By: M.R. Framboise
Good evening, ladies, gentlefolk, comrades, and all New Orleanians and allies who refuse to comply with the pending invasion by this illegitimate president of the United States. I am Rosalina Victorian-Framboise, and at this point in time, we are at the eve of action. The attempt at a wholesale seizure of the American nation — that really beautiful subset of this country that includes all of you before me — is underway more than ever before. Transgender people are called "nihilistic violent extremists"; progressives, leftists, and the so-called "un-American" (as if he could even approach what it means to be American) are all under attack today. Our slimy, ignorant, hateful, pathetic snake of a governor has requested that President Trump direct the National Guard to invade and violate the personhood of the people of the City of New Orleans and the State of Louisiana, as he has done to the cities of Portland, Memphis, and the District of Columbia. For generations, the adage that "it could never happen here" was falsely uttered; well, ladies and gentlemen, it is happening, and we are here to fight back. I am here as a representative of the Students for a Democratic Society at Loyola University New Orleans to show our everlasting solidarity with the people of the State of Louisiana and the mass people's movements in America and abroad.
Now herein lies the question: "What is our nation going to do? What is our state going to do? What are 'We the People' going to do?" We can choose to allow the Republicans and the billionaires who support them to issue their final death blow to the ideals of our nation, or we can organize ourselves; we can come together; we can feed each other; we can build our own community systems of health, education, and welfare; we can march with each other, and we can tell this radical right government and their co-conspirators — to borrow from Dr. Huey P. Newton — "The [soldiers] must withdraw immediately from our communities or face the wrath of the people." It's about time we have community accountability, and it's about time our demos show our kratikos, and that synthesis — that democracy — gets right up in the face of these fascist hogs. It was another revolutionary who spoke the truth that a revolution should be carried out not by anyone's approval or instruction but by our own conviction.
Now don't get it twisted. When those troops come up in here, it will not be the time to sit idly by. We are not surrendering our country to these hogs. Movements like ours beat back the monarchs in France, the tsars in Russia, the emperors of China, and the dictators of Vietnam; hell — we beat back the British in 1776, and now we have an opportunity. My grandparents were part of the fight against the Vietnam War; my parents stood against the invasion of Iraq, and I'll be damned if I don't stand against the invasion of my state — of my culture — de mâ famiyé. It is time for America to be axiomatically redefined as a country of all colours and creeds — as a country by, of, and for the workers, the Black, the Chicano, the Queer, that entire nation for whom freedom and democracy were never true. It is time for us to get organized, and get ready to preserve, protect, and defend our nation! And I say this to the President of the United States himself:
Mr. President, you have poked a bear, and you will now see what this American Nation is capable of. We are going to feed each other; we are going to fight with each other. I'll tell you what: you haven't seen nihilistic extremism, but you're about to see the combined, exponentiated power of the Black, white, trans, cis, queer, straight, abled, disabled, and that entire marginalized nation that's sick and tired of you and all the billionaires who puppeteer you. Because here, "there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for [we] are all one" — Louisianians, Americans, and human beings who will fight with and for each other. We will not let our cities be occupied; we will not let you terrorize our fellow countrymen or our siblings abroad. And I'll tell you this: if you want to go to Baton Rouge — if you want to go after my sister, and my brother, and all these sisters and brothers across the country — you're going to have to go through me; you're going to have to go through all of us, and we have the power of God and the power of history on our side.
