Category: Racism

Refuse ICE Employment and Resist ICE Operations

“ICE has a budget bigger than most militaries around the world. It has increased its spending on weapons by 700% since last year. Trump is building his own personal military to terrorize American cities, trample on civil rights, and intimidate his opponents.” —Robert Reich

Under the direction of President Donald Trump US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), often involving masked and brutal agents, has launched a veritable spree of immigration arrests, raids, detentions, and deportations. Asserting only those with serious criminal records would be subject to apprehension is yet another Trump lie.

Those swept up are mostly hardworking and taxpaying immigrants with no or extremely minor criminal records, many of whose documentation paperwork is in order, who are diligently following legal requirements, and may have permanent residency status in the US. In some cases, those who have been swept up include US citizens, and in one instance a US citizen, Minneapolis resident Renee Nicole Good, has been murdered.

Families have been subjected to wanton and cruel separations. Persons have been held indefinitely, some incommunicado, at locations far from their normal places of residence. Some have been transported to dismal conditions in foreign settings that are not their countries of origin.

Also patently obvious is that this is a politically-driven and racist policy. Urban areas that did not vote for Trump have specifically been targeted for raids and enforcement. Those stopped, subjected to questioning, and detained are typically brown or black. In a diverse, multiethnic and supposedly open society such as the US purports to be, such policy is simply unacceptable.

CCDS urges any and all who encounter calls or advertisements to work for ICE refuse such job offers. Join us in resisting the siren song of racist and anti-democratic employment. Organize and join efforts to restrain and stop ICE, to disrupt their brutal Gestapo-type tactics, challenge them everywhere, support legal action against them, bring the message to all demonstrations and protests to abolish ICE.

We demand humane treatment and well-being for everyone in the US and subject to its jurisdiction. As the labor movement has taught us — “an injury to one is an injury to all!”

See links for further background.

On ICE employment:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/ice-law-enforcement-recruitment-online-ads-b2892877.html

On ICE brutality:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/shocking-images-reveal-the-brutality-of-ice-raids-tearing-through-us-communities/ar-AA1PCI7R

[CCDS – January 2026]

JACK O’DELL, PRESENTE!

By Jim Campbell

Jack O’Dell died peacefully at 11:30 PM Pacific Time, Vancouver, BC, Canada, October 31, 2019 in the company of his family.

Jack was one of a ‘central cadre’ of Movement activists whose role and function were quiet but essential, vital and invaluable. His recent book CLIMBIN’ JACOB’S LADDER edited by Nikhil Pal Singh is witness to his centrality.

Jack’s lifetime of Civil Rights activism had its roots in the 1940’s beginning in the Merchant Marines followed by community activism in Florida, Louisiana, and Alabama. With the emergence of the Montgomery Movement and the student-led Sit-ins, his base of participation shifted to New York City. This was during the late 1950’s and the earliest modern-day organizing of the March on Washington under the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

Jack was privy to the birth of FREEDOMWAYS, Dr. WEB DuBois’ last project before departing this country for Ghana. Jack wrote anonymously, mostly, throughout the magazine’s twenty-five year lifetime. He was a Professor at the Antioch Putney Center in Washington, DC; an Adviser to both “Presidential Campaigns of Jesse Jackson; and, recently, author of The Democracy Charter the latest framework for Movement Activists to discuss and organize around in their struggle for a substantive democracy in this country. To all intents and purposes, this is Jack’s challenging legacy agenda to ‘The Movement’ and all who are active in this patriotic endeavor.

On a personal note, Jack was a close Comrade in our long span of reading, studying and discussing from one campaign to the next over a sixty-year period. In essence, his wisdom and broader world experiences were an educator in its root meaning: leader. His patience in organizing with attention to comprehensive details in conjunction with overall strategic goals broaden and deepen the effectiveness of all who worked with him. He was consistent in his lifetime study and application of the science of dialectical materialism and leaves that example for all of us.

On a very popular TV Program in the tri-state area of New York City during the 1960’s, Herbert Aptheker was asked to describe his relationship with Dr. DuBois. After a long pause, Herbert replied in a choked voice, ‘He was my father.’ With Jack’s death, I now fully understand what Herbert meant.

Jack was my political father.

Jack O’Dell, PRESENTE!”

The Victory in Alabama

by Bill Fletcher Jr

Well, team, I must confess that i expected Moore to win Alabama’s special Senatorial race.  As a result, I was shocked this morning when I awakened and received a text from one of my best friends celebrating Moore’s defeat.  I immediately went to msn.com to read about the election results.

When I subsequently went to Facebook i saw a posting from an African American who was, in effect, treating the Jones victory as a victory for white people, i.e., that African Americans had placed no demands on the campaign and we gained little from the victory.

I disagree.

What struck me about the results–besides the fact that the election was so close–was that initial analyses indicated that African American turnout was comparable to 2008 and 2012,  In other words, Presidential years when Obama ran (and won).  African Americans in Alabama understood what was at stake in this election and this turnout demonstrates that, under the right circumstances, voters who normally don’t vote in non-Presidential elections can be mobilized.

Is Jones a revolutionary?  Certainly not.  But the election was not a choice between revolution and counter-revolution.  It was an election against misogynism, right-wing populism, irrationalism and racism.  It’s significance cannot be underestimated given Alabama’s history as a home of the former Confederacy and a state that voted for Trump by an overwhelming margin.

Yet the book is not closed, and not simply because there will inevitably be a recount.   What is so essential is the building and strengthening of progressive organizations in Alabama that can take advantage of the voter mobilization toward the achievement of longer term, progressive strategic objectives.  There are organizations popping up all over the country that are advancing progressive electoral work with an "inside/outside the Democratic Party" orientation that are making a difference.  My hope is that such organizations will proliferate in Alabama.

Congratulations to the people of Alabama who have rejected irrationalism!  The war, however, is far from won.