The women of AF3IRM declare:  

FEMICIDE ENDS HERE–ONWARD WITH THE FEMINIST AGENDA OF GENUINE LIBERATION AND FREEDOM FOR ALL!

We’ve been clearly warned: we are in for more turbulent times.  But to Donald Trump and company we issue our own warning: you will cower in our fierce determination, in our deep resolve to create in ways never before seen, in forms that are sustainable and lasting, and which will inevitably destroy the world you’ve been trying to corral us in.

As transnational women of color, as immigrants and children of immigrants, we know hatred and violence intimately.  We know them from a long history of subjugation as women of color.  We face and skirmish with them daily.  And daily we live on.

The world’s governments, the global financial institutions, and the political pundits are wrong: there is nothing uncertain about what a Trump era means.  In fact, there is only certainty—the assurance that there will be violent intensification of what we’ve already seen and experienced: a rise in hate crimes, emboldened white supremacists, homophobia, debasement of the lives of people with disabilities, militarized policing, heightened military actions, privatization of public services, profitable denial of climate change, erasure of indigenous cultures, criminalization of immigrants…

The truth is, fascist/neo-fascist agendas, like that of Trump’s and his cronies’, are built on misogyny, sexism, racism, and gross economic disparity;  reinforced by brutality, hatred, fear-mongering, curtailment of civil rights, further marginalization of those already teetering on the edge.

We are certain that Trump’s neo-fascist agenda means femicide.  By femicide we mean the slow genocide of womankind.  This femicide is the kind that at once kills us and ensures that some of us survive just enough to serve the agenda’s interest, as dehumanized beings whose movements are controlled, with grossly absent choices and non-existent avenues for expression and fulfillment.  There is the certainty, as history has shown, that this femicide diminishes women both as objects for consumption and as consumers chasing the dangling carrot of false happiness and self-realization.  Women are bearers, nurturers, caretakers of generations.  Then, in ensuring a docile population, in ensuring a steady supply of obedient cogs in a wheel, there is nothing more effective than femicide.  This, we know, is what lies ahead under Trump’s autocratic rule.

But there is also the certainty that there will be us.  The us that strengthens unions when big business beat down its workers;  creates educational alternatives when the school system teaches docility.  When access to food and healthcare are denied, there is the us that establishes off-the-grid forms of agriculture in cooperative urban farming, the us that reaches for ancestral medicine and healing practices that defy the pharmaceutical industry.  The us that constructs spaces for the arts when creative paths lead only to submission to the mainstream and denial of our true selves.  The us that uphold the gains of our predecessors and draw spirit from the struggles of our ancestors.

The truth is, it is within our power to triumph over Trump and this misogynistic, neo-fascist system of profit.  We know that this system will crumble without a subdued labor force, the existence of poverty, the devaluation of populations into mere names and numbers in registries.  Indeed, it is with our hands, our resources, our energy that this system has built its world.  Indeed, it is the slow genocide of womankind, that historic and continuing dehumanization of the section of humanity that has the sole ability to produce generations in whose shoulders and backs rest the survival of this system.

The truth is, it is within our power to define our value system, to create a world that reflect our principles.  As transnational women of color, as immigrants and children of immigrants, we carry the trauma of colonialism in our marrow.  It has been passed on genetically.  But we carry too the warrior spirit of our ancestors.  That too has been passed on genetically.  To the women of the US and the world, we say this: we will share with you this fierceness that runs in our veins;  we will dare to constructively debate with you, to examine and resolve our respective culpabilities.  Many of us feminists have been kept from our true objective of liberation, not by obstacles, but by a clear path to lesser goals.  Yes, we have the capacity to resist, to protest, to take to the streets, to fight for concessions in a system that’s ultimately built to destroy our humanity.  But we have an even more potent capacity: to build a culture that we can truly claim as our own, to create a world of our own definition.  It is in our blood.  It is our true nature.

WE WILL NOT ALLOW A MISOGYNIST TO TWEET OUR LIVES AWAY.  FEMINISTS FIGHT FASCISM.  THIS IS THE FEMINIST UPRISING.

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AF3IRM Meeting Points and Contact Info for the Women’s Marches

Women’s March on Washington
AF3IRM NYC will be leading their #FeministsFightFascism contingent at the Washington DC march. They will meet at Garfield Park at the intersection of 3rd and G Street SE, DC 20001. Look for purple berets and scarves between 8:45 AM – 9:30 AM.
For more info, contact: [email protected]

Women’s March on Washington – Los Angeles & Chant Down the Walls-Beyond the Los Angeles Women’s March
AF3IRM Los Angeles will be leading a Women of Color Contingent and co-organizing Chant Down the Walls with the National Day Laborer Organizing Network. Contingent will meet at 6th and Olive Sts in downtown Los Angeles at 9am. Chant Down the Walls will start at 12noon in front of the Metropolitan Detention Center.
FB Event Page for their contingent and Chant Down the Walls: https://www.facebook.com/events/705790922922816/
For more info, contact: [email protected]

Women’s March on Washington – O’ahu
AF3IRM Hawaii is one of the co-chairs of this march. To join their contingent of immigrant and indigenous feminist activists, please meet at 9am in front of the Queen Lili’uokalani statue at the Hawai’i State Capitol Building. For more info, contact: [email protected].

Women’s March on Washington – Oakland
AF3IRM SF Bay Area will be leading their Feminist Uprising contingent at the march.
FB Event Page for their contingent: https://www.facebook.com/events/1950540588508216/
For more info, contact: [email protected]