Oppression Breeds Resistance, Organization Sustains It

Defeating the war on Black/African people requires solidarity with all who are oppressed.

And resistance against our common enemy.

As community defenders, organizers, and residents resisted Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Los Angeles this past weekend, the state has responded by calling in the FBI and Border Patrol SWAT units, utilizing Blackhawk helicopters to deliver munitions and military-grade equipment, and mobilizing the National Guard and Marines to quell the justified uprising. As our comrades in SoCal BAP have clearly stated, this is domestic warfare.

The connection could not be clearer between the specific kidnappings orchestrated by ICE and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in Los Angeles on one hand, and the broad militarization of our cities and neighborhoods on the other. Those resisting on the ground in LA have drawn clear parallels with the struggle of the Palestinian Resistance in Gaza, the uprisings of 2020-21, the broader Black Liberation Movement, and the anti-colonial resistance against U.S. imperialism throughout the Americas. Meanwhile, some observers have encouraged Black/African people to ‘sit this one out’ because it supposedly does not involve “us”.

The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) unequivocally rejects this narrative that the oppression of immigrants and migrant communities, and the fascist operations of ICE/DHS, are irrelevant for Black/African people. Black/African people are already resisting and standing in solidarity in LA, just as people and communities of all backgrounds mobilized during the uprisings of 2020. Beyond this, we know that Black immigrants throughout the U.S. are disproportionately targeted for criminalization, detention, and deportation. Further, mass deportation not only dehumanizes immigrants, but it deepens the carceral and punitive hold of these state over all oppressed residents. This also extends beyond the borders of the U.S., as we continue to see Haitian immigrants and descendants in the Dominican Republic being summarily rounded up, brutalized, deported, and in some cases, killed , in what effectively amounts to an apartheid regime under President Luis Abinader.

Our resistance efforts must be directed at the imperialist structure and forces that cause this situation. What is urgently required is not only solidarity in mobilization, but coordination and organization that can sustain resistance against the physical, structural, and psychological violence of the oppressive forces of imperialism, colonialism, white supremacy, and patriarchy. For this reason, BAP’s central campaign, ‘No Compromise No Retreat: Defeat the War Against Africans / Black People in the U.S. and abroad’ aims to provide a common collective direction toward true peace (i.e. liberation), interconnected anti-imperialist organizing and resistance, and the realization of dignity and self-determination through the framework of People(s)-Centered Human Rights.

A core aspect of this revamped campaign focuses on shutting down ICE and CB the root causes of forced/coerced migration, including ending the criminalization of migration and the dehumanization of migrating people, as well as defending against the violations of national sovereignty that created the conditions for forced displacement and migration in the first place. As Abraham Paulous of the Black Alliance for Just Immigration made clear in BAP’s April webinar “Migration, State Violence, and Global Displacement ,” the criminalization of immigration has for decades been utilized as a justification for state violence against and control over Black, Latinx, immigrant, and marginalized communities – advancing the war against our people. This has been particularly aggressive since the passing of the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act under U.S. President Bill Clinton.

These violations are the result of imperialist domination and capitalist exploitation, which similarly forced millions of Black/African people to leave the U.S. South throughout the twentieth century. While this is called ‘the Great Migration’, we know that the displacement from land, relationships, community, and livelihoods was primarily caused by white supremacist terror and economic attacks on our people. Instead of falling into nativist arguments about who Black/African people should and should not care about, we must direct our energy, our organizing, our resistance at the imperialists and the capitalists who oppress us all, and who thrive off of our disunity and confusion.

We take inspiration from the actions of resistance from those in Los Angeles County and the organizing that has emerged from the Community Self-Defense Coalition, which BAP SoCal is a part of. From Los Angeles to Santo Domingo to Khartoum to Gaza, defeating the war on Black/African people requires unity in resistance and struggle against the many forms of imperialist violence.

No Compromise, No Retreat!

By Black Alliance For Peace, Black Agenda Report.