A call for an antifascist and abolitionist bloc on August 12th to show that the Alt-Right is not welcome in DC.

On Sunday, August 12th 2018, Nazis, white nationalists, and others fascist groups comprising the so-called ‘alt-right’ will descend on Washington, DC to hold “Unite the Right 2” in front of the White House at Lafayette Square. The rally will coincide with the 1-year anniversary of the cowardly attack against anti-racist demonstrators in Charlottesville that took the life of Heather Heyer and brutalized members of Charlottesville’s Black community, including residents Corey Long and Deandre Harris.

Here at the heart of the white settler-colonial state in America, communities of the DMV have learned well how to defend themselves against oppression. On a daily basis, in Black and Brown neighborhoods between DC and Baltimore, police act as an occupying army—a criminal gang in blue leaving a trail of broken lives in their wake. Days before Unite The Right in Charlottesville last year, Nazis rode through Southeast DC—a historically black neighborhood—openly brandishing guns and confederate flags. In the suburban communities around DC, sheriffs openly cooperate with ICE through 287g kidnapping our neighbors and tearing apart our families.

Make no mistake, the violence of the US police and prison systems and the genocidal agenda of these fascist groups are two sides of the same white supremacist coin: systems of racial domination predicated on state-sanctioned violence, murder and terror with impunity. The United States was and continues to be built on oppression, enslavement and mass extermination, today manifested in the form of police terror, mass incarceration, and imperialist war-making against racialized ‘others’ abroad.

The regime relies on and is sustained by the imposition of coercion and terror aided and abetted by its non-state allies and auxiliaries drawn from the far-Right like the KKK and neo-Nazi groups. As we have seen time and again, the fascist formations marching on Washington, DC on August 12th are working in close collaboration with law enforcement, including in Virginia State Police and the Metropolitan Police Department.

In the US and around the world, the rising tide of authoritarianism and fascism is fueled by the fomentation of violence against our communities: the retrenchment of long pervasive patriarchy and misogyny; the murder and degradation of Black and Brown lives; the criminalization of immigrants; the oppression and dehumanization of the LGBTQAI+ and two spirited communities; the normalization of Islamophobia and the expansion of the national security state; the intensification of anti-Semitism; and the ongoing war against working people waged by the corporate elite and their political cronies.

In solidarity with the Black Lives Matter Contingent, the Queer Bike Bloc, aligned community groups, congregations, and individuals planning direct action, rallies, and occupations against fascism in the DC-Maryland-Virginia area, we are calling for an explicitly Anti-fascist / Abolitionist Bloc on August 12th. We call on all people of good conscience to support our community’s self-defense, confront the fascist filth, and shut them down.

Anarchists, anti-authoritarians, abolitionists, and all anti-fascists: let this be a call for unity with all oppressed peoples in a sustained struggle for our collective defense and liberation.

“It is our duty to fight for our freedom, it is our duty to win, we must love and protect each other, we have nothing to lose but our chains.” – Assata Shakur

Look and listen for the black flags and sound system on August 12th in Washington, DC. Watch for time and place on August 11th on @ShutItDownDC

Mask up, dress up in black, no phones, no live streams, solidarity and love one another. We’re not going it alone.

To see organizing updates, and who is involved please go to www.shutitdowndc.org

Alt-right not welcome #DefendDC #AllOutDC