Good afternoon.
Thank you to all the media who are in attendance, in person, and watching remotely.
I am Seattle City Council member Kshama Sawant, and I am also a member of Socialist Alternative.
I will be emceeing this press conference.
The Black Lives Matter movement and the protests against the repeal of Roe v. Wade have reminded us of how endemic various types of oppression are under capitalism, but also showed that the majority of working and young people want to fight for a better society.
The struggle against racial and gender oppression in Seattle and all across America needs to be linked with the fight against all oppression and against economic exploitation of the majority of working people under capitalism.
As a socialist, I am fighting for a world that is free of all oppression, whether it is based on race, gender, caste, or religion, and a world free of all economic exploitation.
Caste discrimination does not only take place in other countries.
It is faced by South Asian American and other immigrant working people in their workplaces, including in the tech sector, in Seattle, and in cities around the country.
That is why my office is bringing forward first in the nation legislation for our city to ban caste based discrimination.
in solidarity with our South Asian and other immigrant community members and all working people.
The legislation will prohibit businesses from discriminating based on caste with respect to hiring, tenure, promotion, workplace conditions, or wages.
It will ban discrimination based on caste in places of public accommodation, such as hotels, public transportation, public restrooms, or retail establishments.
The law will also prohibit housing discrimination based on caste in rental housing leases, property sales, and mortgage loans.
Caste is a system of rigid social stratification characterized by hereditary status, endogamy, meaning completely closed categories, and social barriers based on birth and descent.
Caste discrimination occurs in the form of social segregation, economic deprivation, physical and psychological abuse, and violence.
Caste discrimination is also manifested in employment, education, and housing.
We know that caste discrimination has been growing in the United States across many industries, including technology, construction, restaurants, and the service industry, and in domestic work.
Caste discrimination is increasingly a grave contributor to workplace discrimination and bias.
Data from Equality Labs shows that one in four caste-oppressed people face physical and verbal assault, one in three faced education discrimination, and two in three 67% faced workplace discrimination.
Seattle is one of the cities where caste discrimination has been largely hidden and unreported issue.
With over 167,000 people of South Asian origin living in Washington, largely concentrated in the greater Seattle area, elected officials in the region have a political and moral obligation to address caste discrimination and not allow it to remain invisible and unaddressed.
A recent article from a local publication called Real Change quotes a spokesperson from the City of Seattle Office of Civil Rights who said that, quote, caste status is not a recognized protected class in the City of Seattle, and if our office were to receive a complaint based solely on caste discrimination, we would not be able to investigate it.
This is exactly why City Council Democrats must vote yes on the legislation from my office.
I now want to invite Sameer Khobragade, tech worker and South Asian American community member, to the microphone to speak.
Please welcome Sameer.
Hi, everyone.
I hope you guys can hear me.
I'm Samir Khovragade.
I'm an IT executive working in multinational tech companies for the last 26 years.
13 years I've been here in downtown Seattle.
And I'm here to share my personal story with you guys.
I grew up in a socially segregated town in the middle India, a really tiny mining town.
And you may have heard about four tiers of the caste system.
And in reality, there is a fifth tier, which is called untouchable.
And I'm one of those untouchables.
That's how I grew up.
That's what my community is.
And my experiences are not unique.
Everyone in my community, oh, sorry.
I'll just pick it up, yeah.
My experiences are not unique.
Everyone in my community has a similar story to share.
I didn't shake hands with any upper caste person until I was 12 years old.
And I didn't touch any upper caste person until I went to the sixth grade.
And I did not, I went to a different school and didn't study with any upper caste classmate before I went to college.
And in college, my friends' mothers, my friends would invite me to their house, but their moms would serve me water in a different cup, and that's pretty normal.
At least I thought it was pretty normal.
My parents, my uncles, my aunts, and my community members, they fought for our civil rights.
and I benefited from their struggles and their battles.
And over decades, Indian government added laws against this discrimination and it helped the cause.
It gave people like me opportunities.
That's why I came here, went to university.
But my experiences are not unique.
As I said before, 27% of Indian households today practice untouchability.
And that study was done in 2012, by the way.
And I wouldn't be surprised if it's exactly the same right now, the way Indian political system is going.
Caste biases are an intrinsic part of not only Indian life, but diaspora life as well here in the U.S.
Today, we Indians account for 6% of foreign-born population in the United States.
We are the second largest immigrant group in the country, which means we have significant impact on the social life here today and in the future.
U.S. is the country of immigrants and she has been amazingly generous, adapting, accepting and accommodating to me and my family here.
But this country of immigrants must evolve to account for the biases imported by immigrants like me too.
And there are biases that my community has, and I have it too.
But we need to adapt them here.
We need to make sure that we are accounting for them.
We South Asians overall, our community, are a critical part of the city of Seattle and of America, because of tech industry, because of all the universities here.
When we Indians come to the US, we bring our biases with us.
And we get away with the discriminatory behavior because people in the U.S. do not know how to spot this discriminatory behavior.
There is no education and there is no precedence here.
And there are no laws to protect caste-oppressed people.
This ordinance will make such behavior illegal and will protect me, my children, my family, and my community.
I urge that all council members will vote to make caste discrimination illegal in Seattle.
Thank you.
There you go.
Thanks, everyone.
Thank you so much to Sameer for that personal moving account of what life looks like in real.
when we have the scourge of caste discrimination, not to mention oppression.
I would urge all the speakers who come up here to project their voice because we're not only speaking to the media, we're also speaking to one another and the people behind you are, you know, going to have a hard time hearing you if you don't project yourself.
The City of Seattle, by passing this law, will join the National NAACP, who passed a resolution two years ago opposing the practice of the caste system in the United States.
The California State University system, the largest four-year public university system in the United States, and Brandeis University have both banned caste discrimination.
The Alphabet Workers' Union, which represents over 1,000 Google workers, has said that, quote, the fight for the civil rights of caste-oppressed people is a workers' fight, end quote.
And as a union member myself, I wholeheartedly agree.
I would now like to invite Raghav Kaushik, who is a tech worker and South Asian American community member.
Raghav has been involved in many of the struggles that my office and Socialist Alternative have successfully waged alongside movements of working people and union members.
Raghav played an important role in the Tax Amazon movement in 2020, which in the midst of the Black Lives Matter movement, won the Amazon tax, taxing large corporations to fund affordable housing and Green New Deal projects.
Welcome, Raghav.
So there's three points I want to make.
One is that caste is a fundamental fault line of Indian South Asian society.
It's a system that's thousands of years old and has existed for all this period of time.
It's intimately connected with class.
Caste has material roots, and Ambedkar, perhaps the most well-known anti-caste activist in the world, described caste as an enclosed class, that is, class structures coupled with endogamy rules.
Caste endogamy rules require marriage within a caste, and these kinds of endogamy rules coupled with class divisions over a period of time have evolved into a complex system of over 4,000 castes.
Casteism continues to be a problem in India.
Brother Sameer already gave several examples of that.
One additional example is with violent atrocities.
The Indian National Crime Records Bureau reports tens of thousands of violent atrocities against scheduled caste or Dalit people annually in India to this day.
Caste is also a major factor in explaining the rise of the right-wing in India and the Modi administration.
Scholars describe Modi's rise and the rise of the right-wing as a counter-revolution to the anti-caste movements that are burgeoned, especially since the Indian independence.
The Indian Constitution, for example, outlawed caste discrimination and kind of spearheaded various, kicked off various anti-caste movements that also worked on affirmative action to help caste-oppressed communities.
The second point I want to make is that caste is a local phenomenon as well.
The draft ordinance, if you take a look at it, it goes through several examples.
One of the big ones in the tech sector is the Cisco case, where there was an employee who experienced caste discrimination in the company.
This is indicative of a larger phenomenon.
I work at Microsoft, and I can tell you from my personal experience that caste discrimination happens here in the tech sector, in this area.
In 2006, when the Indian government announced Affirmative Action Program to help oppressed caste people, there was a discussion on that topic in Microsoft email threads.
And there were various employees who expressed very bigoted and hideous comments, mocking caste oppressed people and Dalits, questioning their intelligence and work ethics.
No one was ever held accountable for that.
So Microsoft basically just battered an island.
They didn't do anything.
So caste discrimination exists right here, right here in our midst.
Caste legitimizes itself in various ways.
One of the big examples is the education system where there are attempts made by caste oppressors and right-wingers to sanitize it or to minimize its horrors.
Another way in which it legitimizes itself is through the language of diversity and inclusion, which is co-opting progressive language.
For example, if you hear people say that India is a diverse country with over 4,000 castes, you should cringe, because it is a cringeworthy statement.
It is legitimizing a horrific system.
Such legitimation is a common phenomenon in this country, locally.
You will see various caste-based associations which say they are in the business of preserving their culture, but we should see through that.
The ordinance that we are working on is historic.
It is building on an anti-caste, a burgeoning anti-caste movement in America.
Part of our coalition of all various groups, there are several groups which identify with the Ambedkar tradition of anti-caste work.
There are groups, many of them are not able to be present directly, but there are a huge part of our coalition, the Ambedkar Association of North America, the Ambedkar International Center, Ambedkar King Study Circle, and Equality Labs.
These groups have been working on anti-caste, doing anti-caste work in this country that has led to the significant victories in Brandeis and Cal State that Shama Sawant just referred to.
The work in the city council right here to make outlaw caste discrimination in the city of Seattle would be the first citywide legislation or any legislation in this nation which does that.
It's a significant milestone, significant victory if you win this against caste discrimination, against caste oppression.
In fact, I think it is one of the first legislative attempts outside of South Asia anywhere in the world, not just in this country.
I completely agree with what Shama just said that caste oppression is intimately connected with other oppressions and completely agree with the Alphabet Workers Union statement which says that a fight for the civil rights of caste oppressed people is a workers' fight.
Caste oppression is intimately connected with racial oppression, class oppression, and gender oppression.
It is important to note this at this time when there is tech layoffs happening right now.
In fact, the tech layoffs impacted our event right here.
There were speakers who were supposed to come who couldn't because they had to do some work around the layoffs.
So it is very intimately connected with the issues that we are working for.
Winning this movement legislation is going to require us to build a fighting, strong fighting movement.
Let's all get busy doing that.
When we fight, we win.
Thank you, Raghav.
And I really agree.
that we have to remind people that this fight is not isolated, but it's actually very much part of the larger fight back that working people need to wage for social and economic justice.
The fight is linked most immediately, as Raghav said, against the currently ongoing brutal layoffs in the tech sector.
The billionaire and multimillionaire shareholders and executives of corporations like Google, Amazon, and Microsoft have made billions of dollars in profits since the pandemic began.
And now they are once again shoving the burden of the capitalist recession on working people by laying off tens of thousands of tech workers.
Socialist Alternative and my office stand in solidarity with tech workers who want to get organized to fight back, including the rank and file members of the Alphabet Workers Union.
Please contact my office if you are a tech worker who's watching this who wants to fight against the mass layoffs.
It's now my pleasure to invite Hassan Khan, who is a human rights activist, who will be speaking on behalf of the Ambedkar International Center.
Welcome, Hassan.
Hello, my name is Hassan Khan.
I'm also a tech worker and a human rights activist.
I'm making this statement on behalf of Ambedkar International Center, an organization dedicated to the vision of Bhimrao Ambedkar, to annihilate caste.
Ambedkar International Center endorses the ordinance to ban caste discrimination in Seattle.
This ordinance is the need of the hour.
The cancer of caste is very much present here in this city, in this state, in this country, in this universe, and which erodes democracy and human rights on a daily basis.
Passage of this ordinance and thereby banning caste discrimination will educate and sensitize public institutions, corporations, and civil society on how caste bias operates.
It will also provide much needed protection and support for victims of caste discrimination and violence to confront their perpetrators.
Had such a legislation been passed, the infamous Cisco cash discrimination case where AIC filed amicus brief in California court would not have happened.
AIC is confident that the ordinance will set a precedent for cities and states and our nations.
to adopt and root out this social disease called caste.
AIC thanks Council Member Shama Sawant for taking the lead on this legislation.
and also thanks Coalition of Seattle Indian Americans and other allies in this movement to annihilate caste.
AIC would also like to thank all the organizations who have been fighting for caste justice in the US for all these years.
Resolutions making caste a protected category on university campuses such as Brandeis, Cal State, and Brown Universities are significant victories providing relief for caste-oppressed students and are helping propel the movement forward.
Given the stark caste realities in India, we also urge American companies operating in India to extend their affirmative action hiring policies to include caste oppressed communities in line with Indian affirmative action laws and the U.S.
Equal Opportunity Employer Guidelines.
Caste discrimination being banned in the city of Seattle will be another feather in the city's list of historic facts, first, which have influenced justice and equality in countrywide impact, such as the $15 minimum wage, tax Amazon, and renters' right victories.
Thank you.
Hassan Khan made a very important point about why winning this legislation is so important and why we have to fight for it.
Because it's not just about Seattle.
If we are able to win this in Seattle, there's no doubt, as Hassan said, that it will inspire working people and our immigrant community members in many other cities to fight for and win similar legislation.
And on top of that, it will help inspire movements within India for working people to demand that American multinational corporations that are located in India also ban such discrimination.
I think that really would be an enormous step forward for us, and it really shows how we can build international working class solidarity.
I now invite Javed Sikandar, who is a technology leader in the Seattle area and has been for two decades.
Welcome, Javed.
Thank you, Shama.
Thank you all for being here.
Good afternoon.
Being a Muslim, Caste oppression is a matter of high importance for us.
In fact, the message of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, the Prophet of Islam, throughout his life was all about equality.
And he strived against inequality in the society.
His last sermon delivered almost 1,400 years ago emphasized that there is no preference of a black over a white or a rich over the poor.
all human beings are equal.
In the mosques, we Muslims have stood side by side, shoulder to shoulder, irrespective of one's origin, skin color, or financial status for the past 1,400 years.
Today, on behalf of the Muslim community of Seattle, I'm here to urge the council to approve this ordinance, and that will protect many South Asian immigrants who are victims of caste oppression.
Caste is a widespread problem in South Asian society.
Prejudice and discriminatory behavior against caste oppressed is a social problem of the region.
These prejudices and discriminatory tendencies are not cured by immigration.
Here, Dalits have faced such oppression for millennia.
It will be tragic if they get discriminated in America, even after fleeing the South Asian society because of technicalities of the laws here.
South Asian population of the region run in hundreds of thousands and is fast growing.
I strongly urge this council to pass this ordinance, and I'm here to support Shama for the good fight that she's fighting.
Thank you.
Thank you, Brother Javed.
Both Brother Hassan and Brother Javed played a leading role in our fight almost exactly three years ago now.
You all remember that?
When community members in my office won the resolution condemning the horrendous anti-Muslim and anti-poor citizenship laws attempted by the right-wing Hindu fundamentalist BJP regime in India.
We won that resolution only because of our multiracial and interfaith movement of working people, which included virtually all the community members gathered here today.
We mobilized in big numbers to City Hall to hold the Democrats accountable and defeat the right-wing people who came here in support of the BJP regime.
Our movement clarified that the fight against the right wing in India was linked to the need to defeat Trumpism and the right wing in the United States.
Similarly, fighting to end caste discrimination is linked to the nationwide fight against racism and sexism.
I now invite Lama Langdro, Seattle-based African-American teacher of Buddhism and social justice advocate for two decades on behalf of India's caste-oppressed Buddhist community.
Welcome, Lama.
Honorable Councilwoman, thank you for allowing me to be here today.
I will speak as loud as you need me to speak today.
I am an African-American Lama in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition and I Good.
And I have been traveling back and forth from America to India into the caste-oppressed community for 20 years.
I first found out about it as part of my Buddhist studies and I keynoted the first conference between African American meditators and caste oppressed meditators who came to America from India for a conference in San Francisco in around the year 2000. And I have just within the last month or so returned from India back into the community to do a tour speaking to the monks who serve the villages, the business community, activists, scholars, friends and family and so forth.
And so I have a kind of panoramic view from an African-American point of view of this situation and I'm encouraging the passing of this ordinance, as well as the African-American community, and particularly to get on board.
Why?
The issue is banning the caste system of India when it is acted upon in Seattle, period.
This is not a condemnation of a religion.
It's a condemnation of a behavior that we have long avoided in our country.
I'm paraphrasing some notes that were given to me from Kevin Brown, who is a 35-year law scholar.
He reminds me that 18th century abolitionists in America compared the treatment of black people to the Indian caste system.
And that conversation in abolition began in the 1700s all the way through the Civil War.
And immediately following the Civil War, the Civil Rights Act of 1866 was passed.
It's still active today.
And it was based on America's intent to prevent the caste system in America.
The same is true for the fomenting of the concept of the 14th Amendment of our Constitution.
Therefore, in my view, there is a connection between African-Americans and the conditions that we have suffered, including having every crime imaginable perpetrated against us, and the connection between similar activity that's been going on in India for many centuries.
Therefore, I believe that it is reasonable to ban acting on the caste system on American soil today.
The comparison of African-Americans and oppressed castes is likewise reasonable.
The ordinance is needed Why, as Americans, should we be concerned about this?
Because we each need to consider how it might feel for you and your family to have no recourse or remedy for discrimination in this country.
When we think of our fellow human beings, those who we have invited to our nation, We have a promise to secure them as we would secure ourselves.
When I celebrate Memorial Day, Veterans Day, Martin Luther King Jr.' 's Day, and I think of all of the sacrifices that I was alive to see, including the assassination of John Kennedy in broad daylight, in front of the news cameras, in front of a crowd.
And Dr. King, when I think of all of these sufferings, I cannot separate in my mind the benefits and the growth that we have had to mature through to then discriminate or allow our fellow citizens and newcomers to our country to not have the same privileges that we enjoy.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Lama Langdell, for making the point that fighting against caste discrimination is absolutely not a condemnation of any religion.
It is a condemnation of bad practices.
and also for explaining why it is important for African-American people to join the struggle to win this legislation, and also the fight against caste oppression.
And along those lines, I would now like to invite our last but not least speaker, Alvin Muragori, who is a socialist, a Black Lives Matter activist, and a community organizer.
Hi, my name is Alvin Morigori, and I'm a community organizer in Councilmember Sawant's office and a member of Socialist Alternative.
As a black socialist and as someone who's been fighting alongside others in the Black Lives Matter movement, the movement to win Seattle's historic Amazon tax, and many successful struggles for renters' rights, I am proud to stand with our South Asian and other immigrant community members here today.
We are demanding that the Democrats on City Council vote yes on the legislation from Councilmember Sawant and the community to ban caste discrimination in our city.
Caste discrimination, just like racism, sexism, and discrimination against LGBTQ plus people, enacts massive social and economic barriers which compound the suffering by the majority of working people under capitalism.
Caste oppressed working people face severe restrictions and injustices in education, employment, and housing, and it also reinforces gender-based oppression faced by women.
I hear City Council Democrats talk constantly about standing up against racism and discrimination.
Just yesterday, they signed a proclamation on Black History Month.
The legislation is an opportunity for the Democratic Party politicians to concretely ban caste discrimination in our city, and I urge them to pass caste protection ordinance brought forward by our office.
Other unions in the labor movement should take up the example set by the Alphabet Workers Union, the union where over 1,000 Google workers are organized, in standing in solidarity with lower caste members, condemning the caste system, and calling for caste to be included in federal protections.
The fight to end caste discrimination is in the interest of all workers.
And as council members Sawant and Raghav said, it's also linked with the immediate fight for tech workers to get organized against the unjust mass layoffs by the billionaire class looking to push the burden of the recession onto workers.
For working people to win this legislation, to successfully pressure the Democrats to vote yes, it's going to take the active involvement of Seattle's working people and union members to bring to bear our collective action on City Council by signing up and speaking in public comment at the City Council meeting this afternoon and when legislation is brought for a final vote.
And I urge everyone watching to sign our community petition.
We've seen throughout history, and in the nearly 10 years that Council Member Sawant has been in office, that the way to win progressive change is by building mass fighting movements.
From the widespread civil disobedience campaign that ended British colonialism and the formal caste system in India, to the civil rights movements, women's rights, and anti-war movement that won huge protections, to more recently the Black Lives Matter movement of 2020, which was the largest and most diverse protest movement in United States history.
It's how our office, alongside movements, won the Amazon tax and the scores of renters' rights victories, like the six-month notice for rent increases and economic eviction assistance, which requires three months' rent paid by a landlord to any tenant they displace due to exorbitant rent increases.
As working people, we need to collectively organize and fight around broad demands that speak to people's everyday needs, like guaranteeing free education, housing, living wage, green union jobs for all.
When access to these things are limited, it leaves room for the bosses and their political representatives to use discrimination as a tool to divide us and keep us from fighting our common oppressor.
Though the caste system existed before capitalism, British colonialism strengthened, institutionalized, and perpetuated the institution as a means of divide and conquer rule to socially and economically control the working population.
The United States is no stranger to a rigid stratified hierarchy, as a racial caste system was a norm for a majority of this country's history and today.
There's hardly an economic or social metric where black workers as a whole are not disproportionately disadvantaged.
What our movements need is the understanding that our struggles are not separate from one another, but are inextricably linked.
All oppression stems from the same root cause, the exploitative capitalist system, which enriches a few at the top beyond belief at the expense of the majority of the working class.
Such a system necessarily has a ruling class that needs to divide the exploited so that we don't fight together.
Malcolm X described it best when he said, you can't have capitalism without racism.
We've seen how hard-won reforms are always under threat under capitalism.
The overturn of Roe v. Wade being a stinging reminder.
Oppression and exploitation are not unfortunate flukes in the system, but are at its very foundation.
The affluence and riches of the global elite is built on the slavery and subjugation of the vast majority of the world's people.
The capitalists use oppression to keep us fighting amongst ourselves and from realizing that the capitalists who control and wield the media, the dominant ideology, establish institutions, and use state violence to break up strikes and weaken and destroy movements by sowing division among our ranks.
Ultimately, the central aim of liberation movements of oppressed people must be an international fight to end capitalism and oppression because the reach of capital knows no borders.
It's global in its oppression and we must also be internationalists in our fight against it.
We must replace capitalism with a society organized to meet the needs of all people, free from the chokehold of profit that ravages the environment and countless lives.
We must end capitalism and replace it with socialism for the freedom of all people and the planet.
Thank you.
I really appreciate Alvin explaining clearly why as socialists we are in strong solidarity with our community members here and those who are watching who want to fight against caste discrimination and really to end caste oppression once and for all.
I also wanted to thank many of the university professors who have already written to the Seattle City Council.
I can't remember the last time This happened even before our inaugural press conference, we had letters to the City Council, so I really thank them.
And I wanted to mention them quickly, professors who have urged that the City Council vote yes on this legislation.
Ajanta Subramanian, Professor of Anthropology and South Asian Studies at Harvard University.
Sonia Thomas, Associate Professor, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies in Colby College.
Jeremy Rinker, Associate Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies at the Department of Peace and Conflict Studies, University of North Carolina, Greensboro.
And Shailaja Pike, Taft Distinguished Professor, Department of History, University of Cincinnati.
Thank you so much for this nationwide solidarity.
And in terms of building our struggle to win this, please, if you're watching on livestream, make sure this petition is on paper, but also online.
We'll make sure to share the link, both through an email that we will be sending today, and it will make sure it's on our website homepage, so that people can just Google my name, go to the website of our office in Seattle City Hall, sorry, Seattle City Council, and then sign the petition online, or you can sign it in person if you meet somebody who has this petition.
And I urge everybody here, please, let's sign the petition right now.
Those were all our speakers.
If the media have questions for any of our speakers, we welcome them.
As far as I know, it's mainly the Alphabet Workers Union.
But the Alphabet Workers Union, interestingly, is a local of the Communication Workers of America.
And we have contacted the president of the Communication Workers of America, local 7800, I believe.
I'm sorry, I can't remember exactly, but these are Verizon workers.
And the name of the president is Art Clements.
He's an African American union member himself.
And he has already let us know that he strongly supports this.
So we have another CWA local.
So in other words, there'll be two CWA locals supporting this.
And he sent his apologies.
He's actually, his union is in contract negotiations right now, so they couldn't attend this.
But we will be reaching out to many unions in the area and nationally also to express their support and to pass resolutions among their rank and file.
I think first of all what it shows is the tremendous determination and will of the Ambedkarite, the activists who are following the Ambedkarite tradition.
By being here and by lending their voice so strenuously, urging the city council to pass this legislation, they are showing that the best activists are the ones who don't stop at understanding an issue but who understand that fighting for concrete gains is what's important.
One, because it makes an actual progressive change, positive change in people's lives.
That is the thing we care about first and foremost.
But on top of that, what we gain, which many of these activists already know from our fight three years ago against the BJP regime, is that when we win one victory, we actually end up inspiring other activists and working people to win similar victories in their cities, or larger victories, you know, to keep having the movement go ahead.
And really, I'm so glad you asked this question because what I just said is really part of the bedrock of socialist thinking as well, at least in socialist alternative, that we understand that every fight is important in itself, but also because of the example of inspiration and encouragement that it provides to everyone else.
And it also shows, today's press conference also shows that you know, socialist alternative.
As socialists, as Marxists, we are opposed to all oppression.
We want to end all oppression.
We believe that that can happen only through actually ending capitalism itself and ushering in a socialist system.
But today's unity also shows that we're not demanding that everybody agree with us on that exact framework.
But if we agree that oppression and discrimination is bad and needs to end, then we absolutely can and should fight together precisely because of what other speakers said, which is, if we don't unite, then the capitalist class and their spokespeople, the politicians who support them, they will end up winning.
So this unity is paramount.
Thank you.
Did you have a question?
Yeah, I was just going to ask, what's the time frame on getting this ordinance in front of the council, and why now?
Yes.
As far as why now, it's really, I can't answer that question in the sense that we should have been fighting for this at any moment, but this is when we gathered, the activist community gathered and said we need to do this.
We are also tremendously encouraged by the step, very important step that was taken by the California State University system.
This is important.
This is not just one small university.
We are talking about the largest four-year public university system in the entire nation 23 campuses and That was possible if you look at you can go to the LA Times and check out their story of how they won It is very clear.
They would not have won without a fight.
So that's the kind of fight we need to build here we should not be surprised if the BJP supporting right-wing reactionary people show up and fight us.
That happened three years ago when we were fighting for our resolution condemning the unjust anti-Muslim citizenship laws.
We saw City Hall filled with right-wing people.
Unfortunately, you know, they are completely wrong.
And we had our activists and socialists and union members fighting against anti-Muslim attacks.
And at that time, we had many Democratic City Council members both openly and privately to me, saying, this is not our fight, this is something about, you know, brown people versus brown people, which is an absolutely shameful position to have, because if you say you are against Trumpism and the right wing in America, it is absolutely morally and politically incumbent upon you to take a stand against the right wing anywhere.
Do we have questions for any of our speakers?
If there are no other questions, I will thank everybody and adjourn the press conference.
But just in closing, I will note, this press conference has been, by itself, even before we're winning our legislation, monumental in many ways.
Because I cannot remember the last time we had such an open dialogue about caste.
having people like Sameer who have themselves experienced caste oppression firsthand speaking in front of the media.
I think that itself is really encouraging to me.
I'm really proud to be alongside my sisters and brothers and siblings.
Let's make sure public comment today at City Council goes really well and let's win this legislation.