Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network joined hundreds of New Yorkers and dozens of organizations in a coalition of student, Muslim, antiwar, migrant justice and anti-racist groups for a demonstration on Sunday, 20 December 2015 outside Trump Tower in New York City, denouncing the racism of US right-wing Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, and its promotion in the U.S, media. Demonstrators marched from Trump Tower to CNN headquarters in New York City.
“Our outrage over the racism that is polluting the media must be galvanized into mass mobilization so that the world can see that progressive people will not tolerate racism,” said Larry Holmes of the Peoples Power Assemblies. “We will not allow Paris, or San Bernadino to be used as an excuse for racism and repression.”
“Moreover, Trump is helping to lay the basis for an intensification of the war against people of color. That war includes, but is in no sense limited to, racial profiling, murder and brutality at the hand of the police, even greater mass deportations, mass incarceration, war and occupation,” wrote Joe Piette, pointing out that various Democratic and Republican Party politicians condemn Trump for his overtly racist language while at the same time pushing and enforcing practices and policies that expand profiling, surveillance, repression and global bombing and war in Syria, Yemen and elsewhere.
“We salute the dozens of brave youth, migrant and anti-racist activists who braved terrifying punches, hair-pulling and racial slurs as they stood up to Trump’s fanatical supporters,” said Sara Flounders of the International Action Center. “New York is well acquainted with Trump’s racism, going back to 1989 when he financed a racist media campaign to reinstate the death penalty and execute the ‘Central Park Five.’ The five youths after years in prison were proven innocent,” Flounders said.
Samidoun’s signs, linking Zionist racism and repression in Palestine to U.S. racism and repression, were widely seen at the rally, including “Demolish Colonial Walls – from the Southwest to Occupied Palestine” and “Fight Racist Repression – from Killer Cops to Zionist Prisons.”
Photos by Joe Catron and Joe Piette:
