Break the Chains: Unleash the Fury of Women
as a Mighty Force for Revolution

This is Why I Rise...

By Sunsara Taylor | February 14, 2014 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

Originally posted on the 1 Billion Rising for Justice blog (www.onebillionrising.org).

On Friday, I will join with Revolution Books and StopPatriarchy.org to rise in New York City’s Union Square and then have a celebration dinner and open mic at Revolution Books into the evening. We, in turn, will be joining with millions throughout the globe who are rising to end violence against women and girls and all the crimes perpetrated against the people and the planet by the horrific system we are trapped living under.

This is Why I Rise…
I am rising not only because I am outraged by the brutality, the stalking, the humiliation, the rape, the assault, the harassment, the belittling, the veiling, the shaming, the exploitation, the abuse, the objectification, the silencing and the oppression of women and young girls from one corner of the globe to the other…

But because I know that this is not the only way the world could be.

Through revolution it is possible to put an end to rape and all forms of violence against women and girls, to bring into being a world that is not color coded pink and blue as if one’s genitalia – or one’s sexual preferences – should determine whether they receive respect or are treated as property, to bring about a world where new generations grow up free of exploitation or oppression of any kind.

I am rising not only because there is an all out assault on women’s right to abortion all across this country – with 203 new restrictions just in the last three years and many more threatened – and because already women are being forced to have children against their will, doctors have been killed, and women are being shamed…

But because I know that fetuses are NOT babies, abortion is NOT murder and women are NOT incubators and that there are millions of us who have the potential power to stand up and defeat this assault if we dare to tell the truth, rely on ourselves, and go into the streets!

I am rising not only because I am sick to death of the dominant culture that celebrates pimping and pornography and spreads women’s bodies out naked and starved in magazines and billboards… that views Black and Latino youth as “criminals” rather than human beings… that bullies and shames lesbians, gays, transgender people and bisexuals… that elevates the trivial and small-minded, the “me, me, me, me,” while people around the world go hungry, while drones destroy wedding parties in our names, and 10 million children each year die from preventable disease…

But because it is in yelling and dancing and standing the fuck up—not alone, but together with others—and confronting the patriarchs and oppressors and exposing the system behind them that we can create and celebrate and spread a culture of rebellion and liberation. It is by getting in the faces of those who are still sleepwalking, and daring and enticing and compelling them to join us… it is in refusing to accept all this as “normal” but instead making a big fat public scene that we can create a new culture that dances off the patriarchal brainwashing, that stops thinking like Americans, that makes something beautiful that tastes like that world we are fighting for, that sustains us as we fight, and that brings that future closer!

I rise not only because the oceans are not pristine, the air is not clean, the earth is being poisoned and this is totally irrational and time is running out…

But because I know that this planet is precious and that if it were not dominated by capitalism which can spare no concern for the environment lest it undermine their profits, if scientific breakthroughs weren’t hoarded until someone could copyright them and make money off them but instead were shared, and if the billions who are locked in ignorance and religious superstition were brought into understanding and grappling with these problems, we could actually set about repairing as what can be repaired of this planet and make sure that no further damage is done.

In other words, I will rise because I believe the time’s up for this system, for the patriarchs and oppressors, for the liars and the torturers, for the bigots and the polluters. I will rise because it is time for us to seize back the future, to stand up and resist, to take this all the way to an actual liberating revolution.

And as I rise I will join with Revolution Books and members of StopPatriarchy as we bring alive the substance and morality of following profound truth from Bob Avakian:

“You cannot break all the chains, except one. You cannot say you want to be free of exploitation and oppression, except you want to keep the oppression of women by men. You can’t say you want to liberate humanity yet keep one half of the people enslaved to the other half. The oppression of women is completely bound up with the division of society into masters and slaves, exploiters and exploited, and the ending of all such conditions is impossible without the complete liberation of women. All this is why women have a tremendous role to play not only in making revolution but in making sure there is all-the-way revolution. The fury of women can and must be fully unleashed as a mighty force for proletarian revolution.”

We will dance in the streets and then break bread and share poetry and songs late into the night. We will count ourselves lucky to have found each other in the liberated space we create together and to know that we are doing this in concert with One Billion Rising around the world.
My thanks to Eve Ensler for her tireless commitment and boundless enthusiasm for a far better world, for persevering through tremendous challenges and for daring to dream big and never stop fighting.

Where Revolution Books and StopPatriarchy.org will be rising:

NYC – 5:30 at Union Square for flashmob/speak out, then snake dance to Revolution Books (146 W 26th Street, between 6 & 7th Aves) for dinner and open mic at 7:30 pm:

Bay Area – flashmob at the Civic Center BART station at 3:00 pm:

Chicago – Noon at Daley Plaza, then 6:30 pm at Revolution Books for an Open House (1103 N. Ashland Ave., Chicago):

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