NYC, New York: Report Back from July 4th ‘Smash Nationalism!’ March

Report back from NYC’s “smash nationalism” march on July 4th.

This past July 4th, the newly formed NYC Anti-Racist Action held their first street demo. A continuance of a 3 year year run of July 4th actions in NYC, the demo started in City Hall Park, and was held as a statement against colonization, imperialist nationalism, and capitalism. The crowd that showed up was energized, and full of new faces presumably energized by the ongoing renewed struggles against border violence and ICE.

A small bloc formed, and a member of the bloc held a small speak-out proclaiming solidarity with Standing Rock defendants and OccupyICE encampments nationwide. Impressively, the group managed to march down the street all the way from the starting location, to Battery Park, to exuberant chants of “No bans on stolen land!” “ICE out of NYC!” And anti-capitalist, anti- state slogans.

Streets were barricaded with newspaper boxes and whatever was handy, and Starbucks and PNC bank were provided some free of charge window demolition. At Battery Park, a speak out was held about the violent conquest of this land, and burned US flags. An altercation with Trump supporters lead to the bootlickers calling the police, who showed up on bikes and attempted to hunt down anyone in bloc and squash the march completely. The pigs were unsuccessful however, as the militants escaped and the rest of the march concluded at Zuccotti Park without further incident or violence.

There was a unfortunate conspiracy theory circulating in the months prior that the announcement of this demo was a honeypot by Nazi’s intended to draw out anti-fascists and ambush them, but those concerns were clearly proven false. The authors of this report back, who claim no affiliation with ARA, sincerely hope that ungovernable, autonomous demonstrations continue to take place and grow larger in the near future!

All this was not without repercussions however. With their pride and ego’s damaged, the pigs took out their frustrations by showing up en masse to the OccupyICE NYC encampment at Foley Square, with the Strategic Response Group in tow, to harass and intimidate the occupiers, looking for participants from the earlier action and using the bullshit excuse of “looking for fireworks.”

This was unexpected, and frightening for a lot of folks in the camp, but radical comrades held it down, didn’t let the state discourage them from doing what they were doing and ultimately the cops left without any arrests or confiscation of property. The authors of this report back condemn the cowardly actions of the NYPD and SRG, who used the threat of violence against peaceful demonstrators in a park occupation primarily concerned with providing mutual aid services to undocumented folks, and are unconnected to the earlier FuckThe4th action.

This only shows how pathetic and desperate those in control of the state apparatus are, that they cannot handle defeat and in order to boost their fragile ego’s have to resort to measures such as this. Your actions only serve to expose yourselves for who you really are. We stand in solidarity with OccupyICE NYC, all nationwide occupations, NYC ARA, as they stand in solidarity with each other. We will continue to resist and fight back against capitalism, the state, and all other enemies of liberation and dignity.