Some UC Occupiers on Ferguson and the State of Emergency

Many of us in the occupied spaces at the University of California have been anxiously awaiting the news from Ferguson. Some comrades have asked how police repression in Missouri is connected to austerity in California. For us there is no question: the connection is our struggle.

As insurgents in Ferguson block traffic in anticipation of the verdict, that act resonates. Its echoes can be heard through the hallways of this vampire university, as students from poor and marginalized communities put their bodies on the line to say no, we will not let you drain every last drop of our blood.

We have watched a reckless governor declare a state of emergency, we have watched the FBI send its agents to Missouri. It is because they, like us, have heard the wind of revolt whistling across the country. When the excluded masses of Ferguson take the opportunity to initiate their process of insurrection, our struggle will join theirs as one fist.

Make no mistake: the UC Regents see this connection very clearly. A rotten bunch of gangsters recruited from banks and corporations, with the former Secretary of Homeland Security at the head, they know that the basis of their power is our participation. When we pay, when we study, when we work, they profit; they count on our obedience, and they back it up with riot cops. Indeed, they pay for those cops— just as in Oakland, in Guerrero, and in Ferguson—with the money they extract from us.

They know that the terminal threat to their odious machine is our refusal. We refuse to allow smug executives to give themselves raises while they destroy the future of an entire generation. We refuse to allow racist police to murder one more person. We refuse to allow state violence to prevent us from taking back our buildings and our streets.

There is already a state of emergency in Ferguson. It is up to us to generalize it.