Movement for Justice in El Barrio
UNANIMOUSLY ENDORSED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF OCCUPY WALL ST., THE PEOPLE OF COLOR CAUCUS (POCCUPY), WOMEN OCCUPYING WALL ST., QUEERING OWS, IMMIGRANT/WORKERS WORKING GROUP, OUTREACH WORKING GROUP, SPANISH WORKING GROUP (OWS en Español), THE ANTI-RACISM ALLIES GROUP, ARTS & CULTURE WORKING GROUP, & EMPOWERMENT AND COMMUNITY WORKING GROUP.
Movement for Justice in El Barrio
“Liberty is like the morning. There are those who sleep and wait for it to arrive, and those that stay awake and walk through the night to reach it.” - Words of the Zapatistas
An Invitation from Movement for Justice in El Barrio:
To members and families of organizations, community members, and people of good heart, who are resisting in their communities,
To Occupy Wall Street and their supporters,
To those who fight for humanity,
NYC Encuentro for Humanity and Against Neoliberalism
An Encuentro is a space for people to come together; it is a gathering. An Encuentro is not a meeting, a panel or a conference, it is a way of sharing developed by the Zapatistas as another form of doing politics: from below and to the left. It is a place where we can all speak, we will all listen, and we can all learn. It is a place where we can share the many different struggles that make us one.
EL BARRIO, NYC
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 4TH, 3:00 PM
We are here. We are a community in resistance. Here in the streets of East Harlem we have fought multinational corporations who try to take away our homes and destroy our community. We have fought the politicians who try to buy our dignity and sell our community. We have fought by exercising our autonomy and building a democratic space without hierarchy where we make decisions through community-wide consultation and direct democratic participation. We continue to fight.
We fight against the capitalist system and all politicians, both Democrat and Republican, that tend and maintain the system in order to reap its benefits for themselves. We refuse to be bound and gagged by politicians who betray us and we will build something outside of the boxes they build to contain us.
In our first three Encuentros, we connected our stories and our resistance with other rumblings of resistance from across the city and across the world. We have joined our voices with our other compañer@s who have been ignored, forgotten and marginalized by the neoliberal capitalist system throughout history and into the present. We have stood together as people of color, as women, as transgender people, gays and lesbians, as youth, as the elderly, as workers, as immigrants. We have made each others struggles our own.
We have stood together with communities who reject the assistance of those from above, from those that speak of democracy with their lips and try to crush and silence us with their hands.
We are a river, boiling underground, making our path and growing everyday, connecting with others. Those from above seek to ignore our rumblings, seek to ignore our voices, seek to ignore our existence. But we have found ways to make our voices heard and let our voices echo with the voices of other marginalized people resisting across the world.
Now, we hear new rumblings, new shouts and new dreams. A new moment has arrived. The capitalist system is being revealed to more eyes as the destruction that it is. The tide is rising rapidly and more people are drowning or struggling to stay afloat. More are looking with clear eyes on a system that has been dismantling communities, crushing spirits and destroying lives for years. The mask is being lifted slowly but surely.
Here we stand in resistance in our corner of the world and we welcome the rest of the 99%.
Together we will build a world where many worlds fit.
Un mundo donde quepan muchos mundos.
So once again we invite to our corner of the world those who are struggling for housing, for education, for health, for freedom, for justice, for love, for a voice, for a space to exist, for peace, for respect, for themselves, for their community, for dignity…for humanity.
We invite those who will build something new and beautiful out of the rubble of a failed neoliberal capitalist system.
Groups fighting for humanity across New York will share our struggles and use this gathering to find ways to mutually support each other. We will share whatever form of expression we choose, whether it be verbally, through song, poetry or rhyme, through a video, through artwork or however people can best express their struggle.
PLEASE RSVP BY Monday, November 28th
P.S. Children are especially invited to come break open the “Neoliberal” Piñata!
We will provide dinner, childcare and Spanish/English translation.
Please RSVP by Monday, November 28th with the number of adults and children that will be attending, their names and an address at which you would like to receive your tickets.
Once you have RSVP’d you will receive your tickets and more details on the Encuentro.
For more info or to RSVP please contact us at (212) 561-0555 or movementforjusticeinelbarrio@gmail.com
Who We Are
Movement for Justice in El Barrio is an immigrant- and people of color- led, grassroots community organization that fights for dignity and against neoliberal displacement from East Harlem to Chiapas and beyond. For seven years, Movement has built a 700-member-strong, local movement for dignity that has taken on and defeated multi-national corporations and corrupt politicians. Committed to the principles of autonomy and self-determination, Movement practices participatory democracy and horizontal decision-making on a community-wide scale. Movement is part of the Zapatista-initiated The Other Campaign and fights for the liberation of women, people of color, transgender people, lesbians and gays, immigrants and poor people.
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