Arabs in Chicagoland Rally for Black Liberation

Arabs in Chicagoland Rally for Black Liberation

Last Saturday, June 13th, 2020, in the heart of the Arab and Palestinian community of Chicago’s southwest suburbs, over 175 community members and 80 cars participated in an #Arabs4BlackLiberation rally and car caravan co-convened by USPCN, Arab American Action Network (AAAN), Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (CAARPR), and Black Lives Matter (BLM)-Chicago.

Leading chants of “Black Lives Matter” in Arabic and English, rally MC and USPCN member Husam Marajda explained why Arabs and everyone else must support the current #JusticeForGeorgeFloyd Uprising raging across the U.S.: “We chant ‘Black Lives Matter’ because Black lives matter more than bricks and glass windows [and] buildings…a precious Black life taken by the hands of the police can never be [replaced].”

The rally included speakers from Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP)-Chicago and the AAAN’s Youth Organizing Program, who both spoke fiercely in support of Arab solidarity with the Black liberation movement in the U.S.

One of the top leaders of the Uprising in Chicago, Frank Chapman, co-chair of CAARPR, reminded the crowd of the many years of unity between Palestinians/Arabs and Black people in Chicago and beyond.

“We have always maintained that Palestinian and Black people have a future together because we are both locked in battle against a world-wide system of racist and national oppression that holds us in bondage,” said Chapman, “and we both seek liberation from a system that denies us our inalienable human right to determine our own political destinies as a people.

“You have been driven from your land and denied your right to exist as a nation by the Israeli government. And we have been denied our right to exist free from police terror by the U.S. government.”

A member of the AAAN’s Arab Women’s Committee (AWC) translated Chapman’s words into Arabic for community members eager to learn more about the Uprising’s most urgent demand, the enactment of a Civilian Police Accountability Council (CPAC), which was reintroduced as a piece of legislation to the Chicago City Council this week.

The AWC urged Chicagoans to call their alderpeople (see if yours is already a supporter) and demand that they support and vote for CPAC; and reminded those who live outside of Chicago to support the struggle to depopulate the Cook County jail during this COVID-19 pandemic, so that prisoners – especially senior citizens, the ill, torture survivors, and the wrongfully convicted – could be provided treatment, testing, and release.

The 80-car caravan then made its way down Harlem Avenue across Bridgeview, Illinois, snaking through predominantly Arab neighborhoods with Palestinian flags affixed to the cars, #BlackLivesMatter and #Arabs4BlackLiberation posters taped to the windows, and horns honking loudly and proudly.

A good number of residents came out of their apartments and homes to greet the caravan, which ended with a rally near the offices of the Palos Township, where the #ResignBrannigan Coalition has been protesting the racist policies of township trustee Sharon Brannigan – an ultra-right Trump supporter who wrote racist, anti-Arab, anti-Muslim, and anti-immigrant posts on social media a number of years ago. The community coalition that AAAN and others lead has been demanding her resignation for almost three years now.

The township was a strategic place to end the caravan, for the struggle against police crimes and in support of community control of the police is also the struggle to end racial, national, and religious profiling against Arabs and Muslims. Time and again, our community is reminded that Black liberation is bound to ours.

Until Liberation & Return,

USPCN
Juneteenth 2020

P.S. Buy this beautiful #Arabs4BlackLiberation print shown below, designed by USPCN member Danya Zituni. All proceeds from its sales will go to the Chicago Alliance’s CPAC campaign.

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