Dogpatch Press

Source: breakicela – Protest March 15, 12-6 at LAX Hilton

Hilton collaborates with ICE while states and civil rights groups sue

When you rent a room at Hilton, you’re contributing to one of the most valuable hotel corporations in the world, worth around $70 billion. With that power, the brand has thrown their weight behind ICE operations that violate the US Constitution.

Hilton hotels hosted ICE agents in Minnesota while they murdered people like Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti, and illegally kidnapped people off the street. In response to the brutality, Minnesota is suing the Department of Homeland Security for violating the constitution. It joins numerous fellow lawsuits from states, counties, and civil rights advocates like the ACLU.

Hotels that serve ICE have become “part of the front lines of local resistance“, according to an article from The American Prospect: ‘No Sleep for ICE’ Campaigns Expand. Hilton “has found itself in the crosshairs of local residents who are unequivocally fed up with the hotel chain for its role in what they see as enabling state violence against their communities.” Pressure has grown from Minnesota, to solidarity protests from the east coast to the west, New York to California.

What happens when event management comes in conflict with member values, when events are already in motion, with contracts signed, tickets sold and travel plans made? Let’s look at two cases.

The National LGBTQ Task Force and their Hilton contract — and Punk in the Park’s problem promoter

While Hilton collaborated with brutality, The National LGBTQ Task Force had to address their Creating Change conference being scheduled at a Hilton. Their Statement and Action on ICE and Hilton Corporate was torn between obligation and values: “This contract was signed years in advance, as conference contracts almost always are. Canceling Creating Change at this point would have a devastating financial impact—not only on the Task Force as an organization, but on other movement organizations, local partners, workers, and activists who depend on this gathering.”

That didn’t resolve everything, but it was responsive. Their statement offered support against ICE and said: “This Hilton location has assured us that ICE will not be staying at the property during Creating Change.”

A multi-city music festival series, Punk in the Park, had internal conflict about their promoter (not their partner venues.) Veteran musicians were among dozens of bands who learned that the promoter donated to the MAGA cause. In the classic tradition of protest music, and punk’s fundamental anti-authoritarianism sung by Jello Biafra in the Dead Kennedys song Nazi Punks Fuck Off — people standing by their values condemned the promoter. Bands began to pull out, petitions circulated, and the promoter issued a statement claiming “it’s not about politics”. Some bands refused to pull out and were judged sellouts. Then Punk in the Park lost so much support that the whole series was canceled.

Punks put their money where their mouth is and took a hard choice instead of money not to. If furries did this, it would be like having dealers and Guests of Honor withdraw from a convention… which they did in New Jersey, in protest of corruption at Garden State Fur the Weekend, successfully rebounding with a new convention, Furgeddaboutit. LGBT people, punks, and furries have all stepped up to assert values instead of collaborating when injustice comes down.

Source: keystonenewsroom

Golden State Fur Con’s contract with Hilton leads to ICE Breakers protest

Since 2019, California’s Golden State Fur Con has held 6 conventions at Hiltons. Who knew the hotel’s collaboration with brutality would push the gentle fun of furry culture in front of a politics bus — and will we just act like deer in the headlights? People with shared values are finding out. They know that if we don’t do politics, politics will do us, and it isn’t a choice. Trans people who visit the US for a con can already be treated as illegal for being trans.

ICE Breakers is a campaign by Grassroots Activist International Association (GAIA). This activist collective was founded in 2018 to campaign for progressive causes, like addressing climate change, and this. It operates out of several cities to put pressure against collaborators who keep ICE operational and normalized:

• Private detention contractors
• Corporate logistics and supply chains
• Technology and data companies
• Hotels, transportation services, and facilities
• Advertising and recruitment platforms

ICE Breakers works to make this collaboration visible, unprofitable, and untenable. Furries at a Hilton makes a case of a corporation working against our interest, but here’s why it’s a dilemma for the con to act.

Ignore problems, go bankrupt, or… (?)

For an annual convention, a hotel contract is a long relationship that isn’t easy to do or undo, especially on short notice. Agreements written long ago mean canceling can leave the event management liable for the cost of unsold rooms. According to posts by the con chair to a con Telegram group, the only operating funds Golden State Fur Con has are from registrations. Canceling and refunding would bankrupt them. ICE Breakers made statements (below) that appear unfamiliar with this bind.

Requests for official reply were seen and unanswered, so this is unofficial.

There’s more to say. Take the cases of canceling Punk in the Park, or Garden State Fur the Weekend. We’re talking about a big party and not going. One that has (1) a lot of money and travel plans attached, but with that, the power of a $70 billion corporation to maintain brutality that (2) we can fight. Priorities? Pick one.

If a con chose bankruptcy, incorporation is meant to protect individuals from debt. Then you have bad credit for starting a new con, but maybe others start from scratch, maybe you go to Anthro SoCal, or no con, but… you stand on values with victims of brutality. It’s a cost that comes with the politics of mass movements, like labor strikes where workers go without pay to force concessions from power by long-haul sacrifice and solidarity.

There’s also working to change venues in the long term, even if the con can’t move now, and supporting a message of “don’t do business with Hilton”. The con may feel silence is the least worst option, but ICE Breakers pressure on the Hilton brand is a tactical goal no matter where con management stands.

ICE Breakers response to Dogpatch Press.

Dogpatch Press contacted Golden State Fur Con for response, but got no reply by publication deadline, so the ICE Breakers response is posted in full below without further questions. Dogpatch Press raised rumored fear of fursuiter safety and asked what methods might they use, for what goals?

“We are honestly all so happy to see how invested the Furry community is towards protecting against ICE. With each new tactic we learn about another community, in coalition we stand together with hundreds of groups throughout LA, comprised of every imaginable culture and subculture.

For us, working with the furry community is new. But fascinatingly we’ve gotten far more response, interest, communication, and energy from GSFC than 99% of the conventions that use this Hilton. Commendable.

Regardless, We must understand that ICE Stays at this Hilton.

It is well documented. Weekly we see vehicles with people in full mask, with license plates taped. We then see those vehicles go into the Metropolitan Detention Center. They are ICE.

We also must understand the Hilton corporation has taken a strong stand to protect the interest of ICE Agents.

Even when people like Renee Nicole Good, and Alex Pretti were being murdered.

Hilton must agree to make a public statement that they won’t house ICE Agents.

Until they do we will:

Use any method available within the law. With zero regard to whose feelings we may hurt we will use every drop of creativity and commitment we have to protest this Hilton and many others consistently until they stop housing ICE agents. You can read here more about our tactics www.gaiaactivist.org/hilton We cannot relent. We must remain totally vigilant in finding Hiltons where ICE is, and letting every customer know.

We don’t tell the customer what to do, we let them decide if they want to sleep in a room covered in blood.

We can offer no reassurances. The convention, and its attendance (many which have already canceled) should feel a great sense of fear knowing that ICE is in the building. Any narrative which alludes that it is the protestors, or actions that present a risk… Is a gross negligence to the fact that it is far more dangerous to house an agency that routinely causes so much destruction. To lie to international travelers about whether ICE is in the building is heinous. GSFC is choosing to ignore local grassroots organizers, lie to its staff and attendance, all while putting people at great risk by not choosing a hotel with a strong commitment not to house ICE. (We’ve offered a few.)

While we have a great amount of solidarity, and a strong sense of protection around any marginalized communities that face oppression, we are not the same as trolls, nazis, or traitors [referenced by Dogpatch Press as reason why furry organizers may feel cautious in engaging, especially with history of the Califur convention being attacked by neo-nazi trolling].

The approach and tactics we use, we’ve been using since 2019 with great success. We just recently won a campaign on Spotify. But that is only one among hundred of corporations we have gotten to divest from ICE. In fact, we can happily say we win every single campaign we start. Because we never give up.

I hope this sums up a bit more about why regardless of the potential for disruption, or potential for upsetting some attendance, we must continue our weekly protest of this Hilton location.

If GSFC were to announce that either;

• • They will commit to choosing a hotel or site that has a public commitment not to house ICE Agents
  • Produce evidence of any kind that ICE is not staying in the building, or that Hilton has assured them as such.

We would immediately end the protest, and going forward, use every bit of our social capital to praise GSFC for doing the right thing to protect our community, and frankly for standing on the right side of history.

In Solidarity,

Grassroots Activist International Association”

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