Good Afternoon Everybody and thank you for joining me at this event to protest the vicious, violent, and fundamentally undemocratic Central Intelligence Agency being present on the campus of Tulane University, Loyola University, or ANY university for that matter.
For context, the Central Intelligence Agency has been involved in a number of destabilization campaigns stretching back since its founding during the cold war to the role it plays in destabilizing every government— every movement that dares to struggle against the U. S. empire and American financial interests.
It was the CIA that overthrew the democratically elected prime minister of Iran when he tried to put his country and his people over American petroleum billionaires. It was the CIA that staged a coup against
the democratically elected president of Chile and installed a puppet dictator who killed thousands in a so-called anti-communist purge. They did the same in Indonesia, in Guatemala, in Panama, in Mexico, in Venezuela, in Nicaragua, and so many more. This is not a conspiracy theory; this is not controversial; this is a historically verifiable fact.
And not only did the CIA take these repressive actions in the Global South, they have also maintained an active role in destabilizing people’s movements right here in America. From the murders of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and Fred Hampton, to the destabilization of the Black Panther Party, even our predecessors in old SDS were not safe from CIA meddling. The CIA and the FBI were in bed right next to each other when it came to destabilizing the people’s movements that fight for our collective liberation from the chains of capital.
By hosting the CIA on campus, these universities are communicating clearly again, that they will continue to stand with American imperial violence against the wishes of their own students and the best interest of the people at large.
Universities are meant to be spaces for education and the development of new ideas. They are NOT meant to be spaces to allow openly terroristic organizations space to recruit people into the opaque black box of US imperialism. And for those students who are marginalized— for me as a Black trans woman— a CIA presence on campus creates a chilling effect on speech and organizing on campus.
I’ll be honest with you when I say that I had to struggle with myself on whether or not to speak today. I was then and continue to be scared of the CIA, because I know that they are one of the most violent, repressive, and invasive expressions of the US’ suppression of dissent ever created. And if you read The Daily Salad you know how much I love to talk, so if I am scared of the CIA imagine how students who may not be organized, may be otherwise marginalized, or could even be undocumented for just any international students feel.
The survivors of CIA repression are on this campus, and I want you to conceptualize— or if you don’t need to— feel how they feel. There are Venezuelans here, there are Cubans here, there are Koreans here, there are Puerto Ricans here. How do you think they feel about seeing the people who destabilized and raped their homelands on campuses that supposedly claim to protect them.
On the road to freedom, the CIA has stood in the way every single time— SINCE THEIR INCEPTION. I’ll tell you what, the people did not back down in Chile in Nicaragua in 1981; they did not back down in Iran in 1979; they did not back down in PALESTINE in 2023; they did not back down in MINNESOTA last month, they are NOT backing down NOW.
Look around you, look at the world. WE are NOT BACKING DOWN. The Black Panthers are back (if they ever left), Students for a Democratic Society is back, and I’ll leave this message for the Central Intelligence Agency and I hope you send this message to the boys up in Langley.
You are losers and liars. You are scoundrels and swindlers. You are rapists and murderers. You tried to kill Castro; you’ve been trying to kill Traoré, you have killed so many revolutionaries and so many civilians, you have tried to stop the people at every point. But what you fundamentally fail to understand, is that
YOU CAN MURDER A LIBERATOR BUT YOU CAN’T MURDER LIBERATION.
Because:
THE PEOPLE, UNITED, WILL NEVER EVER BE DEFEATED!
WHEN WE DARE TO STRUGGLE; WE DARE TO MOTHERF—KING WIN!!
