Title: NYC’s Movement for Justice in El Barrio
Location: downtown toronto
Start Date: 2011-03-24
End Date: 2011-03-26

NYC’s Movement for Justice in El Barrio: El Barrio is Not for Sale, It is to be Loved & Defended
24-26 March 2011, Toronto
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=205252452820407

Come hear Juan Haro and Maria Mercado from Movimiento por Justicia del Barrio, or the Movement for Justice in El Barrio, in Harlem, NYC, as they share stories of their struggle, build connections and raise funds. The Movement for Justice in El Barrio, is an organization of immigrants in El Barrio, New York City that fights for human dignity and against community displacement. They fight for the liberation of every marginalized group, including immigrants, people of color, women, gays, lesbians, transgender communities, and all the poor of the world.  Movement for Justice in the Barrio is part of the Other Campaign called for by the Zapatista Army of National Liberation.

Movimiento’s members, at 600 strong, have never taken on a battle they have not won, and do not stop at simply taking down their greedy landlords organizing community consultations called Encuentro.

“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 developed by the Zapatistas 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” – Movement for Justice in El Barrio

Talks and Film Screening

Gentrification and Resistance
24 March 2011, 4pm – 6pm
Sidney Smith Hall Rm. 5017B, 100 St. George

El Barrio is Not for Sale, It is to be Loved & Defended with speakers from OCAP and NOII-TO
25 March 2011, 6pm – 8pm (incl. Community dinner)

El Barrio is Not for Sale & The Other Campaign
26 March 2011, 4pm – 6pm
Accents Bookstore, 1790 Eglinton West

Videos from their actions: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TCNngd7auM &http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TCNngd7auM

by Norman (Otis) Richmond
BASICS # 15 (Sep / Oct 2009)

Twenty years ago in Oakland, California, during the month of August, Huey P. Newton was murdered.

It is August 22, 1989, at about 8:30 am in the morning. Gwen Johnston, the co-owner of Third World Books and Crafts (Toronto’s first African-Canadian-owned bookstore) phoned me —- the news is shocking, dreadful even. Mrs. Johnston is in tears, saying, “Otis, they have killed Huey”. Mrs. Johnston and her husband Lennie were huge supporters of Newton, the Black Panther Party and the struggle for African liberation and the liberation of humanity.

Whatever Huey’s shortcomings, Newton led many of us ideologically. For a brief moment in the history of Africans in America, Newton was “the tallest tree in the forest”.

Malcolm X was the first national leader in the African community in the United States to oppose the war in Vietnam. Dr. Martin Luther King later followed Malcolm’s lead on this issue. Newton took it to the next level: In 1970, when was released from prison in California, his first act was to offer troops to fight in Vietnam on the side of the Vietnamese people against American imperialism. On August 29, 1970, Newton wrote: “In the spirit of international revolutionary solidarity, the Black Panther Party hereby offers to the National Liberation Front and provisional revolutionary government of South Vietnam an undetermined number of troops to assist you in your fight against American imperialism. It is appropriate for the Black Panther Party to take this action at this time in recognition of the fact that your struggle is also our struggle, for we recognize that our common enemy is the American imperialist who is the leader of international bourgeois domination.” Read more…

Despite the “modern” and “inclusive” image the Conservatives tried to push during the elections, Harper’s cabinet is overall rich, white, rural and male. It is unlikely any of these people have ever had to worry about paying the rent or how they were going to pay off their student loans since they come from backgrounds of wealth and priviledge: lawyers, bureaucrats, CEOs, businessmen and corporate flunkies. Let’s take a closer look at a select few of the Conservative Party’s “best and brightest”:

DAVID EMERSON
Minister of International Trade
A former bureaucrat and CEO of a bank, airport, and logging company, Emerson revealed both his own lack of principles and the minimal differences between the Liberals and Conservatives when he jumped ship to Harper government immediately after the election, keeping the same cabinet position he had under Martin. This from the man who less than a year ago referred to the Tories as “blatantly opportunistic, partisan and misleading the Canadian people.” Read more…