Here’s this week’s rundown of ways to connect with the liberation movement in Pittsburgh!

Please let us know if there there’s an event that is not listed that you would like us to promote through our Facebook, our blog, our Twitter, and through flyers or email.

All Week

On March 18th at 7 AM about 80 prisoners at the Allegheny County Jail in Pittsburgh launched a 24 hour sit-in strike, refusing to leave their cells for work, meals, or anything else. They are demanding the following:

1. Permit the Justice Project to have immediate access to the ACJ as volunteer interns, with designated areas within the jail to conduct inmate interviews and generate reports.

2. Expand unit management staff to include more case workers or assistants to better manage the affairs of inmates.

3. Change the method in which medical services are provided to inmates and ensure adequate meds are dispensed.

4. Provide inmates to a legitimate grievance procedure.

5. Require the DOC and Prison Board to ensure that all administrative rules and DOC policies are accessible to inmates.

Please call the jail and the Allegheny County Executive’s office to express your support! It is important to let the administration know that the striking prisoners have significant support on the outside in order to minimize retaliation as much as possible.

Don’t neglect that fax number either. Faxzero.com will let you send free faxes. Use a black background with white text to help the county administration dispose of all those excess toner cartridges cluttering their office supplies closet…

Orlando Harper, ACJ Warden

Phone: 412-350-2000

Rich Fitzgerald, Allegheny County Executive

Phone: 412-350-6500

Fax: 412-350-6512

Sample script: Hi, I’m calling in support of the prisoners who held a sit-in protest recently. Please meet all their demands and refrain from any retaliation against them.

[ https://itsgoingdown.org/pittsburgh-call-campaign-striking-county-jail-prisoners/ ]

Hundreds, possibly thousands, of miles of pipelines are being laid across Pennsylvania despite the objections of residents and landowners. From the Mariner East to the Atlantic Sunrise, resistance is growing in many communities!

Fracking and pipeline companies tell us that we need these fossil fuels even though we know that the vast majority of them are being exported, meaning that there is no benefit for PA residents.

Pipeline companies tell us that they are safe despite the millions of gallons of fossil fuels that have been spilled from pipeline ruptures each year.

Meanwhile, PA’s Department of Environmental Protection has been hiding complaints of water contamination and willfully failing to hold the fracking companies responsible. And our new Attorney General Josh Shapiro, who ran his campaign on a promise to hold fracking companies accountable, is failing to investigate the DEP and put permits on hold until the investigation is complete.

How can you join the resistance to these fracking profiteers?

1) Call AG Josh Shapiro’s office today and demand that he investigate the DEP: 717-787-3391

2) Plan an action in your area! It doesn’t take much. Just you and a group of friends, some poster board and markers, and a great location where you’ll either get to talk to a lot of people about the dangers of pipelines or make an impression on legislators.

[ https://actionnetwork.org/events/pennsylvania-pipeline-resistance-week-of-action ]

Monday (Today) – 3.20

Tell Pittsburgh Public School Board that we need Solutions, Not Suspensions! Our youngest learners, in PreK through 5th grade, should not be suspended from school for minor infractions. #SafeSupportiveSchools #SolutionsNotSuspensions #CommunitySchools #DignityInSchools #RethinkDiscipline

Ask the Board of Education to:

1. End the use of out-of-school suspensions from PreK-5th grade for minor infractions and;

2. Assign, in every PreK-5th grade school, at least one full-time counselor or social worker whose primary job is to coordinate appropriate interventions and support for students.

[ https://www.facebook.com/events/1439585219398404/ ]

Tuesday – 3.21



Her latest book is “Fannie Never Flinched: One Woman’s Courage in the Struggle for American Labor Union.” Fannie Sellins was an organizer for the United Mine Workers killed here in Pittsburgh while protecting workers.

Registration is required. For more information contact Melody Harris at m.harris@chatham.edu

Discussion: Opposition to Local Right-Wing Organizing

Contact PSSC to get plugged in.

Join Pittsburghers for Public Transit as we celebrate National Transit Worker Appreciation Day on Tuesday, March 21st. Let’s thank our transit workers for keeping us moving!

PPT will be distributing thank you cards and treats to Port Authority bus operators and maintenance workers.

Cards will be available between 2-6pm at the Wood St station downtown. If you’d like to get cards in advance for your morning commute, please email info@pittsburghforpublictransit.org.

You can also print out your own card at this website:www.transitdriverday.org

Don’t have a card? Just give your driver a special shout out as you get off the bus. We know they’ll appreciate it!

[ https://www.facebook.com/events/420909534915300/ ]

Wednesday – 3.22

Anarchy Anime Club @ Pitt

Conspire with friends, play boardgames, do homework, eat dinner, announce projects, ask for support – come hang for a bit! Or don’t, it’s whatever really.

9pm(ish) to 11 or so in the Room of Requirement, short documentary screening starts at 10:30. This week we’re (totally going to remember to bring an adapter) gonna watch Street Politics 101 (33 min), unless someone has something better in mind. Ask around // contact PSSC for an invite.

The Hill District Consensus Group &

The Black Political Empowerment Project

Present…

Meet the Candidates!

Thursday – 3.23

Let us know what’s happening, we’ll spread the word!

Friday – 3.24

Link to the reading: http://www.liesjournal.net/volume1-12-genderdistinction.html

For our third discussion group we will be reading “The Gender Distinction in Communisation Theory” by P. Valentine. It will explore the relationship between gender, race, and revolution through the lens of communization, arguing that the abolition of gender and race is a vital part of the communist revolution. If you are unfamiliar with the communization tendency, you can read an introduction here: https://libcom.org/library/communisation

We will have a few printed copies of the reading, but feel free to bring your own or follow along on your phone/tablet/laptop.

[ https://www.facebook.com/events/1416580568417082/ ]

Join The Union Edge for the 2nd Annual Labor Radio Dinner on March 24 for an evening of good food and drink and great company. Last year it was a rousing success with more than 300 labor leaders, politicians, community friends and others in attendance! This year we are excited to welcome American Federation of Teachers International Executive Vice President Mary Cathryn Ricker as our keynote speaker, and musicians from the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra as our entertainment! There will be a delicious Yinzer dinner spread and an open beer and wine bar as well. Join us! Looking forward to seeing you there.

[ https://www.facebook.com/events/1850331088571311/ ]

Saturday – 3.25

On Saturday, March 25th, the far-right will attempt to bring their “movement” out of the comments section of the internet and into the streets of Pittsburgh. Let’s show them who really owns the streets.

This is an open call to action. The Pittsburgh Student Solidarity Coalition has only just begun reaching out to our friends and other community organizations, and so we would like to encourage folks to either join us at our upcoming coordination meeting (TBA) or to plan their own actions. If you want to make your own call to action / facebook event page, go for it!

If you want to get involved, voice any concerns or criticisms, or coordinate in some other way, message our page or shoot us an email at studentsolidaritypgh [at] gmail.com. PSSC is an informal network of feminist, anti-capitalist, anti-racist, environmentalist, socialist, and anarchist youth and student organizations.



[ https://www.facebook.com/events/1327364170691260/ ]

Sustain the resistance by building a powerful people’s organization. Learn about our various statewide campaigns and hear from our staff and members on March 25 for our next One PA Community Meeting. Refreshments and childcare will be provided. Join us!

[ https://www.facebook.com/events/128527664342058/ ]

Harm reduction (or harm minimization) is a range of public health policies designed to reduce the harmful consequences associated with various human behaviors, both legal and illegal.

The Gay and Lesbian Community Center of Pittsburgh presents its third town hall meeting: Harm Reduction in Drug Use. The LGBTQ+ community is disproportionately afflicted by drug addiction. We need to start a dialogue about how best to educate and prepare the members of our community who battle with addiction. Join us, and other local organizations like Prevention Point, to discuss how we can best apply the harm reduction model around Pittsburgh.

Make sure to mark our future town halls in your calendar too!

~April 29th: LGBTQ+ Populations in Prison

~May 27th: Homelessness in the LGBTQ+ Community

~June 24th: Your rights as an LGBTQ+ Student

~July 29th: Sex Work

[ https://www.facebook.com/events/410196882668063/ ]

HANDS OFF DPRK!

The Trump administration is threatening DPRK with war over the country’s nuclear program. The US has massive amounts of fire power aimed at the DPRK and is threatening DPRK with preemptive war unless it gives up its central means of defense. The DPRK has understandably, built up its nuclear program as a means of self-defense as country after country on the U.S. hit list has come under attack or been destroyed. The people of Asia have a basic human right to self-defense. It is US imperialism that is the threat to peace i n the region, not DPRK. End imperialist sanctions on DPRK! U.S. troops out of South Korea!

Hands off DPRK! NO WAR AGAINST SYRIA!

The Pentagon is sending more U.S. ground forces to Syria. To justify this military escalation, the demonization of the Syrian Government has been intensified though a new wave of misleading propaganda. As the proxy war intensifies and U.S. imperialism continues to bolster its role in the region, all anti-war and progressive forces must see the writing on the wall. The recent surge in the military budget by billions of dollars indicates that the U.S. government has no interest in peace, the economy is heavily supported by militarism and investing in the death, destruction, and occupation of sovereign nations.It is in the interest of working class and oppressed people in the centers of global capitalist imperialism to resist their own government’s illegal and imperialist acts of war around the world, whether it is in Syria or Korea.Join Veterans for Peace of Western PA,ANSWER Pittsburgh,

Hands off DPRK!

Hands off Syria! NO WAR AGAINST SYRIA!The Pentagon is sending more U.S. ground forces to Syria. To justify this military escalation, the demonization of the Syrian Government has been intensified though a new wave of misleading propaganda. As the proxy war intensifies and U.S. imperialism continues to bolster its role in the region, all anti-war and progressive forces must see the writing on the wall. The recent surge in the military budget by billions of dollars indicates that the U.S. government has no interest in peace, the economy is heavily supported by militarism and investing in the death, destruction, and occupation of sovereign nations.It is in the interest of working class and oppressed people in the centers of global capitalist imperialism to resist their own government’s illegal and imperialist acts of war around the world, whether it is in Syria or Korea.Join Pittsburgh Anti-Imperialist League Party for Socialism and Liberation – Pittsburgh to raise our voices against all US-led imperialist aggressions.Hands off DPRK!Hands off Syria!

[ https://www.facebook.com/events/224141108066516/ ]

Written and directed by Linda Nieves-Powell, award-winning writer of Yo Soy Latina!, the monologues in José Can Speak explore the lives and relationships of Latino men from the perspective of Latinas.

Linda conceived of the idea of Latina women performing as their male counterparts while touring the country with her plays, Yo Soy Latina! and Soul Latina. She says, “Male audience members would always ask me when I was going to write a male version of the Latino experience and I would always answer, I’m not a man, so why don’t you try it.” But after numerous requests she decided to take on the challenge.

Inspired by real people, the monologues in José Can Speak range from comical to serious and explore a variety of topics. From the war in Iraq, to the guy at the Copa looking for love, or the gay Latino who marries a woman to get his father off his back. Performed as a series of colorful and diverse monologues, this show will entertain, educate, and provoke insightful thought about what truly resides in the heart of a Latino man as told by the Latinas.

Saturday, March 25

Two shows at 3pm & 7pm

Early bird tickets are available until March 5! After that prices will increase.

For tickets and more information visit:

www.cafeconlechepgh.com/jose-can-speak

[ https://www.facebook.com/events/165036054002346/ ]

King Fez will be hosting a benefit to support local refugees from the Middle East. Join us for a night of good food, great music and dance on Saturday, March 25, 2017- 8:00 PM at Dijlah Restaurant, Lawrenceville. Donations of any amount are appreciated.

[ https://www.facebook.com/events/183746838789840/ ]

You’re invited to SistahSpeak! Youth Project™’s for our 2nd E3 event, “Ending Violence, Ending Criminalization” on March 25, 2017 from 11A-4P at the Irma Freeman Center (5006 Penn Ave, 15224)!

Our 2nd event is themed “Ending Violence, Ending Criminalization” and as a community will co-construct strategies to end state and interpersonal violence, and learn basic self-defense and awareness tactics.

This event is FREE, includes lunch and childcare is available upon request.

Join us for an early afternoon workshop (11A-12P) focused on self-defense and awareness tactics. Following this, join us for our afternoon panel (1P-3P) to discuss the current and historic impact of criminalization and violence against Black women, femmes, and girls, such as the school-to-confinement pipeline.



[ https://www.facebook.com/events/172443753258209/ ]

We’re getting back to our roots! We’re excited to be able to bring a cultural perspective to our conference this year.

The theme is: Growing Roots for Healthy Communities and it’s all about celebrating the diversity of farming and traditional cooking methods that make eating local fun, educational and enriching.

The conference provides consumers with two days of networking and educational opportunities. Seasonal cooking demonstrations, gardening, and information about the nutritional value of local food are presented by local experts.

Meet with other Locavores to discuss ideas about where their food comes from and where to find businesses and organizations who can provide them with healthy food and healthy lifestyle choices.

10am-5pm both days; additional events before and after each day.

[ https://www.facebook.com/events/189009541479207/ ]

Sunday – 3.26

Let us know, we’ll spread the word!

Local News and Ongoing Calls for Support

Time to get the ball rolling….

We live in a civil war, fought on numerous social terrains. The opposing forces are well supplied with weapons from the establishment and their grounding hegemony. While we are skeptical of naming a core actor, in our own location this hegemony is built around West Virginia University and the spectacle it maintains.

While WVU promotes its #RespectfulMountaineer campaign as a patronizing reaction to the police-instigated Baylor Riots of 2014, it turns a blind eye to the systemic rape of women on campus . The Greek system, as on many other campuses, is allowed to run a campaign of social terror on women, queers, and anyone else not interested in their creepy bourgeois rituals and violent masculinity. Our current living situation is abysmal. Rents are skyrocketing and absentee landlords let houses fall into complete disrepair. The university flows public money into private hands and raises tuition for poor appalachian students every year. So what are we to do? Ask them for better policies, run for student government, or maybe even write up a petition?

We reject this completely.

We do not expect anything of the institution that we combat. This is not some idealized “conversation” occurring in a neutral space, a debate in an old french salon between two good citizens. We understand the immense powers of WVU and refuse to engage in a rigged conversation because of our own poor experiences and the well-documented experiences of others in this struggle.

No conversation on rape will end rape on campus. No conversation on gentrification will end the trend of rising rents. No conversation on police brutality will end police brutality. The only way forward is pointing out the perpetrators and destroying the apparatuses that allow for this to occur.

Who are these perpetrators? Landlords, frat bros, college administrators, cops, gentrifying entrepreneurs and the whole rotten lot. We know the buildings and spaces these people occupy. We know the property they own and the institutions they maintain. So we propose, what if it is time to go on attack?

Yet, to go on the offensive, to establish a forward stance, we have to make contact with others who also recognize their enemies. Abolition is on the table across our milieu; it applies as much to prisons as it does to the grand university. So many of us have been scarred by the institution of the university, it is paramount for us to organize this attack while proposing new forms, experiments, and alternatives. To this end, we are calling for a convergence of interested parties in April 2017 so we can discuss the next steps for people invested in ending the institution itself.

So we have to ask “which side are you on?”

Market Square is for Binge Drinking, Not Chess Matches “The fact that the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership chooses to enthusiastically support Downtown Pittsburgh’s annual drinking binge (St. Patty’s Day) while breaking up mid-afternoon chess matches in Market Square reveals exactly what PDP CEO Jeremy Waldrup means when he says he wants to make the space ‘welcoming for everyone.’ Removing the chairs isn’t about dealing with drug use in the square, removing the chairs is about making the space less hospitable poor people, people of color, and high school students while making the area more welcoming for wealthy restaurant patrons.” Call for Support from Seattle Omari has been one of the leaders of the Seattle, WA anti-ethnic cleansing/gentrification movement for over 40 years. Now, him and his peace center, Umojafest Peace Center, have been evicted by a land developer looking to further decimate Seattle’s black neighborhood, the Central District. This eviction is part of a coordinated assault on the Central District by the forces of capitalism and racism that has been being resisted for over two decades. If possible, please call Hugh Bangasser, the property owner that evicted Omari, and demand he allow Omari return to his home and reopen the peace center. Mr. Bangasser’s number is (206) 370-7607. If possible, please donate to the Umojafest Peace Center at https://www.fundedjustice.com/saveumojafest If possible, please donate to Avery Odom, a trans femme individual arrested defending the center at https://fundrazr.com/61Df2e To learn more about the ethnic cleansing of the CD by Mr. Bangasser, please go to http://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2016/03/undervalued-23-5m-sale-of-23rd-and-union-block-stalled-amid-family-legal-fight/ ALERTA ANTIFASCISTA “Pittsburgh antifascists need to be on the lookout. white nationalist flyers have been spotted on pitt’s campus in the days following the announcement of the pgh MAGA march. this is also coming on the tail end of a wave of identity evropa flyers. pass this info along to yr crew and stay safe!” info on american renaissance: https://antifascistnews.net/tag/american-renaissance/ Call for the University of Pittsburgh to Become a Sanctuary University

The national movement for the establishment of Sanctuary Universities responds to President-elect Donald J. Trump’s intention to deport up to three million (goo.gl/zCCXcU) undocumented persons from the United States, abolish the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, and establish a national registry for the surveillance of Muslim persons. Following the November 8 election, university and K-12 campuses around the country report threats directed against people of color, trans* people, disabled people, indigenous people, queer people, and all people without the privilege of U.S. citizenship; the appearance of swastikas and other hateful imagery on school property; and bullying of Muslim, Latinx, and LGBTQIA+ youth. And peaceful demonstrators on Pitt’s Oakland campus have experienced violence at the hands of University police.

Given the xenophobia that characterizes our local and national climate, we cannot have confidence in our shared institutional commitments to inclusion, integrity, freedom of expression, and diversity without at minimum concrete policy statements from the University of Pittsburgh in support of “immigrants who study, live, and work in and around our University” (as stated in a November 16 sanctuary campus letter from Pitt student leaders, viewable atgoo.gl/LupvgG).

Demands:

Unless required by a warrant or other valid legal process, University of Pittsburgh officials will not cooperate with any deportation or other immigration enforcement actions directed against Pitt students. Specifically:

1. Pitt will prohibit University police and campus security from “inquiring about or recording as to an individual’s immigration status” (goo.gl/LupvgG).

2. University of Pittsburgh police officers will not cooperate with deportation or other immigration enforcement actions by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Customs and Border Protection (CPB), or U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).

3. The University of Pittsburgh will not allow ICE, CPB, or USCIS officials on Pitt campuses or other property.

4. The University of Pittsburgh will not share information related to immigration status about any Pitt student or employee with ICE, CPB, USCIS, or other law enforcement agencies.

5. The University of Pittsburgh will cease any use of E-Verify in student application or employee hiring procedures.

6. The Deans of Students Offices will coordinate a specific and transparent program to assist DACA students and all other students who are not U.S. citizens with any issue related to immigration or visa status, financial aid, housing, or related concerns.

7. Pitt will revise its Notice of Non Discrimination (goo.gl/IUmjjQ) and related policy statements (e.g. goo.gl/qsNOsa) to include “immigration status” as a protected category alongside “disability, race, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, familial status, sex, age, sexual orientation, veteran status or gender identity and expression.”

We, the undersigned, also affirm the statement in the November 16 letter to Chancellor Gallagher that “immigrants are not the only group who [have] found themselves targeted” by recent expressions of racism, xenophobia, heterosexism, cissexism, and misogyny on our campuses (goo.gl/LupvgG). We therefore support the Pitt United Students Against Sweatshops, Pitt Student Solidarity Coalition, Pitt Students Against Debt, and the Pitt Students for a Democratic Society’s call for additional actions Pitt can build toward, in the words of poet Muriel Rukeyser, “a world that will hold all the people.” Further, we stand in solidarity with Pitt students who demand an end to University of Pittsburgh police harassment of student activists in campus spaces.

Our University motto is Veritas et Virtus. Fidelity to these values requires that we not simply declare our campuses safe and welcoming spaces for all people. We must realize the truth of these statements through concrete action. By establishing ourselves as a Sanctuary University, we can take a significant step toward the realization of these commitments as facts in the life of the University of Pittsburgh.

Awaiting your action.

SIGN THE CALL FOR A SANCTUARY CAMPUS HERE

Donate to the Pittsburgh Anti-Fascist Legal Defense Fund!

If you can, please DONATE to the legal defense of the 10 Pittsburghers arrested in DC.

We stand in unconditional solidarity with the arrested comrades.

Drop the charges! Only the State is guilty!

On January 20th 2017 Border-guards, modern day slave catchers, paramilitary, military, and armed vigilante groups converged to protect the swearing in of a new leader to the White Supremacist State known as The United States of America.

Tens of Thousands of bravehearts also converged upon our nations capital in collective defense, in resistance to oppressive everyday reality. Arm in arm, in solidarity, hundreds from our beloved Rustbelt city manifested beautiful acts of resistance and aligned themselves with fellow renegades and insurgents to strengthen vocal messages and make bold gestures of revolution.

Pittsburghers gathered in mass to protest our country that was never great and to unmake fascist America.

Efforts were made to end segregation and bring about emancipation in much the same way those who have came before us have – in the streets.

During the demonstrations many were arrested. We, the organizers of this fundraising campaign, pledge to supporter our local comrades. Regardless their perceived guilt or innocence, we have solidarity with them and their trajectory.

The confines of laws are set up against those who dare to dream and act upon another reality.

We ask you to take a moment and pause, to consider we are in this together, and that our sisters and brothers, our neighbors who grew up and live on the same streets as us, who pass over the same bridges as us, are under attack.

Contributing to this bail fund is an act of love and an attack on the proponents of a segregated society that would have us all rotting in jail cells or slaving away as subservient women and barbarish men.

We are not divided and we will not leave anybody behind. For some the thin vale of American Racism has been taken off, for others we have always known it to be true and we are glad you have joined us.

[Pictured below: Over 100 dedicated anti-fascists, including our Pittsburgh friends, kettled by armed agents of the state. “We love you, stay strong, the revolution lives on!”]