Statement of the Red Star Sisters
Statement of the Red Star Sisters
Ann Arbor Sun, July 4th, 1970
The Red Star is a universal symbol of COMMUNEism, of living and working together, coming together, a symbol of righteous revolution and love for ALL of humanity. We, the sisters of the White Panther Party, take the Red Star as the symbol of our own liberation, and align I ourselves with all oppressed people on the planet.
In Vietnam the spirit and determination of the women to free their people is as strong as the men’s. In Vietnam, the members of the Vietnam Women’s Union tell of how before 1930, before the Party was formed, there were two main tendencies among women’s liberation. One tendency was bourgeois, which wanted equal rights with men and opposed the bonds of the fuedal family (which were extremely oppressive), but didn’t commit themselves to freeing ALL their people. Their aspirations were right, but they didn’t see the root of the problem. The constituency of this tendency was mainly women from the cities
The second tendency was revolutionary, influenced I by Marxism-Leninism. These women felt that only through the liberation of ALL the people could they achieve their liberation as women. They worked in many revolutionary groups, and only after the Party was formed did they form a separate women’s organization, which then became an anti-imperialist women’s organization, not an organization for the liberation of women. They knew they needed to give women a sense of confidence, and that through revolutionary activity, consciousness is raised to a higher level—through revolutionary struggle people begin to see their own potential as human beings. The Chairman of the Vietnam Woman’s Union is quoted as saying that making a revolution is like going to a celebration; it makes you younger. And she tells of Minh Khai, a recent revolutionary sister who engraved on her wall in prison, “Revolution is the way to Life.” It is through righteous revolutionary struggle to free all the people that each one of us will achieve our liberation, each one of us as individuals, each class, each ethnic minority, each nation, as women, men and youth. We will ALL be free.
We, the Red Star Sisters of the White Panther Party Party, are a cadre of sisters united and dedicated to serving the needs of the people with a specific purpose of educating and organizing more revolutionary sisters into The White Panther Party. We believe that women cannot be free until ALL the people are free and dedicate our lives to that principle. We believe that male and female are two halves which make up the most powerful whole on the planet, and that united as brothers and sisters we are UNSTOPPABLE! In the past the White Panther Party has been criticized for male chauvinism, and the objective reality shows that there are indeed more men than women in the Party. We recognized that sisters throughout the planet are subjected to specific kinds of sexual oppression in the roles that we have been expected to fulfill, and we are determined to rediscover our true roles as a whole people, as revolutionary women. We, the Red Star Sisters of the White Panther Party, believe that we can deal with this problem within the Party, and are doing so. We call on all revolutionary sisters to unite with us to make the White Panther Party a truly revolutionary Party dedicated to serving all the needs of all the people.
ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE
POWER TO THE RED STAR SISTERS
REVOLUTION IS THE WAY TO UFE