01/07/2022
Statement Reaffirming DSAAF Partnership with Ujima People's Progress Party
(January 7, 2022 Baltimore, MD)
The co-chairs of the Afrosocialists and Socialists of Color Caucus of the Greater Baltimore DSA have a commitment to call out racism and bigotry when we see it, and hope to be called to account when those pillars of capital are used to inflict harm, broadly or specifically, on the local, regional, national, and global movements for Socialism.
Today, we are both condemning the ableist, classist, and racist manner in which a white member of the chapter, Ryan Kekeris, has engaged with a deeply valued coalition partner as well as making public our disappointment the Steering Committee, for a lack of decisiveness or clarity in addressing this head-on. Hesitation is always easy, but, too often, it is unuseful.
Ujima People’s Progress Party is a Black-worker-led, grassroots community organization that focuses on mutual aid, political education, and community engagement through a Revolutionary lens. One of their many current efforts is building a proletarian electoral party that would truly support exploited workers and poor and marginalized people of all races and orientations throughout Maryland. While The Caucus is not of the belief that electoralism is the only or even primary component of Revolution, we firmly believe that the manner in which UPPP has chosen to build their party – by doing the grassroots support and education work first is a model that should be commended.
We believe that there are good faith arguments against the proposal that prompted discussion, debate, and more than a few intense exchanges, however, that discussion was mostly internal to the chapter, and we brought in comrades from Ujima to be parties to the discourse.
The Caucus and our members have regularly identified that The Greater Baltimore DSA, and the DSA writ large, house and foster predispositions to racism, sexism, transphobia, homophobia, and classism in both covert and overt forms. Calls from members of color to address these concerns have been met with a lack of trust, transparency, or good faith; furthermore, white members of the chapter have demanded that we “assume good faith” when they engage with The Caucus and our members.
Baltimore – a city with a more than 2:1 ratio of Black folks to white people – is (in spite of our demographics) no stranger to white supremacy. Ours is a city that invented redlining and racist housing laws. We are the city that streamlined police brutality and the enforcement of the protection of property over proletariat.
It is for both demographic and experiential reasons we believe that, as a member organization that claims to want to organize our communities (while being itself overwhelmingly white), The Greater Baltimore chapter of DSA is, however unintentionally, an institution of white supremacy.
With this in mind, we the co-chairs of the Afrosocialists and Socialists of Color Caucus of the Greater Baltimore DSA and the undersigned, are re-affirming our work with Ujima People’s Progress Party, and we are calling on the general body of the chapter to condemn the racist, classist, ableist, and uncomradely online harassment of our comrades therein.
We believe that a restorative solution to this exists. One that would require efforts in educating Ryan on Baltimore’s history, the grassroots Community Organizing that has flourished here, and about the Black comrades who have led that Organizing.
With that said, we do not believe it is the responsibility of people of color to heal white people’s s**t, so we are also requesting that this process be undertaken by members, and led by our HGO, inasmuch as they have the capacity and desire to develop a system that would improve more than just our chapter’s relationship with one member: It would improve the culture within the Chapter.
A Better World is Possible, but not with all this white foolishness.
Solidarity,
Dave H & Nariman E-S
Co-Chairs, Baltimore DSAAF
(others have signed on to this statement, including co-chairs of committees and rank and file members. You can read the full statement, and see the full list of co-signers at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1elplRltIWVgIHefxx-Y1kAAcK9eOsZ5TuwjArv_A78E/edit?usp=sharing)
