The Civil Rights Workgroup at Sisters Of The Road
For upcoming events with our Civil Rights Workgroup, check out Sisters’ calendar
Mission
We will organize, educate and empower our community to assert our civil and economic human rights. We will work in our communities to build power and create culture and policies where our basic needs are met and our safety and self-determination are valued.
Organizing Principles
As we struggle against the systems that oppress us, we will use the following principles and values to guide our way. We will use these principles to guide how we treat each other and those we aim to organize with, as well as how we choose our campaigns, strategies, tactics, goals and messages:
- We assert our right to mutual aid in our community! Everyone has the right to be and feel safe, loved, valued, heard, validated and respected no matter their socioeconomic status. Everyone also has the right to create safe relationships & spaces, be loving, value others, hear others, validate others and respect those around them no matter their socioeconomic status. We collaborate in our communities to determine solutions that we create ourselves and those that we demand from those with power, privilege and resources.
- We reclaim our public spaces! These places belong to the people living in our communities. If we need to use them to sit, or lie, or sleep- we will. If we need to use them to demonstrate our struggle and resistance- we will. If we need to use them to celebrate or be with each other- we will. If we need to use them to take care of our medical or mental health- we will. We will respect these spaces by doing our best to keep them usable for all. Additionally, we resist the privatization of public services and the notion of “corporate personhood,” because establishments, private and public, must be held accountable for the impact they have on our communities.
- We resist a culture of fear! Fear and violence propelled by the current socioeconomic system exerts that “public safety” is intended for and dictated by people with more privilege or a valued socioeconomic status. In order to resist fear and violence, we must struggle to create communities where people’s basic needs are met.
- We resist the discrimination & criminalization of people experiencing homelessness, poverty, mental illness, addiction and other oppression! The system that creates devastating poverty around the world will never provide us with solutions. The United States criminal justice system is fundamentally flawed and beyond repair. While members of our community are living without shelter and locked in cycles of systemic violence, punishing and intimidating us does not provide our communities with resources. Punitive legal retribution and state violence perpetrates fear in our communities, both housed and unhoused. As we survive & resist the current socioeconomic system, the state resorts to isolating us from our families and communities of support, hurting us physically and wearing us down mentally.
- We act in solidarity with those experiencing poverty and oppression around the world! We understand our struggles are their struggles and their struggles are our struggles. When one group of poor people gain power, we all gain power. The current U.S. socioeconomic exports dominance and violence through free trade and globalism, causing world wide poverty, devastation & displacement of people, culture and earth. We resist this violence and have solidarity with people experiencing poverty wherever they are.
Contact
To join our struggle contact Chani Geigle-Teller at Sisters by calling 503-222-5694 ext. 16 or email .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address), or just stop by Sisters!
