Protest in Solidarity with Charlottesville

On 14 August 2017, the Direct Action Monterey Network joined together with our community to stand against fascism and white supremacy, and to show solidarity with the people of Charlottesville where white supremacists and neo-nazis gathered last weekend, committed horrible acts of violence and killed anti-racist protester Heather Heyer.

Our statement:

We are gathering today to show our opposition to white supremacy in all its forms, and to stand in solidarity with all those in Charlottesville who are fighting against fascism. We stand against the recent violence from white supremacists and the “alt-right” in Charlottesville as well as similar acts of violence in Portland, Seattle, Minneapolis, and Sacramento.

We also oppose violence from institutional structures of white supremacy such as police, prisons, borders, the military, economic exploitation, and colonialism. This includes local iterations of these structures. Mirroring national trends, local police have murdered homeless people, immigrants, and people of color in recent years. The Monterey County Sheriff’s Department collaborates with federal immigration enforcement. Numerous military institutions on the Peninsula help maintain America’s empire abroad. The very economic foundation and geographic arrangement of this region is based on structures of class and racial-caste. The early colonial roots of this region, from the original theft of this land by Europeans to the purging of Chinese fishing communities by white settlers, is unapologetically celebrated.

These forms of white supremacy, the explicit as well as the hidden and structural, the historical and the present, are intimately connected. So while there are no Klan rallies or torch-wielding white-supremacist marches in this region, we must declare our total opposition to all of the forms that white supremacy takes.

Solidarity to all rebels fighting white supremacy, from Ferguson to Charlottesville, from Salinas to Baltimore.

Direct Action Monterey Network