Optimism of the Will? Prospects for the Martin movement

Notes I made on WWP leader Larry Holmes' talk

Has the Trayvon Martin Struggle Opened an "Arab Spring" for Black & Brown Youth?

Some outages get more reaction than others.

Spontaneous demos around Martin killing nationwide. Youth and "respectable" people & professionals.

What accounts for this response to this outrage?

No arrest.

Killing of Martin so familiar in common experience of Black and brown people of all generations.

Most at issue in this case in next few days: 

Will grand jury convene?  Will charges be pressed? Will Zimmerman be arrested?

What will be mass reaction to these questions?

Mass rebellion in multiple locations.

If there is rebellion, we must

explain it

defend it

help it

This should be uppermost in our minds in coming weeks

Arab spring?

Germinates via a social outrage, like self-immolation death in Tunisia.  Catalyst.

Conditions long unaddressed excluded & spread in region.

Poverty, austerity, drove rebellion in UK.

50 million young black and brown workers 15-30; unemployed, employed, in prison.

Conditions for them more desperate for decades.

More pronounced since recession.

War against black and brown youth

more jailings

fewer jobs

drug laws

austerity

public education being ended

devastating hyper-depression level of unemployment

23-30% of this class unemployed; some say 40-70%.

No one able to make this an issue; system does not want it to be an issue.

They cannot solve it, do not want to solve it.

Capitalism has written off this section of class: no jobs, so no schools to train them. No housing and services and public transport to get them to work.

Capitalism condemns them to social and political death.

Hoodies and low-riders = defiance at lack of standing.

They know what society has done to them.

How does a section of our class condemned so social death fight against it>

Must rise up and demand jobs like 'immigrant spring' of 2006.

TM case may be like many in past: cynicism, changing the subject, it will go away.

Youth may not stay in streets over it.

But what if struggle deepens and doesn't go away.

We must prepare for this.

Have contingency plan for this eventuality so we are not taken by surprise.

If this is a BB youth Arab spring, it would be great for OWS movement.

Would move OWS more in direction of solidarity with oppressed: anti-racist class struggle.

Fusion of forces in motion over Martin case.

OWS not going away.

OWS youth realize there is no promise of a future for them no matter how savvy they are.

OWS youth need to meet the Black and brown youth who have for a much longer time known the system has no future for them.

This meeting is long overdue.

Revolutionaries are obliged to help deepen and facilitate these struggles in hopes of a 'spring' coming about in a sustainable way.

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