CPTnet
13 November 2015
CHICAGO: CPTers join protest calling for
living wage, racial equality
Activists from Chicago and all across the United States held
protests calling for a fair, fifteen-dollar national minimum wage on Tuesday,
November 10.
But for those at the protest, the low wages that keep many
families in poverty is just one component of the structural racism within the
United States.
“This isn’t just about money. This is about justice.
This is about the black community. The brown community,” said one of the
protesters that asked not to be named. “This is about black lives, about
police brutality, and about Rekia.”
Rekia Boyd was a twenty-year-old whom police officer Dante
Servin shot and killed three years ago. The
protesters marched and demanded that Dante Servin face justice.
Members of the Christian Peacemaker Teams Palestine team
showed up in solidarity for the protest.
Currently in Hebron, dozens of people have died at the hand of the
Israeli military in what Amnesty International has termed “extrajudicial
executions.” Israeli leaders currently serving in the government speak of
Palestinians and other non-Jews in egregiously
racist terms, justifying violence against them.
“We came out today because CPT understands that
violence is rooted in oppression and that through our work we have to work on
all forms of oppressions including an unfair wage that is rooted racism,”
said field worker Cody O’Rourke. “And it is through this coalition
building that we have witnessed tangible changes being made across the movement
that is calling for justice across Israel/Palestine.”
