The Party for Socialism and Liberation’s Central Illinois Chapter will host the People’s Rally Against Hate with the University of Illinois Springfield’s Black Student Union ahead of Election Day.
The rally was created in response to occurrences of violence in the U.S., according to organizers.
“It started with Nolan Wells and the failure of police to investigate it, but then expanded with all the other racist and misogynistic violence we’re seeing across the country,” said Sarah Blanco, an organizer for the PSL in central Illinois. “The murder of Kohen Wiley and the police getting away with that, the cover-up of the rape of Jane Doe at Cornell, the ICE activity we’ve been seeing in Springfield and across the country.”
The Immigration Project, a nonprofit serving immigrants in central and southern Illinois, has accounted for 10 community members being arrested in Springfield, Peoria and Bloomington-Normal last week.
“People are angry that Springfield community members have been taken away from their families. They get up to go to work one day and their kids find out their parents didn’t come home,” said Blanco. “It’s another piece of this violent, racist, capitalistic system that we live under that wants to keep people divided and afraid, and keep us from coming together.”
Blanco said that the PSL wants to spotlight these issues, and those in power, rather than sweep them under the rug.
Related
ICE makes arrests in Springfield
Marques Robinson, a member of the PSL and the Civic Engagement and Activism Chair for the Black Student Union, facilitated the collaboration between the two organizations after seeing national protests and rallies by both high school students and other chapters of the PSL following the murder of Nolan Wells, an 18-year-old college student who died during an outing with friends in Mississippi. The Wells family, represented by civil rights attorney Ben Crump, has asked for a re-examination of the case, suspecting foul play.
Robinson began hearing people in both the PSL and BSU talk about holding a vigil or walkout for Wells and felt this was a way to bring awareness to UIS. Robinson said he believes the struggles among different marginalized groups are connected, and this rally is a way to uplift them all.
“We’re showing that we need to work together in order to fight that (oppression) because no one is free until all of us are free, as the saying goes,” he said.
Although the rally is happening ahead of Election Day, Robinson said PSL is not relying on the Democrats or Republicans to fix the underlying issues in the systems that Americans live under, believing that both parties fund the institutions that are destroying communities.
“It’s going to be a people’s movement that we’re trying to foster all over the country, but for me specifically, here at UIS,” said Robinson. “That will bring the shift in the system that we need in order to save any future victims.”
PSL has been advocating for the repeal of Illinois’ Anti-boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions law, which stops state pension funds from investing in companies that boycott Israel. Eight communities in Illinois, including Urbana-Champaign and Bloomington-Normal, will be asked to weigh in on whether the 2015 law signed by Gov. Bruce Rauner should be overturned, although the measure is non-binding.
“In terms of what’s on the ballot, that’s the main thing that we’ve been focusing on here in central Illinois because we don’t have any candidates running and the PSL is a party separate from the Democrats and Republicans,” said Robinson. “So, we are not going to support Democrats like Nikki Budzinski who support the illegal occupation of Palestine and support sending weapons to Israel, and we won’t support any other Democratic or Republican politicians who are that way.”
In an interview with IPM News, Budzinski said that she does believe the U.S. needs to increase humanitarian aid to Gaza, specifically baby formula, and that Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, is using the war for his own benefit while innocent lives are lost in the process. She also said there are questions to be raised about sending additional weapons to Israel, while saying she believes that as the only democracy within the Middle East, Israel has the right to defend itself.
Blanco said that organizers in the Urbana-Champaign area and in Bloomington-Normal have been canvassing to educate Illinoisans ahead of Nov. 3 about the Anti-BDS law. PSL organizers are encouraging voters in those townships where the referendum will appear to vote yes on its repeal.
“We think passing the referendum is a powerful display of where people stand on this issue,” said Blanco. “But also we’re looking at it as a way to keep the genocide in Gaza in people’s consciousness and educate people on it if they aren’t aware of what’s going on.”
Blanco said that all of these issues connect because the capitalist system functions on racist violence, whether it’s keeping Black and white Americans divided, keeping Black Americans oppressed, or even with Israel’s occupation of Palestine.
“We see the connections between these systems manifested when we see things like the same police departments who are killing Black Americans and failing to investigate racist violence are training in Israel with the same forces that are murdering Palestinians,” said Blanco. “Another way that these things are connected is that ever since these violent systems existed, people have been fighting back against them in whatever ways they can.”
