to billionaires, including the head of Victoria’s Secret’s parent company L Brands, Les Wexner, who was Epstein’s primary source of money. He also associated with the pro-Israel billionaire’s club called the Mega Group, co-founded by Wexner. It was in one of Wexner’s mansions that Epstein sexually assaulted a woman named Maria Farmer, which Wexner’s security team helped cover up.

Some of his victims were lured from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club. Trump was sued in 2016 by a woman who claimed he and Epstein raped her at one of Epstein’s parties. She later dropped the suit after she received death threats. These accusations were scorned by mainstream, corporate-owned media, which instead attacked the alleged victim. Trump said of Epstein, “[He] likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.” Reports from accusers also put Bill Clinton on Epstein’s private island at least once. Flight records put Bill Clinton on board Epstein’s private jet—nicknamed the Lolita Express—as many as 26 times.

Epstein invested in a billionaire Glenn Dubin’s hedge fund and helped sell it to super bank JP Morgan. Dubin is one of Epstein’s accused sexual predators. Others in Epstein’s circle include the heir to the Estee Lauder fortune, former Israeli prime ministers, surveillance capitalist Peter Thiel, former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, former Democratic Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, former head of Bear Stearns Alan Greenberg, former Secretary of Labor Alex Acosta, his defense attorney and accused sexual predator Alan Dershowitz, and billionaire Charles Bronfman.

Hypocrisy
Epstein was not an aberration, as his vast network shows. Their actions flow from the capitalists’ belief that they, as rulers of the majority, can do whatever sick thing they want without penalty. Like most of the super-rich, Epstein had ties to both major capitalist political parties, international governments, and the rest of the ruling class. The ruling class promotes “family values” while living lives of luxury, violence and depravity. At the same time, they vilify LGBTQ people, people of color, migrants, and other working class people, calling them criminals and predators. Workers and oppressed people will only get justice when we finally take these rotten capitalists from power. There will be no place for Epstein or any of his gang in a socialist society built on the foundation of equality and respect for all people.

Posted on

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.

Posted on

To the trans troops coming home

Why did you join up? To protect America? To defeat terrorists? To serve the ideals of freedom you were taught in school?

Was it long-term benefits and pensions? Healthcare? Because no other job was available? Pressure from your family?

Or was it because there was no other way you could feel strong? Was it because there was no other way to prove that the way you feel about your gender isn’t a weakness?

Was it because someone told you you could be yourself there? Was it because you wanted to hide from yourself there?

Was it something you never before questioned?

It might not feel like it right now, but I promise you, the transgender ban is a process of liberation. Despite the fact that this is fueled by hatred and that 13,700 people have been left jobless, you are now free.

You’ve been lied to. You’ve been betrayed. Now it’s time to come home and stand up for what’s right.

You were not defending the ideals you imagined.

You were used.

The military you were tricked into joining was not the organization you thought it was. Their actions have proven this. The military serves not the people of the United States, but the rich. They serve the select few who have the money and power to command the plunder you were tricked into taking part in (even if all you did was repair trucks).

Every promise they made has been taken away from you through callous transphobia.

You were always strong. You were always better than this world has told you you were. Being trans is not a mental illness, a weakness, or a lie. It’s a way of being that was once rightfully honored, and you should have been celebrated when you came out.

Your siblings still in uniform might still support you. But there’s only so much they can do while you’re back here, so let me tell you, trans soldier, that you have a community here.

You can fight for what’s right. You can fight for freedom. The fight is here in the United States.

The fight is not for inclusion in the U.S. military. It’s for the end of the U.S. military. It’s to end the power of those who betrayed you.

Take an honest look at the lies you were told. Ask yourself who you served. Ask yourself how you brought freedom or justice anywhere. Witness Iraq and Afghanistan. Witness Libya and elsewhere. Ask yourself if that is what you signed up for.

And then look at what is going on here at home.

You’ve been betrayed, and so have all of your trans siblings who no longer have any legal protections or recognition. Reproductive rights are being taken away state by state. People of color live in fear of unjust incarceration and worse. People are forced from their homelands only to endure torment at our borders.

If you want to fight, if you want to stand up for something, if you want to live your truth, you have to fight back against them.

And that’s what we’re doing. Agitate, educate, and organize with us. Take all that pain and use it in the struggle with us.

With love,

Sally Jane Black

Posted on

Bigot Trump’s Military Ban Won’t Stop Fight for Trans Rights

By Sally Jane Black

The Supreme Court voted in January to uphold the Trump regime’s ban on transgender people serving in the imperialist U.S. military. The ban is an attack on the trans community, designed to whip up transphobia and continue the process of forcing trans people back into the closet. This has been the administration’s agenda since they took office. This move baits people into promoting the idea that those who are fighting for trans rights should also aspire to serve the U.S. military, reinforcing the lie that the U.S. military is a force of progress for oppressed people. The truth is, the U.S. military is the armed wing of the U.S. capitalist class, destroying other countries that stand up to the exploitation and destruction of imperialism. Even with access to the military, trans people would not be made equal in society, nor would participation in imperialist violence bring liberation for any oppressed people.

LGBTQ people consistently experience a higher rate of sexual and physical assaults, arbitrary and outdated restrictions for trans service members, and other forms of control and abuse that are meant to force them to submit their own interest to the interests of U.S. imperialism. The military has preyed on LGBTQ people and our lack of access to healthcare and other basic needs in order to convince us it’s in our interest to bomb and kill our fellow workers in other countries. The answer to this ban is not to demand trans people be allowed to serve, but to demand healthcare, housing, education, and jobs, anti-discrimination rules, and solidarity with the working class worldwide. The answer to the transphobia fueling this ban is solidarity among the working class and the oppressed people of the world.

Posted on

Katrina Anniversary: “If I Knew Then What I Know Now”

By Sally Jane Black

If I knew then what I know now…

Hurricane Katrina, the failure of the levees, the subsequent violence, negligence, and opportunism, all look different through class conscious eyes. What once looked like incompetence now looks like predation. What once looked like mistakes now look like intentional actions. What once looked like a lack of resources now is understood to have been an intentional allocation because of callous disregard for working class people. What once looked like racist bias now looks like white supremacist propaganda.

Seeing history repeat itself in Puerto Rico (most notably) only verifies the intentional nature of the “disaster capitalism” that comes after these storms. It’s a misleading phrase–this is just normal capitalism. It’s white supremacist. It’s patriarchal. the vast majority of the people affected by the storm were black, but the recovery money mostly came back to white neighborhoods. The media called black people looters and white people concerned parents. The police murdered and covered up the deaths of black residents. The disproportionate denial of resources to cis women, queer, and trans people led to disproportionate obstacles for us after the storm–many of them fatal. It’s capitalist. The working class bears the brunt of the exploitation and negligence.

Since the storm, everything has changed. The landlords and other parasites have raised housing prices alarmingly. The jobs are paying the same or barely more than they were 13 years ago. There are still people who yearn to come home but can’t; there are still 800 people without names, buried anonymously. Stories like the charity hospital being abandoned, despite being perfectly functional, in favor of an expensive new hospital that displaced hundreds of black residents are not uncommon. This has happened many times over.

13 years ago today, the vultures began circling. They have taken away everything they can from the working class people of New Orleans. They are attempting to make a playground for rich tourists, ignoring the fact that as they price the working class out, there will be no one to serve them. They have changed the landscape of the city, and while they would have been trying some version of this anyway, their callous disregard for the working class opened the door to this.

Meanwhile, the united states continues to fight wars around the world and spend trillions on weapons while levees, schools, and hospitals remain underfunded. The united states was at war in Afghanistan 13 years ago, too. The united states was occupying Iraq back then, too. In New Orleans, we’re still holding our breath every time a storm enters the Gulf.

If I knew then what I know now, I would have somehow been angrier, but I would have understood who was responsible, why no one was helping, why the pumps didn’t work and the levees failed, why the police committed murder instead of rescues, why charity was closed, why Gretna barred its doors, why the media seemed to demonize working class (especially black) New Orleanians, why it happened the way it happened. If I knew then what I know now, I would have known about who was fighting it, too. If I had known then what I know now, I would have still felt lost, trapped, grief-stricken, confused, but I would have known, too, that the source of our pain was not incompetence. I would have known who the enemy was, and I would have known I could fight. We can fight

Posted on

Pride Is More Than a Fight for Love, It Is a Fight for Liberation

By Sally Jane Black

There is a rich history of LGBTQ resistance in New Orleans. The Gay Liberation Front first held a “gay in” in City Park in 1971. The funeral-goers at St. Mark’s United Methodist Church refused to sneak away from the press after the Upstairs Lounge arson attack, inspiring people worldwide with their defiance. LGBTQ groups here have fought for decades, from the AIDS epidemic up through recent episodes of violence.

However, the spotlight has fallen on an organization—New Orleans Pride—that has strayed from its militant roots. At N.O. Pride, a select few pay to march and celebrate their own exploitation. They pander to corporate interests, the U.S. and city governments, and business owners. It is a tourist attraction.

Meanwhile, discrimination prevents queer and trans people from getting jobs, finding housing or receiving medical care. LGBTQ youth (especially black, brown, and indigenous people) are bullied in school and harassed by police. Trans people, especially black trans women, are murdered at a rate far higher than non-trans women. Queer people still face homophobic violence. The suicide rate for trans people is more than double the national average. Trans and queer prisoners (including immigrants) face abuse in for-profit prisons. Worldwide, LGBTQ people are violently oppressed by U.S. imperialism.

THEY WANT TO CONTROL OUR BODIES
Oppression of LGBTQ people is part of the capitalist drive for disposable and cheap labor. Capitalism relies on a low-wage workforce, ensured by millions of people remaining unemployed. It relies on gender roles that draw free labor in the form of childcare, housekeeping, emotional support, etc. Capitalists profit by defining “family” strictly as non-transgender man and woman plus children. Hence, they attack reproductive rights, marriage rights and benefits, and attempt to make transgender healthcare inaccessible.

DIVIDING THE WORKING CLASS–WE MUST BE UNITED
LGBTQ oppression benefits capitalists by dividing the working class. By couching these attacks in terms of “religious freedom” or “family values,” they pit working class people against each other. They divide LGBT people by turning events like Pride into corporate events promoting the police, military, and other oppressive institutions. Pride becomes another celebration of homophobia and transphobia, by excluding most LGBTQ people who do not feel safe surrounded by police, do not feel represented by corporate logos and do not want to be tourist attractions.

In the U.S., homosexuality was legalized in 2003. Without those laws, police evolved their tactics. E.g., under NOPD Chief Warren Riley, LGBTQ people (especially black trans women) were profiled as sex workers, no matter what they were doing. Despite being “legal”, we still do not have full protection of the law. The same-sex marriage victory in 2015 brought millions of LGBTQ Americans access to spousal benefits. The current administration is rolling back that victory by allowing employers to deny benefits to same-sex couples. They continue to keep medical care and jobs out of reach for us through insurance policies and right-to-work laws. The end result is the same: a limited definition of family is reinforced and unemployment remains high. Their profits are safe.

Full LGBTQ liberation will not be possible under capitalism. Until the white supremacist, anti-queer, anti-trans billionaires who fund every initiative to roll back our rights, who literally write the laws that exclude (and kill) us, who wish to see a divided working class, remain in control, every victory will be temporary. The only way forward is to unite against them, to stand in solidarity with all working class and oppressed people, and to fight against every attack on LGBTQ people all over the world. Our liberation depends on the liberation of all.