On December 31, 2018 white male, Daniel Taylor, attacked African woman, Yasmine James; a worker at a McDonald’s on the South side of St. Petersburg, Florida.  

In a video posted on the internet, Daniel Taylor can be seen arguing with Yasmine James before lunging across the counter grabbing her by the collar and pulling her toward him.  

James responded quickly to free herself from his grasp; by punching Taylor in his head and face, until he loosened his grip.  After Taylor was pushed back, he proceeds to snap his fingers and bark orders at the mostly African staff, demanding a refund and the firing of James, while also calling her names.  

He is eventually escorted out of the store, but then returns to yell at the workers before kicking another African woman worker.

He was eventually arrested and charged with two counts of misdemeanor assault and held on $1000 bond.   

He couldn’t control the African working class

At one point during the attack, Daniel Taylor yells, “I couldn’t control you” to explain why he resorted to violence after a defiant Yasmine James refused to serve him.  

This is the culture of violence that define the white oppressor nation.

After all, it was the control of and violence against the African working class that established the hoarded wealth of the white world and impoverishment of the African nation, resulting  in the worldwide system of parasitic capitalism and colonialism, as explained by Chairman Omali Yeshitela of the African People’s Socialist Party:

“It was this savage aggression against Africa, Asia and the Americas that raised Europe from a disease-ridden habitat of warring tribes to a dominant force in the world.”

“Europe is today inhabited by a people whose sense of sameness is both defined and challenged by the unifying parasitic capitalist economy that puts them in opposition to the rest of the world upon which their economic lifeline depends.”

It was the four hundred years of forced labor and the unfettered access to African resources that created the pedestal of oppression upon which Europe and the rest of the white world sit, which is proven by asking the following question posed by Yeshitela:

“Would capitalism and the resultant European wealth and African impoverishment have occurred without the European attack on Africa, its division, African slavery and dispersal, colonialism and neocolonialism? The answer is No! No! No!”

The white world is shaking in their bootstraps, as their future is increasingly threatened by Africans and other oppressed people resisting the imposed conditions that define our current conditions as dominated people.

Yasmine James’  resistance to being controlled is representative of the same resistance that defines the African working class who are punching the face of capitalist exploitation and colonialism.  

It is part of an ongoing culture of resistance by African people that has loosened the controlled grip which has defined our lives for hundreds of years.

Colonial violence plain and simple

This attack has raised questions about the protection of women, in general, as if this was just a question of James being a woman. As materialist we have determined that there is no such thing as women in general; the idea that all women have a common oppressor and that oppression is gendered.

The reality is that there are two groups of people; those people who belong to the oppressor colonizer nation and those who belong to the oppressed colonized nation.  The oppressor nation is parasitic, forcefully extracting the labor and resources of the oppressed nation to maintain itself.

Which means that even the women of the oppressor nation benefit from the oppression  and exploitation of the men and women of the oppressed nation. This includes oppressor nation women who experience violence at the hands of oppressor nation men.  

While James happens to be a women, it is clear that this incident represents the dichotomy of the oppressor versus the oppressed, the colonizer versus the colonized.

The attack on Yasmine James by Daniel Taylor is part of the long history of  violence against the colonized and oppressed African working class, by the white oppressor nation.

It cannot be separated from the sexual violence, beatings, experimentation,  murders of African women and men that define the parasitic relationship that the white nation has had with us since Africa was first attacked.

From police and vigilante violence to state sponsored kidnapping of African children, the African poor and working class are most often confronted by of this colonial relationship.

African women

African women are integral to African resistance. Not only in the physical momentary fight, but in the ongoing struggle to free ourselves from the grips of a colonial oppression.

Who better than us to help define what a free and liberated African people can look like? We are confronted with the specific oppression that comes from both the oppressor white nation and from within the colonized nation.

Therefore, we have the most to gain from destroying the oppressive conditions that come from capitalist colonial domination of our entire people.

We call on Yasmine and other African women to join the revolution; to join the African National Women’s Organization (ANWO) in order to really fight for ourselves and the women of the class.

The African National Women’s Organization is a membership-based mass organization created by the African People’s Socialist Party and is part of the overall Uhuru Movement; which was created to address the special oppression of African women.

We exist to build the revolutionary capacity of African women, with a focus on the poor working class. We do this with the understanding that for African women and people to be free we need to have a world-wide revolution led by African poor working class.

As the only anti-imperialist, anti-colonial revolutionary African women’s organization, ANWO is leading on the everyday issues that impact the lives of African women.

Join our action on Saturday, January 5, 2019 at 3pm in front of the McDonald’s at 4595 34th Street South in St. Petersburg, Florida.  To get additional details contact our local organizers at 727-914-3617.

We are winning!

Power to the African working class!

Local members in D.C. held up signs outside of the British Embassy that read #DefendAfricanWomen , Stop Britain’s Attack on Oppressed People, and Black Lives Won’t Matter Until We Get Black Power.

Drivers passing by honked their horns in support of our messages and a few stopped to get more detail about the campaign.  One N. American man on a bicycle was surprised to hear about the case because he says “England is a welfare state” implying that issues like this shouldn’t exist because of their system is supposedly set up to ensure the most vulnerable are provided services.

We were there to bust up that assumption, as England and most of Europe is often looked at as leaders in progressive policies. But lift up the covers you’ll see that African and other oppressed people are suffering the worst as Councils throughout the country make up arbitrary rules that usually leave many without access and in crisis  – just like Kushinda. ‘

We are calling on others to join Kushinda in the last few days of protest especially if you are experiencing issues that are related to state maladministration of your cases.

Since Brent Council refuses to recognize Meshach’s learning disability (for which he carries a Freedom Pass), he has been without specialized care for over 17 years and has suffered severe developmental delay – which means that at 29 year old Meshach functions as a 6 year old. What makes the problems worse is that Brent Police has targeted Meshach and have arrested him on charges related to his diability and seek to prosecute him criminally.

Following a protest led by Kushinda held on May 11th to expose this injustice, she received notice that she is to be evicted and that she owed thousands of pounds in council taxes. All of this is related to the benefits that were stopped without explanation.

Kushinda has been driven into deep economic and emotional crisis by these varied attacks, however instead of allowing the Council to drive her into isolation, she is bringing her own charges to their doorstep.

We are asking people to support her by:

1. Select your protest days to stand with Kushinda. Let us know which days, by signing up to participate.
2. Organize other people to stand with Kushinda by sending this message to your contacts and sharing with your family and friends
3. Show material support by donating to the campaign
4. Post a picture on Social Media with the hashtag #DefendAfricanWomen and tag @ANWOUhuru on Facebook and Twitter.

Tamara first came into contact with DHS approximately three years ago after her landlord of her building shut off her water, then called DHS.  Although her children were not removed for two years, DHS remained an ever-present overseer in her affairs.

After two years DHS’s Community Umbrealla Agency (CUA) escalated the case which resulted in Tamara’s chidren being removed from he rhome.  This decision came after  Tamara refused to submit to their ongoing tests and orders only to be told to do them again. Since she was never accused of abuse or harming her children, she refuses to go any testing that forces her to admit guiilt, namely  mental health evaluation and anger management classes.

She says she , “has a right to be angry, but under the circumstances  is handling it very well.”

Tamara has been struggling to expose the system but also to find support base so that she and other mothers will not be vulnerable to their attacks.

DHS first entered Nina’s life in retaliation for a lawsuit she brought against the Philadelphia School District. The suit charged the school district with not providing her learning disabled son the services and education he needed.

Her son received an Individualized Educational Plan (IEP) that Nina, believes actually helps the school district target families for DHS intervention.

ANWO call-to-action puts DHS worker on defensive

The community forum came on the heels of a few very emotional days. On July 20^th Tamara informed ANWO that DHS worker, Elisha Ramberan had threatened to recommend to the court that her parental rights be removed.

ANWO quickly organized an email-based call-to-action that  targeted  Elisha, so that she would know that Tamara had community support.

After receiving dozens of emails from our supporters, Ramberan  responded by sending her internet goons to ANWO’s facebook page to berate Tamara in the comments section of the post.

Tamara responded to each of the belligerent accusations– some of which came from DHS workers. She demanded that DHS produce any documentation to confirm their claims of abuse – which is what most of the comments insinuated.

The comments continued for a few days.  Finally, ANWO intervened by inviting everyone who commented on the post, to the community forum for an open discussion. Not one of them showed up.

Not one of them showed up.

Mothers expose DHS as a colonial tool of repression

During the forum, both Nina and Tamara produced packets of documents that proved their cases.

Tamara accused DHS of creating false reports, collaborating with doctors and other agencies to criminalize her and other parents, denying her human and parental rights, and forced medical treatment.

Nina also accused DHS of falsifying reports, terrorist threats, denying her the right to speak on her own behalf in court,  child abuse – her children have been harmed in care, making up laws, forced mental health evaluation, and denying her parental rights.

They both highlighted the ineptitude of their court-appointed attorneys who have done little to nothing to put up a defense during their hearings. They also shared the lack of support they have received from organizations like National Action Network (NAN) or the NAACP, who they’ve reached out to for help.

The forum ended with helpful discussions and the beginnings of a strategy.

The following day, on Sunday, July 24^th Parent’s Day; the mothers, along with their supporters, held a small but strong demonstration in downtown Philadelphia in the midst of the fanfare that was happening in preparation for the Democratic National Convention which was starting the next day.

We marched through the sea of white people,  chanting  “DHS you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide” and “Stop kidnapping black children, DHS out now.”  We marched to the DHS building and then set up in front of the family visiting center, where parents undergo supervised visits on Sundays.

Retaliatory hearing further isolates our mothers

The day after the protest, Tamara was ordered to appear in court for an impromptu hearing to address  threat allegations made by Ramberan and the status of her case.   She went but had support from Uhuru Movement. Philly organizer, Nana Yaw Grant stayed in the courts the entire day, ensuring that she had constant support.   The outcome of the hearing was that the Judge essentially issued Tamara a gag order preventing her from talking about the case at the risk of going to jail.

ANWO is committed to supporting Tamara, Nina and all other parents by building mass support around this issue. We want to make it impossible for the state to continue to carry out subjective policies, that isolate and criminalize mothers which facilitates the kidnapping of our children.

We call on you to organize with us around this issue.  It may not be called DHS, maybe it’s called CPS , NSPCC, DYFS. Whatever it’s called  we understand that  it is not there to help resolve contradictions in our communities, instead they are there to deepen the crisis. We encourage you to contact us so that we can raise this issue together making the case for the dismantling of these agencies in our community, and to  build the Black Community Control of Child Welfare.

We encourage African women to Join ANWO!
And African men to join the committee!

We are a group of black mothers, supporters and allies that charge the Department of Human Services (DHS), Child Protective Services (CPS), and the Family Court system with the act of genocide for the forced transfer of Black children from the safety of their parents to dangerous situations that have led to physical injury, emotional trauma, and death.

#ArrestCPS is a campaign of the African National Women’s Organization which elevates the voices of mothers and children who have been victimized by “family service” agencies. Our number one objective is to GET THE CHILDREN BACK.

We employ diverse strategies which provide community education about this issue, organize mothers and families to strike back and build support systems that help overturn serious contradictions.  We reclaim the narrative of poor and working class black mothers fighting for their children. Black mothers are not violent, uncaring and dangerous; instead, they are relentless fighters working to keep their families together.

We are here to turn the tables on these agencies, exposing them as the dangerous, violent and uncaring structures that traumatize black children – NOT the mothers.  They act as modern day slave catchers – targeting mostly poor black single-mother-headed household – kidnapping black children who are used as pawns in personal conflicts or leveraged for profit.

These agencies destroy black communities by removing our most precious resource – our children thereby disrupting the bond between child, family and community – essentially alienating our children increasing their chances of contact with the criminal justice system.

These agencies aggressively use divide and conquer tactics by spreading lies, character assassinations, and deepening of interpersonal conflicts. They work against families and spin bureaucratic webs which end up frustrating the process to regain custody and criminalizes mothers.

#ArrestCPS says the real criminals are not the mothers, but the so-called child protection agencies who do anything but protect our children.

Get daily updates about this campaign by following arrestdhs.tumblr.com

You answered our call!

The Result!

There is still more to do.