Statement by U.S. Labor Against the War

INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence is stunned by the catastrophe and tragic loss in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. In New Orleans and in many other communities along the Gulf, people are experiencing unimaginable devastating conditions. We are especially alarmed for the people who have the fewest resources, who were unable to evacuate New Orleans because of poverty, who were – and in some cases still are – trapped without food, water, and medical attention. Because of racism and classism, these people are also overwhelming folks of color, and because of sexism, they are overwhelmingly women of color – low income and poor women, single mothers, pregnant women, women with disabilities, older women and women who are caregivers to family and community members who were unable to leave the city.

The magnitude of the destruction and human suffering caused by Hurricane Katrina to the people and communities of the Gulf Coast Region, while not the results of an act of “terror”, is directly a result of a profit driven system of capitalist exploitation reinforced by the national oppression of African American people in the US South, a region where the majority of Black people live and where the conditions of oppression, poverty and underdevelopment are most concentrated.

I am re-posting Jamala Rogers’ reaction to the Katrina aftermath, as a preface to more follow-up on the Black homeland’s 9-11. Within the month, there will likely be an announcement of an action connecting Katrina to the war in Iraq. More will be revealed.

Journalist Fred Nerac is missing in Iraq. Anyone who may have served there is requested to contact the person listed at the end of this post.

[MacKinnon is still describing Engels' theory of gender from "The Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the State." -SG] When the home was the center of productive activity, the fact that women labored in the home was superceded by the marketplace as a productive center, the fact that women labored in the home ensured male suprmeacy. This may describe the status of women once commodity production takes over social production, and women are excluded from it. But it explains neither that exclusion on the basis of sex nor its consequences for social power.