From New Orleans we send greetings to the people of Puerto Rico who number at least one million in the streets. Organised against colonialism, racism and legalised corporate theft, they chant “#RickyRenuncia” in rejection of the entire neo-colonial regime. Unions, public workers, youth, elders, organisations and communities lead the national strike and continued marches. Despite the tear gas, arrests, rubber bullets, threats and police violence, they take to the streets to demand justice because the people have an unwavering right to self-determination.
Puerto Rico’s colonial status directly violates this right and facilitates US corporate control of the island ancestrally-known as Boriken. US business leaders like Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos have used their political posts to legitimise the theft of public resources and the imposition of debts to enrich the rich. Following the devastation of Hurricane Maria and the US governments’ unconscionable failure to respond, privatisation – particularly Black and Brown schools- has been imposed with increased intensity. In New Orleans, we are familiar with disaster capitalism and its racist and genocidal underpinnings.
Today the Puerto Rico Federation of Teachers (FMPR in Spanish) declared: “We take to the streets to show the indignation of a country. As honest people, we are the majority and we are not afraid. With a united voice we demand: #RickyRenuncia.”
In New Orleans, we join your call. We share your dignified rage against disaster capitalism and the targeted denial of our rights as Black and Brown communities. Public education is a right and is central to youth self-determination and community autonomy. We join the FMPR and the Puerto Rican public school teachers’ defense of public education.
Officials like the disgraced Governor Ricardo Rosello and ex-Education Secretary Julia Keleher find both financial and political support from the elite because of their willingness to spew misogynist, racist, homophobic and violent rhetoric and to implement policies of the same. Keleher, along with being corrupt, is a fervent support of charters, vouchers, school closures, school mergers and the firing of teachers. Her arrest and Rosello’s resignation will not suffice for justice; an end to the neocolonial project of privatisation, will.
In New Orleans we protest the closing of our schools, the imposition of for-profit charters, vouchers and the mass firing of unionised Black public school teachers. In Puerto Rico, the people march against the shuttering of 442 schools, the firing of teachers, the deterioration of school buildings, vouchers and other tactics aimed at disrupting community organisation. The colonial strategy of dismantling social welfare through corrupt contracts and business deals is intentional and we will fight back.
We echo the Puerto Rican peoples’ demands for Governor Rossello to resign, for an immediate end to the public school closures, school privatisation, the voucher system, the theft of teachers’ pensions and violence against protestors. We join your call for the revocation of Law 85 and for thorough and independent investigations into corruption within the Department of Education and all other government offices working with private entities.
fmprblog 