Statement of Internal Solidarity

This is a living document. Inspired by the the Internal Solidarity Statement and Memorandum of Solidarity with Indigenous People put forth by Occupy Boston, we the members of Occupy Pittsburgh put forth this Statement of Internal Solidarity and Solidarity with Indigenous Peoples.   The Occupy Pittsburgh community has the right and responsibility to edit this document on an ongoing basis. We welcome feedback and new ideas.

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We are the 99%, and our task is to unify the 99%. Unfortunately, we live in a society that is racist, sexist, classist, homophobic, and ridden with various other forms of oppression.  We recognize that the United States was founded upon the attempted extermination of indigenous peoples and the colonization of their land; the continued and ongoing exploitation of black, brown, and immigrant bodies through the machinations of slavery, imperialism, nationalism, the prison-industrial complex, and capitalism; and the domination and degradation of lands, water, and non-human-animals via enclosure and industrialism.  We further recognize that the Occupy movement is made possible by the many movements and struggles of oppressed people which have preceded it and that continue through the present.

Pittsburgh has been founded upon the extermination, colonization and dislocation of the First Nations of Haudensaunee, Lenape, and Shawnee peoples from their ancestral lands.  Pittsburgh has been built via an economy of labor that has exploited a working class that was then discarded when we no longer benefited those in power.  Black and brown people continue to suffer in Pittsburgh due to police, gentrification, neglect and political invisibility.  Despite these oppressions, Pittsburgh has been a vital place for struggle on behalf of our communities.

As the Occupy Pittsburgh community, we will consciously and urgently work on dismantling these systems of oppression in our movement.  We are working on creating a community where everyone’s rights are respected, protected, and treated equally. We are working to acknowledge and incorporate a diversity of tactics which requires that we place those who have been in this struggle at the forefront of our movement.  We all have different levels of privilege that we strive to acknowledge and educate ourselves about in order to ensure that these privileges are not used to oppress others. We want to have an inclusive atmosphere of ideas in which we do not police each other’s thoughts, but we have absolutely no tolerance for oppressive or intimidating words or actions. We actively seek the involvement of the First Nations, people of color, women, LGBTQ people, and others in the development of our movement. If a conflict arises it should, if possible, be settled through democratic discussion or debate.

We do not welcome any of the following in our community:
 

• White supremacy or separatism (racism against people of all colors)
• Patriarchy (sexism)
• Ageism
• Discrimination based on ability
• Homophobia or heteronormativity
• Transphobia
• Anti-Arab sentiment
• Anti-Jewish sentiment
• Religious intolerance or intolerance of nonreligious people
• Islamaphobia
• Class oppression (classism)
• Cultural intolerance
• Discrimination based on immigration status
• Discrimination based on experiences with the justice system
• Disregard for indigenous rights
• Weight-based discrimination