RECLAIM THE STREETS

prisonsdontwork — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 14:54:30 +0000

The Reclaim The Streets was a success! We blockaded Canal Street to disrupt business as usual and create a police-free party zone where we danced to Lil Wayne. We held the streets for over an hour. Six of us got arrested. We want to see others blockade everything while injustice remains such a big part of our society!

See PHOTOS from the action and read the flyer handed out at the event.

Reports:

~A Feminist Report from the streets

~Another Report

~A Third Report

~a feminist flyer from the action: Front | Back

A Corporate news article about the event from nola.com, and one from WWL. Hip Hop press articles, mostly picked up from the corporate article here, here, here, here, and here. Good one here. New Times-Picayune article here. (Contrary to some media reports, there were 40 people, not 6, and there were people of all genders there, not just men. Journalists suck, that’s why capitalists hire them! The efforts of those most effected by the PIC were in evidence on this night: youth, people of color, women, queer, and transgendered people were all out in force on the streets, taking space and demanding an end to the system that targets us disproportionately and oppresses everyone.)

The most important thing to note from this event is that YOU can throw an event just like this in your city, neighborhood, school, wherever. Just disrupt business as usual!

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Reclaim the Streets: November 30

(flyer to spread the word)

A street party highlighting the imprisonment of hometown heroes Lil Wayne and Lil Boosie as examples of how the police and prison industrial complex do not work.

These artists have brought happiness, hope, and strength through music to people around the world, and we think that putting them, or anyone else, in prison is not going to make us any safer.

There will be a sound system with great music and a festive atmosphere, so come in costume, bring party supplies, noisemakers, drums, silly string, chalk, and pictures of anyone you know in prison, to celebrate the day when we can reclaim their lives from prison, as our reclaimed space spreads!

What’s Wrong with prisons:

-Louisiana has the highest incarceration rate in the U.S., yet we are no safer.

-Louisiana has the highest arrest rate in the U.S., yet we are no safer.

-The Angola 3 are still in prison, yet we are no safer.

-We spend more on police and prisons, yet our communities are never protected from the violence that is poverty, war, racism, sexism, and homophobia. In fact, these communities are disproportionately targeted by the very system claiming to exist for their protection.

-We spend more on police, but no one protects our communities from the destruction of our homes for private hospitals, new condos, and “mixed-income” developments.

-And on the 10 year anniversary after the WTO was shown to be a criminal conspiracy of corporate and government interests by protesters in the streets of Seattle, we still have not been protected from it’s policies by the police and prison system. In fact, those systems have continued to enforce the very WTO policies that are harming communities across the world.

WE WANT TO END THIS CHARADE.

We are not going to demand any changes, because we want a world where we no longer have to beg those in power to listen to us. We are simply going to create a space in the streets where the failed police and prison system do not operate and are not welcome. A space where we can celebrate the beginning of the end of that system, and the beginning of a new world.

We hope to spread this new world far beyond these streets on this one night. Carry it with you to your neighborhood, to your work, to your school, to your city, state, and country, and liberate space from this system by organizing with others where ever you happen to find yourselves.