Abolition   

   Liberation   

   Solidarity   

Dedicated to abolishing systems of oppression for collective liberation through community and solidarity.

Here4TheKids statement, November 1, 2024

Over the last few days, our co-founder, a South Asian woman, has been targeted and slandered online for condemning the candidate who, along with the current U.S. President, is responsible for the genocide of Palestinian and Lebanese humans. In a time when people of Arab, Muslim, South Asian and Latinè descent have become increasingly the target of both violent hate crimes and government racial profiling practices in the United States and abroad, this public vilification has placed a very real target on our co-founder and her young family, with threats of immediate violence. Additionally, this online targeting has placed our community at large in direct danger.

Dividing and conquering Black and Brown people is the work of white supremacy. Pretending anti-Brown racism doesn’t exist is largely how Americans have denied that the genocide of Palestinian and Lebanese people exists and even if it does (it does), it’s not a big deal as Brown bodies are dispensable.

Supporting a candidate who is actually responsible for the beheading of Palestinian children is absolute support for this genocide and the most violent form of racism on the planet.

NOBODY is more oppressed than a Palestinian child who is not only being genocided but whose genocide is public, there for all the world to see – there for Americans to CELEBRATE the candidate who is girlbossing her way through the entire thing.

It is terrorism to support anyone supporting genocide. It is additional terrorism to drag, attack, and/or “cancel” Brown people – who are already unbearably targeted in this country.

Yet, this is where we are. Americans prioritizing their safety over bombed, burned and beheaded Palestinian children.  Classic American narcissism.

While our country is witnessing and enabling multiple genocides around the world, our movement has been focused on building community and solidarity, unpacking and addressing whiteness and imperialism, and connecting the dots on oppressive systems both here and abroad. These are not easy topics, and we have not sugarcoated them. We are all adults with agency doing this critical work for our children and future generations.

We have tried in earnest to build and sustain a community fearlessly facing these challenges in solidarity – yet addressing racism, and the safety of team members and the community at large, must come first. Thus, Here4TheKids is shutting down the following effective immediately:

  • All events – Community Chats, Sanctuary, and Grief Circles

  • All Regional Hubs

  • Our Mighty Network community

  • (FYI: Our Substack and podcast will remain operational).

We are incredibly saddened to close these areas of our movement and thank every person who has contributed and participated in these spaces. We encourage you all to continue standing in solidarity, unpacking and addressing whiteness and imperialism in your local communities and online. These are dark times, and community is paramount.

Over the next few weeks and months in the United States, we are going to see increased violence and mayhem surrounding the Presidential election, no matter who is elected. This brutality will be echoed and amplified with the harrowing imperialism and slaughter we directly inflict internationally, oppressing Black, Brown and Indigenous Peoples across the globe. We implore all communities to look after and sustain each other.

Now, and forever, we stand unwaveringly in our support of a free Palestine, a free Sudan, a free Congo, a free Tigray, a free EVERYONE – and will always stand ten toes in for collective, global liberation and against xenophobia, imperialism, and white supremacy.

FAQs to Nov 1, 2024 statement

  • Please continue your important work showing up for communities in solidarity, and unpacking whiteness and imperialism – yet please do so under your own movement/group name and manage this organizing yourself, as due to ongoing safety concerns this will no longer be organized by Here4TheKids national. We thank you for being within our movement up until now and encourage you to keep going!

  • We will continue to publish the work of abolitionists, authors, and activists working towards a deeper understanding of what collective liberation means on our Substack, The Connections. We hope you are still able to support this important Substack connecting the dots on oppressive systems of capitalism, patriarchy, and white supremacy to educate and normalize abolishing these structures to achieve collective liberation for future generations.

  • We encourage every person currently in one of our anti-whiteness groups to continue this critical work. Anti-whiteness work IS decolonizing work.

  • If you have any questions, please fill in this form to add to our FAQs which we will continue to build out.

‘The Connections’
Substack

Join The Connections, our Substack connecting the dots on oppressive systems to free future generations.

We must connect the dots on all that harms us. We must connect to community. We must make the connections.

‘Abolition Liberation Solidarty’ podcast

NYT bestselling author, activist, and co-founder of Here4TheKids Saira Rao hosts engaging conversations with other activists and deep thinkers about abolition and confronting global systems of oppression

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