On Sunday, Aug. 18, one day before the beginning of the Democratic National Convention, protestors rallied in downtown Chicago at a march organized by Bodies Outside of Unjust Laws: Coalition for Reproductive Justice & LGBTQ+ Liberation. As the coalition states on their website, “We demand national legislation to expand access to abortion, support families, and defend the rights of trans and queer people. We demand an end to US funds going to the genocide in Palestine.” TRNN reports on the ground from Sunday’s march as part of our ongoing coverage of the 2024 DNC.
Studio Production / Post Production: Cameron Granadino
Transcript
Music: My body, my choice. My choice, my body.
It’s not yours, it’s my body, my choice. My choice, my body.
It’s not yours, it’s my body, my choice. My choice, my body.
Maximillian Alvarez: So we’re here on the ground in downtown Chicago in the shadow of Trump Tower. It’s Sunday, Aug. 18. The Democratic National Convention officially begins tomorrow, but the people’s assembly in Chicago has already begun.
We’re here in front of the Bodies Outside of Unjust Laws March that is currently making its way down Michigan Avenue. People from all over the country have assembled to unite around a message to the Democrats that they will not support the Democrats, Kamala Harris, or Joe Biden if they continue to support Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, if they continue to not do what protesters are saying needs to be done to protect bodily autonomy, abortion rights, to stand up against attacks on trans and LGBTQ folks.
This is an expression of grassroots anger that we are seeing manifest right here on the streets of Chicago. But this is going to be happening throughout the week. The Real News is going to be on the ground covering the protests and covering the events inside the convention.
Speaker 1: Everyone that will march on the DNC on Monday, on Wednesday, on Thursday, the power of each and every one of us is so much stronger because of this injustice, because of this moment of unforgiving genocide that we’re witnessing right now.
Over the past 10 months, over the past decades, people like me, Jews constantly being told that if we are standing here and screaming, free Palestine, we’re bad Jews. Progressive people are being told that if we are speaking up against genocide, if we are asking the Democratic Party where there were for 50 years since Roe without taking any action on abortion and access to reproductive rights, we’re getting in the way. We’re bad.
There’s enough for us to scream that every single person deserves to be home, not just if you call them a hostage. Even if they’re unjustly detained by the Israeli government, they’re just a well-kept hostage.
Maximillian Alvarez: As their website says, the coalition’s demands are, “We demand federal action to expand access to abortion and reproductive health care, support families, and defend the rights of trans and queer people. We demand an end to reproductive genocide, an end to US arms exports to Israel, and an immediate and lasting ceasefire in Palestine so all Palestinians can live in freedom and dignity, with bodily autonomy and reproductive justice.”
Cara, Could you say a little bit about where we are right now and the folks that you’re with and what the message is right now?
Cara Mclane: Yeah, so Abortion Access Front, we are here at the DNC. We’re a nationwide organization, so we have about eight states represented in our group. We came to the DNC to specifically make sure that abortion isn’t a forgotten issue. We know that everyone usually is like, abortion is a state’s issue, but in this election it could be a federal issue. So we came to, one, talk about misinformation out there about medication abortion, and also to bring joy and humor to our activism.
Maximillian Alvarez: Could you say a little more about what the Democrats and Kamala Harris could do to really secure abortion rights federally rather than just signal that we’re going to reinstate the protections of Roe?
Cara Mclane: So what I can say is anybody who’s running on a platform of codifying Roe, Roe has always been the floor. That is the least we can do for people who are capable of having pregnancies. We need someone who is going to take abortion, create it, protect it as a right for anybody who needs it or wants it without having to explain.
Maximillian Alvarez: And could you just say a little bit for folks watching about the real state of abortion access in this country, what people are going through in the post-Roe world right now?
Cara Mclane: Yeah, so one thing is, depending on your zip code, is whether or not you have access to abortion in a clinic or if you can buy abortion pills outright. You can get abortion pills anywhere in the country, they can be mailed to your home. But it is very hard for people to find that information.
So you have people being turned away at hospitals in states where abortion’s been banned. You also have people who don’t know where to go. The information is not readily available until you need it, and that’s what we do. We say, you may not need this now, but we’re going to tell you where you can get abortion pills and how to do it.
Maximillian Alvarez: And what can folks out there watching do to get involved in this fight and advance that cause?
Cara Mclane: The number one thing that takes no money, takes no time, is saying the word “abortion” in the context that it’s a normal medical procedure. Say the word abortion. Really, if everyone did that, this work would be so much easier.
Speaker 2: We are over 300 days into a US-backed genocide led by Israel. Palestine is a reproductive justice issue. As much as Western feminists try to wipe their hands of American-led violence happening globally, we know that full reproductive justice will never be achieved until we see a fully liberated Palestine where fathers and mothers don’t have to hold their children’s dead bodies in plastic bags, where the rate of miscarriage hasn’t skyrocketed to over 300%, and where Palestinian families can exist and raise children without the constant threat of Israeli violence.
Speaker 3: What you’re seeing around here, first of all, is just an incredible act of solidarity, with people from every background, every political persuasion, everything you could imagine, united around a pretty self-explanatory cause if you just look at what’s going on, which is that this is just a vicious, explicit, even proud genocide by the people who are doing it. And for some reason, America is both funding it and running cover for it, pretending like there’s some cute face to something purely evil.
I, as a Sikh, we have an obligation to humanity that we’re supposed to feed people universally. Our temples have communal kitchens where anybody of any religion, any background can come to be fed. And even in times of war where we’ve had to fight wars for justice, we even feed the enemy outside of the battlefield.
So there’s absolutely no circumstance in which we would ever be able to accept that starvation is used as a method of war. There’s many methods of war that I’m against going on right now, but the starvation was something that was announced, I think, on Oct. 9 very explicitly. And somehow, when I came out and said that I cannot support this as a Sikh, people told me I must be an antisemite.
Maximillian Alvarez: This is a very diverse coalition of folks out here. What do you think that says about this cause and the people who are rallying to it?
Speaker 3: It means you just have to be a human to support it. In fact, the people that I’m seeing here the most are Jewish people that I grew up with growing up in this area. Rabbi of an anti-Zionist congregation, other Jews who have been outspoken for human rights in all ways, even going to the West Bank to defend Palestinians against settler violence.
These are things that anybody could do if you have basic humanity. Doesn’t matter what your identity is. This idea that we have to be a certain fascist way because of however we’re born is just completely false.
Maximillian Alvarez: And if you could speak directly to the folks inside the DNC right now, what would you want them to know?
Speaker 3: We see the way that you make everything about yourselves, and it comes across as sadistic. This whole, “I’m speaking,” line from Kamala, for example… I’ve never seen such a display of egotism that’s so blatant and yet, somehow, doesn’t register in their minds.
So I want them to understand these are real humans, and just because their jobs might not seem very real sometimes because it’s a bunch of bullshit, doesn’t mean that it’s a bunch of BS for us. These are real lives that are being messed with.
Maximillian Alvarez: What’s going on and what brought you out here today?
Crowd: So we’re here on Michigan Avenue marching for abortion rights, marching for Palestine. And specifically what brought me out here is I’m with If Not Now, which is a national movement of American Jews seeking to end the genocide and apartheid in Gaza.
Maximillian Alvarez: And what does it say that we have such a diverse range of causes and organizations represented in this one march? It’s been a source of criticism for some saying that, well, what’s the message? But do you think that that diversity represents a strength here?
Crowd: I think that diversity does represent the strength here. What we’re seeing here is that our main banner is freeing Palestine. We need to get an arms embargo. We need to get a permanent ceasefire. We need to push Kamala Harris to move towards a permanent ceasefire. That’s part of why we’re here.
There’s a Not Another Bomb campaign by the Uncommitted movement we’re in coalition with, working to get an arms embargo for freeing Palestine and ending the genocide, being able to exchange hostages and ending the violence.
One of the things that is really interesting as to why we’re a diverse collective here is that it shows that the base is about ending the genocide in Palestine, about an arms embargo. In fact, if you look at our polling numbers in key states like Pennsylvania, Arizona, if we have an arms embargo from the Biden-Harris administration, it actually pushes Kamala’s ticket up in those crucial swing states.
Maximillian Alvarez: What’s the latest on the Uncommitted campaign and the strategy moving forward?
Crowd: So the strategy moving forward is the Not Another Bomb campaign. It’s asking for Biden and Harris, but also Harris, to make an arms embargo a priority and a policy. Rather than just giving us rhetoric, she needs to put policy into action, a policy that is popular among American Jews, among Americans, among Democrats. It shows that, across the country, if she agrees to an arms embargo, her numbers go up.
Speaker 2: And in this moment of absolute disaster, of crisis, the American ruling class, the people descending on this city for the Democratic National Convention tomorrow, have seen fit to spend our money, my money, your money, on killing children in Gaza [crowd boos].
They’ve provided an infinite supply of bombs to destroy Gaza’s homes, its schools, its hospitals, its playgrounds, its mosques, its churches, its croplands, and its infrastructure. At the head of the most powerful country on earth, they have bullied the rest of the world in the name of protecting a far-right government openly committing a genocide.
And now, now they want our votes. They say they’ve earned them by showing a little more empathy towards poor Palestinians they happen to kill. Vice President Harris, we hear your shift in tone, but I’m here to tell you your tone will not resurrect the dead. Your tone will not shelter the living. Your tone will not pull bombs out of the sky. Your tone is not enough.
And now, you’re telling us that “Not the other guy” is a platform. We are telling you that you have to actually earn our votes [crowd cheers], and we are telling you exactly how to earn them. We are telling you we want a weapons embargo [crowd cheers]. We are telling you we want a permanent ceasefire [crowd cheers]. And we’re telling you that we want them now [crowd cheers]. When do we want them?
Crowd: Now!
Speaker 2: When do we want them?
Crowd: Now!
Speaker 2: Chicago, when do we want them?
Crowd: Now!
Speaker 2: You keep telling us that democracy itself is on the line. You keep telling us that fascism is knocking at the door. You keep telling us that Trump would be worse. But the majority of Americans, in poll after poll, say they disapprove of Israel’s actions in Gaza.
Study after study shows that a weapons embargo would earn you more votes, would secure you this election. So Vice President, why are you risking the end of democracy, the rise of fascism, the return of Trump, to protect Netanyahu’s war on children [crowd cheers]? You are not the protector of democracy. We are the protectors of democracy [crowd cheers].
If you want to see Democracy, look to Chicago’s streets this week [crowd cheers]. We are democracy speaking back to power, saying we will not be ignored. We want to house our unhoused [crowd cheers]. We want to feed our hungry [crowd cheers]. We want to heal our sick [crowd cheers]. We want to guard our planet [crowd cheers]. We want to build our future, not rob Gaza’s children of theirs [crowd cheers].
You might think that the people at the United Center today are the ones who get to shape the future of this country. That is not true — We make the future of this country [crowd cheers]. We make it like we’ve always made it. We make it right here in the streets [crowd cheers].
Vice President, you have a choice. You could join a movement for justice. You could make a place for yourself in history. You could be a leader who chose to listen to her people rather than the interests of the war manufacturers. Or you could become a war criminal. Ms. Harris, if you want Donald Trump to win, then say that. Otherwise, we are speaking [crowd cheers]. Hear us. We will not be placated by your tone. We need you to act, and we will not leave the streets until you do [crowd cheers].
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
