To members and families of organizations, community members, and people of good heart, who are resisting in their communities.
To all those fighting for dignity and against displacement & rezoning.
To those who fight for humanity.
NYC ENCUENTRO
FOR HUMANITY AND AGAINST DISPLACEMENT
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 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, JANUARY 31, 3:00 PM
We are here. We are a community in resistance. We feel a new moment.
Around the city, the country, and the globe, the system is heaving and shaking. We see it showing thin cracks in its concrete walls. Here in the city, we see dignified people coming together in opposition to racist policies that threaten to displace us – low-income tenants, the homeless, small businesses – from our homes and communities.
The Mayor, backed by real estate and large corporate interests, attempts to strengthen his grip on the reins of power, by designing, promoting, and approving racist policies such as rezoning and luxury housing plans that displace our communities.
Those from above seek to sell off public housing by privatizing and annexing the land where the city’s poor live.
The powerful target and criminalize our marginalized homeless sisters and brothers through brutality and harassment.
Politicians, at the service of corporate interests, and real estate developers belong to a culture that uses the power of money to take control of that which belongs to our communities.
The powerful want to displace poor families to renovate their buildings and rent the apartments to rich people, to white people with money. They want to build tall temples of wealth, huge amounts of luxury housing in our poor communities of color with the excuse of “developing the community.”
They want to remove the street vendors, who earn an honorable and dignified living, the families that have their small restaurants, small clothing stores, and the small bodegas on the corners in our neighborhoods. They want to displace us to bring in their luxury restaurants, their large expensive clothing stores, and their supermarket chains. They want to change our neighborhoods.
The powerful want to change our culture using their oppressive plans. They want to change that which makes us Latin@, Black, Asian and/or Indigenous.
They want to destroy everything that makes us vibrant communities of color and replace us with their culture of money.
We know that these imposed oppressive plans cannot be reformed or revised to work in service of the people.
Local politicians use their power, influence and money to try to buy off resistance in our communities and pacify dissent under the guise of “community engagement,” to make their racist rezoning plans more palatable and “acceptable” and there are those that choose to accept the money of the powerful and ride on the currents of their power. They want to create illusions on the side of the powerless and benefit from the powerful.
Power seeks to divide and marginalize us as people of color, as women, as transgender, lesbian and gay, as youth, as the elderly, as workers, as the homeless, as immigrants, as tenants. We must resist division. We must seek to come together.
As we struggle here, we do not forget our sisters and brothers resisting in the far corners of the world. Nor do we forget where we come from and that many of us have already experienced displacement from our homelands. We join the humble and simple people across the world in their resistance as we stand up and join the fight against those from above who have pushed us to this dignified rage.
So once again we invite to our corner of the world those who are struggling for housing, for freedom, for justice, for love, for a voice, for a space to exist, for the preservation of our communities, for peace, for respect, for themselves, for their community, for dignity…for humanity.
We invite those who will build something new and beautiful…
Groups fighting for humanity & against displacement across New York, the country and the globe 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 artwork or however people can best express their struggle.
P.S. Children are especially invited to come break open the “REZONING = DISPLACEMENT” Piñata!
We will provide childcare and Spanish/English translation.
Please RSVP by January 20th 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 movementencuentro@gmail.com
Who We Are
Movement for Justice in El Barrio is an immigrant women- and people of color-led, grassroots community organization in East Harlem that fights for dignity and against displacement. For eleven years, Movement has built a 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 fights for the liberation of women, people of color, transgender people, lesbians and gays, immigrants and poor people.