June 3, 2020
Rank-and-File Temple (RAFT) Caucus is in solidarity with the protest movement that has erupted around the country to demand justice for George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, and all victims of police violence.
Systems of higher education have long produced and protected white supremacy and settler colonialism implicated in police violence. As workers at Temple University, which has its own history of perpetuating oppression and suffering of Black and Brown people, we have a responsibility to end white supremacy and to create a university that serves the common good.
We are committed to political education and direct action in fighting racial capitalism. We are committed to the struggle of oppressed, Black and Brown, Indigenous, poor, and working-class people who take to the streets in fear and rage, in mourning and healing. We are committed to anti-racist, anti-capitalist, abolitionist education.
As union members, we are in solidarity with workers using their power and refusing to collaborate with police to further terrorize those protesting. We believe that organized labor must address its relationship to police and the protection of private property. Unions everywhere must denounce the violent repression of the protestors and condemn the police, which serve our employers’ interests, not ours.
We call on Temple University to withdraw its partnership with the Philadelphia Police Foundation and stop raising money for the city’s militarized police force. And we call for the city of Philadelphia to defund the police and invest in public health and essential city services to improve the conditions of the people.
In solidarity and struggle,
Members of RAFT Caucus
https://raftcaucus.org/
Rank-and-File Temple Caucus 