Our collective’s statement read by our dear comrade Julie at last night’s vigil to remember Yang Song —so much love to Red Canary Song for holding space.
Yang Song Statement Transcript
Julie:
Hi, everyone. The Support Ho(s)e Collective sends its love and solidarity to Red Canary Song and all of you today who want an end to the harassment and criminalization of our immigrant, migrant and sex working communities.
Like our comrades in Red Canary Song, and all of you gathered here today, we want police out of massage parlors. We want an end to police demanding sexual services for free and entrapping workers.
We want an end to the NYPD coercing workers to become informants against one another. We want an end to the stigma and shame that surrounds survival of any kind.
We have collectively mourned the murder, yes, we charged the NYPD with the murder of Yang Song, and we have held space for our righteous anger for three Novembers now. We were with you outside of the 109th Precinct, demanding justice for Yang Song on December 17th for International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers. Again, in this very spot last year, as we built our own community altar of memory and resistance, and here we all are, again, are gathering now even larger, growing with resilience and rage.
We will keep coming back, joining together until we see a flushing and a New York that respects and uplifts migrant massage and sex working people. Their workplace needs their access to community resources, their freedom of movement without fear of harassment from judgemental neighbors or police.
We will only see personal and political safety when those directly impacted lead their communities. Develop solutions that do not rely on fear, arrest, entrapment, deportation, and incarceration that the police bring. We will only see safety when the cops are out of parlors and massage workers are able to freely and openly address the real harms, grievances and struggles they already self-organize to address every single day without the threats and harassment they currently survive.
All power to migrant sex workers, all power to migrant massage workers, solidarity forever.