The Party for Socialism and
Liberation joined other groups and individuals, including local immigrant
rights group Puente, for a protest in Tempe, Ariz., to demand that the City
Council not comply with SB 1070. The precedent for such non-compliance was
previously set by the cities of Tucson and Flagstaff, which are pursuing
lawsuits against the state of Arizona on the basis that SB 1070 promotes racial
profiling.
About 100 people gathered at Clark
Park and marched nearly two miles to Tempe City Hall, passing through
residential areas and by Arizona State University. Several people addressed the
crowd using a bullhorn, including this writer, who spoke for the PSL.
Laurita Moore, a community college
instructor, spoke to the crowd about the significance of the Dream Act,
legislation that would provide undocumented college students with a path to
legalization. Moore is currently facing disciplinary proceedings at her college
for publicly supporting the act.
The spirited march garnered a
great deal of attention and support from residents in the neighborhood.
The Phoenix area has seen several
marches of tens of thousands in repudiation of SB 1070. On May 29, close to
100,000 people marched to stop the racist law. Many other smaller protests and
civil disobedience actions have been happening on a weekly basis.
Immigration raids and new
propaganda ploys by fascist Sheriff Joe Arpaio and Governor Jan Brewer are also
weekly occurrences. Three undocumented workers were arrested in Tempe just two
days prior to the march to City Hall during a raid at a Burlington Coat factory
in a busy part of town.
Picket defends fired workers
In Chandler, Ariz., a dozen
workers were fired last week from a Pei Wei restaurant for not attending work
to participate in the protest on May 29. A picket organized by the IWW took place in front of Pei
Wei simultaneously as the march in Tempe was underway. About 25 people picketed
the restaurant in defense of the fired workers.
The PSL, now active in Phoenix, is
meeting workers and students fighting this racist onslaught on a daily basis.
The PSL demands full rights for all immigrants and an end to SB 1070 and HB
2281 (banning ethnic studies programs), but we also know that the current
crisis for workers facing blatantly racist repression will not end there.
Racist repression is built into the capitalist system itself.
There can be no doubt that this
repression runs deep, and Arizona is currently spearheading much of it. But the
will of the oppressed to fight back is an innate quality that no capitalist
state can ever smash. In fact, the opposite is true. It is the organized
struggle of the working class and, as history has taught us, the leadership of
a revolutionary party that will do away with the capitalist system and its
racist institutions once and for all.
