SURJ rallies to pledge protection for rights, safety, dignity

Presenter: SURJ—Showing Up for Racial Justice—rallied Feb. 8 in the Free Speech Plaza. SURJ member and 2011 S.L.U.G. Queen Debbie Williamson Smith:

[00:00:10] Debbie Williamson Smith: I’m going to start. I’m going to say all the dirty words. Are you ready? Diversity. Equity. Inclusion. All the things that make us radical. These words are being weaponized against us. Yet here you all are, standing up for what you know is right.

[00:00:29] Why are you considered radical? Because you wanted to stop a genocide in Palestine? Because you’re tired of seeing Black people murdered by police? Because you know guns shouldn’t be the leading cause of death for children in our country? Because you believe trans rights are human rights? Are you radical because you support religious freedom?

[00:00:52] Are you radical because no one is illegal on stolen land? Or are you radical simply because you have the audacity to believe that people should have food, housing, and health care—all those things, right?

[00:01:07] So what made you succumb to this woke ideology? Was it the joy of seeing your friends finally say ‘I do’ when gay marriage was legalized? Was it attending your first Juneteenth celebration? Perhaps it was realizing the history we were taught in school wasn’t all the history. Maybe it was reading the Diary of Anne Frank. Or possibly, just maybe, was it Valentine’s Day in kindergarten, when you had to make a card for everyone, so everyone was included.

The foundation is there, people. We just forgot. Apparently, these are the experiences that make us radicals, but I say they make us human.

[00:01:52] There is important work for us humans to do, especially if you identify as European American. If you’re white, like me, we are now living under open white supremacy. And like it or not, white supremacy is a white people problem.

[00:02:11] Last month, we honored Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., where we often quote his most famous speech, ‘I have a dream.’ I want to encourage you to read or reread ‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’ where he expressed disappointment in the white moderate. He defined a white moderate as someone who is more devoted to order than they are to justice; who prefers a negative peace, which is the absence of tension, to a positive peace, which is the presence of justice.

[00:02:44] As a white woman, I am guilty of resting in negative peace. I have been that moderate white person. Have you? That is the work ahead. The work of deconstructing our whiteness, holding a mirror to ourselves and reflecting on what behaviors we do, why we remain silent, what words or phrases we use, what reactions we have, what biases we bring to the table.

[00:03:10] We must hold the mirror up and ask ourselves, how are we similar to those white people? Chances are we have more in common than we want to believe. But we can change this. If we take the time to deconstruct being white in America, we can use being the problem to become the solution. And if you bring a friend, two things will happen:

[00:03:35] First, you’ll have someone to process with check in with ask questions of. I would not be here without an intimate circle of people who speak the truth. Second, you will grow this beloved community of radicals who believe in the dirty words ‘diversity, equity and inclusion’ and are doing the work with a good heart.

[00:04:00] Please sign SURJ’s pledge to show up to protect the rights, safety and dignity of all people in our community. Please do the self work necessary for change to happen. Together we can take a stand against white supremacy and demand that our legislators do the same.

[00:04:20] Racial justice does not exist in this country, it never has, and it’s up to us to fix it.

[00:04:27] Presenter: Jacob Griffin:

[00:04:28] Jacob Griffin: I need to tell you what’s happening to trans people: Approximately two hours after Donald Trump was inaugurated, he made a policy, an executive order, that basically legalizes the raping of trans women in prison. It dehumanizes them by removing their female clothing, their hair, measuring their breasts to see whether or not they are adequate to be allowed bras, in every way they can, humiliating and dehumanizing, and then attempting to return them to men’s prisons, and they have deliberately dropped the Reproduction Act.

[00:05:06] In other words, we have now an official policy in the United States that trans women in prison will be available to be raped. And I need you to hear and absorb that.

[00:05:17] A few days later, the president took away the rights of trans children to get the health care they need. I’m going to talk to you for a few minutes about puberty blockers because I need you to be our voice. We make up 0.5% of the population and we are about 50% of the terror that’s going on right now.

[00:05:38] Puberty blockers give children who feel uncertain about their gender, or extremely certain about their gender, time. All it does is give them time so that their bodies do not betray them by becoming something that we cannot undo.

[00:05:57] All it does is allow them the time to wait until they can make a decision for themselves about their future. It’s done in conjunction with caring parents, doctors, therapists, and the child themselves. There is nothing mutilating, terrifying happening. It is the best of health care.

[00:06:20] Trans kids now believe their country hates them. You need to know that. I think immigrant kids probably do too, but I know trans kids do. They do not understand that if they had diabetes, if they had cancer, this country would be focused on their care and health because we love children.

[00:06:39] But we don’t love these children. We don’t love immigrant children anymore. We’re not caring for them in the way they need. We are going to see enormous amounts of child suicides over the next few years. It wasn’t enough that we let our children be killed in schools, now we’re going to encourage them to kill themselves because we think they are inappropriate.

[00:07:01] I don’t have friends out here today because they’re afraid. They’re scared, and they have a right to be scared. I have trans women friends who tower over me, who I walk to their car at night because they’re afraid. And I don’t know what I’m going to offer them, but it’s better than whatever else they’ve got. And so what I’m here to do today is to tell you, you have to step forward.

[00:07:24] I know there are people here who struggle with the idea of women and trans women. You have to stop now. It’s time to just step up and take care. If you haven’t noticed, one last thing I’ll tell you: The thing that bothers me, I think, the single most is on the State Department web page. There’s a page that tells queer people where it’s safe and not safe to go.

[00:07:50] Two weeks ago, it would say LGBT. Today, it says LGB. They’ve removed us, and at every place they can, they’re removing us. Without trying to sound hysterical, I’m going to tell you this is a mirror to the Nuremberg Laws of 1935. They are disappearing us from public life. And we need you to make sure we do not disappear.

[00:08:14] Presenter: Sherri Jones:

[00:08:16] Sherri Jones: I want to ask, is this a country for some of us, just for some of us, or is it for the sum of all of us? Back when the media started covering more information about violence against Black and brown lives and I began to see live stream and homemade on-scene video from personal phones of witness, I was really slapped in the face with the visual reality of violence against people of color.

I was aware from a young age of the fight for civil rights. I’m the child of a liberal white woman who started a Democratic women’s student group for Jewish women at her college back in the 1940s.

[00:08:54] She brought us up and would sit us down in front of our TV to watch televised protests during the 1960s. But we didn’t go to these protests, we just watched them on TV. Children’s questions frequently go unanswered, the whys not always truly addressed, other than calling out the hate. That was how it was for me, and it still is for many white people, our privilege allowing us to look but not actually to see. And not actually to know.

[00:09:25] That’s why I’m here to make the choice to do the work that will take my lifetime, but to show up and to speak up. There is so much injustice in the world and the world is now looking back at us at the United States. People are seeing the truth and reality of what is of most interest to this country.

[00:09:45] It’s money for war and money in exchange of people. I want to say that it’s very, very important today for us to notice who we cannot see right now. This is important. We need to think about and remember the people we don’t see here today. The people that are in fear of their lives and whose liberties are being taken away.

[00:10:07] These people are staying inside today because of fear, not because of the cold. We’re all being played as pawns in this global power struggle. Let’s remember and acknowledge our family, friends, and neighbors that are not outside with us to hear today—our transgender and immigrant and refugee communities.

[00:10:27] As thoughtful and compassionate human beings, we must stand up to the current authoritarian and fascist regime and resist Trump’s executive orders to physically remove our immigrant and refugee communities, and especially, we must resist these attempts to remove the very existence of our transgender and nonbinary family members, friends, and neighbors.

[00:10:50] As parents, grandparents, guardians, citizens, and humanitarians, we cannot sit by and wait to see what happens next. The waiting is over. We must protect and support our sanctuary state. We must protect and fight for a sanctuary city and our county that protects our trans and immigrant communities. Is this truly a country for just some of us or for the sum of us? It must be. It’s for all of us.

[00:11:20] Presenter: Lane County Commissioner Laurie Trieger:

[00:11:23] Laurie Trieger: I am Laurie Trieger and whether you live in my district or not, I am your county commissioner. I am sad and I am angry and frustrated to be here today, but I am also lifted up and filled with joy and resolve because we are all here together.

[00:11:40] And I am not surprised that we are here. The struggle for human rights and dignity is as old as time. In this country, every system in which we operate is built on a premise of the superiority of a few over the many. Oppression is the very foundation of America, but so is freedom. And today we are here to assert our freedoms.

[00:12:05] Freedoms to be our authentic selves. Freedoms to love who we love; to travel and live where we choose; to practice our rights, rituals and religions of all kind or of none at all; to care for our bodies and for each other with agency and with access to the services that we need and we deserve.

[00:12:28] I joined the resistance, though I didn’t know that’s what I was doing at the time. Over 40 years ago, at the age of 18, when I lived in Philadelphia, and I volunteered to help women cross hostile picket lines to access abortion care.

[00:12:40] I have been showing up, speaking out, pushing for change, and living my values ever since. And I know many of you here have as well. And welcome to those of you who are new to the resistance. We need you more than ever.

[00:12:53] I’ve been working on issues from worker rights, antiracist policy, economic fairness, reproductive health care, including trans inclusive care, and many other issues. And they are all still in play today.

[00:13:05] As long as there is work to do, I don’t see myself stopping anytime soon, because I have a moral obligation to do this work. And I have a lineage that informs this work. My mother was born in 1928 in Germany. She became a citizen of the United States in 1946, arriving as a refugee from the war, fleeing Nazi Germany.

[00:13:26] My father fought in World War II. He fought fascism in Italy, France, and Morocco. And I found his dog tags, and I’m wearing them.

[00:13:36] Friends, we are none of us alone. We have our ancestors. We have each other. And we also need to do this for those who will come next so that they can look back at this time and see all of us who stood together against oppression and held fast to a vision of true justice for all.

[00:13:55] And finally, I want to say as an elected official that it is deeply concerning to me to see other public officials at the state, local and federal level use their position and platform to denigrate, to exploit those most at risk of harm to feed their own sense of power and worth. Shame.

[00:14:15] There is a difference between bravery and bravado. The former is righteous. The latter is a false front that bullies use to intimidate and to silence. But we are here. Are we here? And we are loud. Are we loud? And we are righteous.

[00:14:36] We will and we do stand brave in the face of their bravado. And we stand together…

[00:14:42] This is the pledge that SURJ, Showing Up for Racial Justice national, has put out for folks to sign: ‘I pledge to show up to protect the rights, safety, and dignity of people in my community and resist Trump’s antidemocratic and immoral agenda consistent with the principles of nonviolence.’

[00:15:01] Presenter: Speakers Laurie Trieger, Sherri Jones, Jacob Griffin, and Debbie Williamson Smith stand up for racial justice. You can sign the pledge at ProtectAndResist.com.

[00:15:14] Audio by Todd Boyle for KEPW News, 97.3, Eugene’s PeaceWorks Community Radio.