At the No King’s Rally in downtown Detroit, which was attended by an estimated 6,000 people, Tristan Taylor delivered a version of this speech as a member of Left Voice and co-founder of Detroit Will Breathe (DWB) — an anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist police abolition group formed during the 2020 BLM uprising. In his speech, he posed to the movement the need to adopt an anti-imperialist program and program for full rights for immigrants that is politically independent from the bipartisan regime and takes up the discussion of socialism. He also highlighted the campaign against ICE expansion and an upcoming protest on April 11 at the site of a proposed detention center.

*

Whatupdoe. Again my name is Tristan Taylor, and I am happy to be here with you all today to say “No Kings, No War, and No ICE!”

We gather today to reject the draconian attacks on democratic rights and the desire of people to live their lives in peace. But what does that look like? Does it look like the world we had before Trump? We don’t want Kings, War with Iran, or ICE, but what do we want?

For thousands of people who have protested the genocide in Gaza, against state violence and police brutality, against imperialist aggression in Latin America and the Middle East, we want fundamental change. We want oppressed nations to have the freedom to choose their own destiny and not have their resources pillaged by imperialist nations. We want an end to a system of exploitation that makes wage slaves of the working class. We want an end to a system that turns people into second class citizens and oppresses them based on their immigration status, their disabilities, gender, ethnicity, or race. Unfortunately, the effort to uphold all of these injustices has been a bipartisan one, and Trump has only driven that bipartisan agenda to its most vicious and right-wing conclusions. And the history of racist violence of the U.S. has given him a blueprint for how to do that.

But we have a blueprint of our own to follow, like the historic struggle of the civil rights and Black power movement. Those movements didn’t just aim to defeat the racist and unjust system of Jim Crow. They fought for full rights for Black people. So if we want to fight against the vicious attacks on immigrant communities, we have to not only fight to abolish ICE, but for immigrants to have the full rights of citizenship. You talk about taxation without representation? Friends, millions of immigrants work and pay taxes for decades without access to voting rights, or in most states the right to even have a drivers license.

But listen ya’ll. Our movement has to take to heart the lessons of the civil rights movement, which led Martin Luther King, Jr. to recognize the limits of liberalism, and led a generation of civil rights activists like Angela Davis, Huey Newton, and Stokely Carmichael to revolutionary politics. They learned from the harsh resistance to grant civil rights to Black people — something we still are fighting for — that only a radical transformation based on the collective power of the working class and oppressed could grant real liberation.

We know from recent experience in Minneapolis that the way to beat Trump is in the streets, organized in the neighborhoods and in our workplaces. But we have to take that lesson to heart and apply it systematically. We need grassroots organization that is politically independent of both Democrats and Republicans. And we need to talk about socialism and bringing an end to capitalism. Economic systems based on inequality and exploitation cannot be reformed. They must be abolished.

Now, my time up here has to be short, but before I go I got some assignments for you warriors serious about fighting ICE. First, I want to see everyone here attend a rally in Romulus against the proposed detention center April 11th at 3pm. There are folks in the crowd passing out flyers, but you can also make sure to go to the Detroit Will Breathe table to find out more info and how to plug into the campaign against ICE expansion in metro Detroit, which includes ICE renting an office space out of Southfield owned by REDICO. And I want everyone to check out leftvoice.org and our table and deepen the discussion about socialism and discuss with us our campaign for full rights for immigrants. Peace and solidarity yall!

The post The No Kings Movement Must Be Anti-Imperialist: Speech from a Socialist Speaker at No Kings in Detroit appeared first on Left Voice.

From Left Voice via This RSS Feed.