Lánzate 2024

Lánzate 2024

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Month: May 2020

Mijente members in Louisville, KY denounce state violence against Black people

Posted on by Mijente

Mijente members from Louisville, Kenucky, in solidarity with Black Lives Matter Louisville and Breonna Taylor’s family, unite in opposition to the recent murders of Black people at the hands of police and all the various forms of state sanctioned violence in Louisville, Kentucky.

Mijente is a national Latinx grassroots organization founded on the grounds that we are pro-Black, pro-woman, pro- indigena, pro-worker, pro-queer, and pro-migrant because our community is all that and more. In Louisville, Kentucky our members are currently working to fight back against oppressive systems, build a Latinx political movement, and utilize language and healing justice projects for our collective liberation.

As Latinx people it is our obligation to dismantle anti-blackness within ourselves and in all of our communities. The murder of Black people at the hands of State sanctioned and white sumpremacist violence must stop. That includes and is not limited to murders by police, immigrant detention and deportation. We must fight and organize for a world where Black Lives Matter and thrive every single day.  We must organize for a world where white violence is not systematically encouraged or normalized by governments and elected officials. We deserve and must organize for a society that is invested in the health and wellness of all our communities.

Stand with us as we work to support the efforts of black led organizations, businesses, and activists in Louisville by taking the following actions:

  1. Donate to the Louisville Community Bail Fund
  2. Amplify the work of Black activists and Black Lives Matter-Louisville through online platforms and in person #blacklivesmatterlouisville  @blmlouisville
  3. Support the demands of family of Breonna Taylor and local activists
  4. Join us today at 4PM ET to hear from Pro-Black Latinx Voices from Minneapolis. Learn how Latinx people are showing up against state-violence, the impact of the state’s response to the recent protests, and how to be pro-Black at this moment.
  5. Join with our Coalition Partners for Freedom Fridays! 4:30 pm every Friday through June  in downtown Louisville. Line up for a car caravan at 6th & West Broadway or stand on the mayor’s steps.

Click here to read Mijente’s national statement responding to anti-Black violence by police

#JusticeforBre #FreeOurFuture #Blacklivesmatter #Mijente

Hacia Compañerismo y Conciencia: Pro-Blackness in Action

Posted on by Tania Unzueta

As a national multi-racial Latinx organization Mijente stands with all Black communities across the country who are calling out the injustice of the state sanctioned murder of Black people in the hands of the police.

Latinx communities must show up now, correct and powerfully. We must go beyond hollowed statements of solidarity and towards a genuine compañerismo. We must take concrete action that goes beyond addressing intra-community anti-Blackness. This is ongoing and must continue. The time now calls for modeling pro-Blackness and an embodied sense that our fates are linked. Our task is to stand shoulder to shoulder and put it out in the work.

Right now, across the country most of our cities budgets are tangled in over-commitments to police. There are little to few mechanisms to bring justice to families that have been irrevocably harmed. This is the right time to join or start efforts to defund the police in each of our cities and demand that those resources instead serve and protect our communities. 

In the middle of the COVID pandemic our families are literally dying while police budgets increase, and then are used to surveil, criminalize, and kill members of our communities.

In Minneapolis, the city spends a quarter of tax-revenues on police funding. In most large cities, the chunk that the police budget takes up is much, much higher.

How much money does your city spend on its police budget? How could it be spent in ways that actually help our communities heal and survive? We are gathering names of people around the country who want to work on defunding their own police and surveillance, you can add your name to that list here.

This is, unfortunately and as it has always been, a long-term fight. But we must fight. As we mobilize to ask questions about our own cities, here are a couple of things we should also be doing: 

  1. Support the local demands. Sign Reclaim the Block’s petition urging MN city council to defund the police, https://secure.everyaction.com/eR7GA7oz70GL8doBq19LrA2
  2. Donate to organizations on the ground that are responding to the anti-Black violence. In Minnesota, bail is being raised by the Minnesota Freedom Fund
  3. Support pro-Black elected officials who are trying to change the anti-Black system of criminalization. Here are some District Attorney races that we identified:

    José Garza, Travis County (Austin) TX 
    Eli Savit, Washtenaw County (Ann Arbor-ish), MI
    Victoria Burton-Harris, Wayne County (Detroit) MI 
    Kim Gardner, St. Louis, MS
    Alonzo Payne. JD 12 in Colorado

This is a difficult time for many of us, particularly for those who have direct experience with police violence and criminalization. Many members of our communities are holding pain and anger that gets added to the grieving we are already going through during this pandemic.  Let’s show up for each other, hold each other, and target the systems of violence that are killing us.