National-Call-to-Action: Rise & Decolonize! Let’s Get Free Rally
DOWNTOWN SEATTLE – WESTLAKE CENTER [and Nationwide]
Seattle, WA, Friday, November 18, 2011 at 5:00pm – In solidarity with All Peoples Revolutionary Front and the POC Caucus of Occupy Seattle, Hip Hop Occupies organizes a rally to claim spaces as people-of-color, youth, and artists in local “occupations”. Meeting at the intersection of arts, culture, and the Movement, the rally will feature speakers from the frontlines, not politicians, and community advocates, not career activists, woven into narratives of Hip Hop and all its elements: B-boy/B-Girling, DJing, Graffiti, and Emceeing. When we imagine decolonization, we do not make demands of those in power; we create power and frame the alternative.
Hip Hop Occupies embraces the term “occupation” as it has been reclaimed by militant workers of color from Latin America (Oaxaca, Buenos Aires, South Korea, China, among other places) to describe their occupation of factories, schools and neighborhoods, to strike back against oppressive forces. But while it is in this context that we use the term “occupy”, we fully endorse the “Decolonize” framework as a necessary expansion of the Occupy Movement. In the face of brutality in the legacy of capitalism, a system that relied upon the enslavement of African and Caribbean peoples, the genocide and displacement of Indigenous Peoples, and the violent seizure of lands for colonial profit, we embody a vision of intersectional social justice and self-determination.
In the strength of “making our own power”, Hip Hop Occupies announces our solidarity with “Rise & Decolonize! Let’s Get Free” National Call-to-Action, and encourages all those who share our commitment to this vision to come out in full force 5pm on November 18, 2011, to create, build, and affirm the decolonization of the Occupy Movement, in order to fulfill its revolutionary potential.
From its genesis, Hip Hop has been a vehicle of expression and liberation for oppressed peoples. Disenfranchised youth in the development-torn 1970s Bronx responded to the economic violence imposed upon their neighborhoods by resistant occupation of public spaces through art. It was in these acts of occupation that the elements of Hip Hop, b-boy/b-girling, graffiti, DJing, and emceeing emerged and spread. It is in this spirit that Hip Hop Occupies was founded by a group of artists on the ground of Occupy Seattle. We are a growing network of artists, activists, and cultural advocates from the Hip Hop grassroots who are educating, organizing, and agitating from the frontlines of Occupy actions all over the world. In just two weeks, our growing local and national network has expanded to over 22 allies including All People’s Revolutionary Front, Umojafest P.E.A.C.E Center, Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign, 206 Zulu, One Hood, Hidmo, Occupy the Hood, Davey D, Black Orchid Collective, Grassroots Artist MovEment, Black Magic Noize, Truth About Tupac Movement, Chicago Anti-Eviction Campaign, Rosa Clemente, Bump Local, Hip Hop Congress and more. We seek to continue this growth and collect the representative allies from every city as well as support emerging leadership from our underrepresented communities in order to fuel the resistance, and to feed the vision of a better world for the generations that follow.
Click here to read the Decolonize Declaration of Occupy Seattle
Click here to read All Peoples Revolutionary Front's Open Letter to Occupy San Diego
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