Features

August General Membership Meeting Preview –Brodie L

Good morning, dear Comrades! This General Membership meeting promises to be a packed one. We welcome our Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) comrades to tell us about their No Appetite For Apartheid (NA4A) initiative, which seeks to bring local restaurants awareness of BDS Movement aims and how many everyday ingredients and supplies support genocide in Gaza. Restaurants who proactively change their patronage get recognized by NA4A.

Our new business directs our efforts to improving material conditions in our city. We’ll take up resolutions on the creation of a Solidarity Fund and a Festival Campaign, to formalize the AfroSoC group, and to start a campaign to forgive medical debt here in New Orleans. We will also discuss a restructuring of the Direct Service and Health Justice Committee into two separate committees that can more efficiently address our community needs.

We will also have updates from one of our comrades on the creation of a Young Democratic Socialists of America group on local college campuses, our protected Right to Counsel, and our DSA merchandise!

After our meeting, we will adjourn to Skeeta Hawk Brewing for our after-GM social. Drinks (both alcoholic and non), food, board games, and camaraderie will be available!

Please don’t forget to RSVP, and if you can’t make it, request a proxy!

Letters from Fadi and Adam in Gaza –Sanaa Andi M

If my voice can reach someone outside Gaza, I don’t ask you to feel sorry for me. I ask you to remember me as a human being. And when the news moves on to another story, please don’t let the people of Gaza disappear with it… Remember that before we became headlines, we were people with ordinary dreams: a safe home, a peaceful morning, a future for our children, and the chance to live without fear.

-Fadi Naim

My name is Sanaa Andi, New Orleans DSA Treasurer. In May of 2024, I sold my house and “adopted” two families with the proceeds. The Wael family (54 members) and the Naim Family (24 members). These families are advocated for by the youngest unmarried males within them: Adam Wael (27) and Fadi Naim (29).

To say that I have become close to these young men and their families would be an understatement. I treat them as my own kin. We all know what we would do to help our children in a fucked situation. You would move heaven and earth to help them.

Why would an American woman sell her paid-off home and support two families of complete strangers? Even Adam and Fadi asked me this question. Simple: the US prints more money everyday; they are constantly printing the stuff. Fadi and Adam are the one and only them: irreplaceable, priceless. I have zero regrets for anything I have done when it comes to these young men, my sons in Gaza.

Fadi and Adam write letters from Gaza. I hope you will listen to them, their stories, their perspectives. I will continue to tell you about all of the things we have done in these last 2-plus years and the projects we have going on right now.

Dialectics 101 –Troy W

What do you see in this image? Some people see only a fancy woman with a turned head, feather in her coiffed hair, fur coat, and a necklace. Some only see a bundled babushka with a large nose and chin. Some see both (maybe you do too, now!). Who has the “right” perspective?

Both (and neither), duh!

This seemingly obvious statement of fact underlies the ancient philosophical concept of dialectics (or, in Taoism, yin/yang 阴阳). Dialectics refers to the idea that the universe is composed of opposites (a thesis and an antithesis). Think: hot/cold, up/down, left/right, light/dark, etc. But it is not only made up of these opposites. There’s also warm, middle, center, gray, dusk, dawn, etc. Between thesis and antithesis is synthesis, the coming together and interplay of opposites. By synthesizing opposites, we get a fuller picture of reality and “truth.” Taken further, synthesis enables us to see other perspectives by validating “the kernel of truth” in someone or something that we may not understand at first. Both/and rather than either/or.

Humans are generally primed to see things as either/or. It typically goes something like: “My way (of thinking, doing, being) is right, and yours is wrong.” This has, naturally, led to most of the suffering in our illustriously notorious time on Earth. Turns out, dialectics isn’t as simple as it seems at first.

There’s a lot here for us socialists. You have probably come across the word “dialectical” in your socialist travels, typically paired with the word “materialism.” I’ll cover that in another RedTalk/feature. But for now, maybe start thinking about how dialectics show up in your life and relationships. A good example for us in DSA: “You can disagree with someone and still be friends (or comrades).”

Bulletins

Direct Service & Health Justice Meeting Tomorrow

Thank you to everyone who came out in the heat for another successful Brake Light Clinic last weekend!

Our next meeting is tomorrow, 6:00-7:00pm, online. We are planning for next month’s Fork & Knife Club Food Distribution and for expanding future distribution efforts to be in-person in New Orleans East.

Health professional comrades: please join us this Thursday 8/27 at 6:00 pm online to make foundational decisions for both our reborn Health Justice arm and our medical debt forgiveness campaign in advance of GM this Saturday.

DS+HJ always welcomes donations for food and supplies.

Trivial Pursuits

Join us for weekly trivia on Wednesdays at 7:00 pm! Test your knowledge and share joy with other nerdy socialists. We typically meet at Pepp’s Pub, 706 Franklin Av, New Orleans, LA 70117. Check the Discord or reach out to Troy W. or Alex P. for location confirmation!

Afrosocialists & Socialists of Color Monthly Meeting This Thursday

Join AfroSOC this Thursday at 6:00 pm for our Fourth Thursdays meeting. This group welcomes Black, Indigenous, and Socialists of Color, and builds power with DSA’s Black/POC membership and community members. Join our Discord #afrosoc channel for updates.

Feminist Socialist Biweekly Planning Meeting This Friday

Join FemSoc this Friday at 6:00 pm for our biweekly meet with fellow femme and non-masc people and share how you want DSA New Orleans to embrace feminism. Let’s work together to make DSA a space where we advocate for everyone’s voices, nurture leadership, increase accessibility, and fight for the rights of all people!

International Working Group Partners With Palestinian Youth Movement

Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) New Orleans will join us at our General Meeting on August 29 to share information about their No Appetite for Apartheid (NA4A) campaign. On a date TBD, we’ll join PYM for a group canvass to create apartheid-free zones in Mid-City. Volunteers will talk to Mid-City stores about joining the boycott of israeli and genocide-complicit goods, and raising financial pressure on the Zionist entity. No previous canvass experience necessary, training provided!

View the map of local NA4A certified businesses, and see the requirements to make the list. Already know an apartheid free store, restaurant, or grocer? They can submit the form to join the list here.

New Orleans DSA Proudly Endorses Comrade Lauren Jewett for Congress, LA-01!

Volunteer Hub | Contribute | 7:30p Monday volunteer calls | Request a sign

Election Day is Tuesday November 3, 2026. Special education teacher, DSA member, and longtime United Teachers of New Orleans (AFT Local 527) member Lauren Jewett is running for Congress in LA-01, which covers much of the Greater New Orleans metro, Lakeview, and parts of Uptown and Mid-City.

She’s fighting for public schools and their teachers; Medicare for All, reproductive freedom, and keeping our hospitals open; paid family leave and universal childcare for every worker; restoring our coast with union jobs; and ending the billionaire takeover of our government.

Protect Renters! Save Right to Counsel!

We cannot let the administration backslide on renter protections — especially when rising rents are squeezing working class wallets and the State is ramping up criminalization of homeless people. Full funding for the program is only around $2 million annually. That’s some of the City’s best-spent money keeping hundreds of households stable and preventing homelessness each year. We need the City to recommit to renters, and for Mayor Moreno to stand up for the policy that she sponsored. Say it loud and say it clear: No one should face an eviction without a lawyer. Join us at City Hall on Thursday, August 20th at 11am to speak in support of the 2026 funding allocation.

Pre-Order Shirts Featuring Art by Influential New Orleanian Sign Painter Pam Collins

If you’ve been to the chapter’s office in the New Orleans Healing Center in the last couple of months, you may have seen a new hand-painted New Orleans Democratic Socialists of America sign. This was made by Pam Collins, an influential sign painter who was described as “unofficially, the official artist of the city of New Orleans” by the time she retired in 2013. You can use this form to pre-order shirts featuring her design as well as red DSA logo shirts and Global Liberation Now pelican shirts. You can also order the skulls and roses shirt design on our Good Press shop.

Community Calendar

Monday, August 24

Immigration Advocacy Working Group
6:30 pm – 8:00 pm
Healing Center, 2372 St Claude Av #258 & Discord

DSA for Lauren Jewett Weekly Call
7:30 pm – 8:15 pm (Mondays)
Volunteer | Meet

Sober Soc Support Group
8:00 pm – 9:00 pm
Meet

Tuesday, August 25

Direct Service & Health Justice Meeting
6:00 pm – 7:00 pm
Meet

Wednesday, August 26

Queer Soc Meeting
6:00 pm – 7:00 pm
Meet

Electoral Committee Co-Work & Talk
7:00 pm – 9:00 pm (Wednesdays)
Morning Call, 5101 Canal Blvd (cash only) & online

Trivia Night with Team DSA
7:00 pm
Pepp’s Pub, 706 Franklin Av

Thursday, August 27

Afrosocialists & Socialists of Color Monthly Meeting
6:00 pm – 7:00 pm
Meet

Health Justice Meeting
6:00 pm
Meet

DSA Hangout: Downtown-Marigny
6:00 pm – 8:00 pm
Anna’s, 2601 Royal St

Membership Working Group
8:00 pm – 9:30 pm
RSVP

Friday, August 28

FemSoc Meeting
6:00 pm – 8:00 pm
Healing Center, 2372 St Claude Av #258 & Discord

Voter Guide Kickoff Call
8:00 pm – 9:30 pm
RSVP

Saturday, August 29

New Orleans DSA General Meeting
12:00 pm – 2:00 pm
Broadmoor Arts & Wellness Center, 3900 General Taylor St – RSVP | Proxy

Post-GM Social
2:01 pm
Skeeta Hawk Brewing, 455 N Dorgenois St

Sunday, August 30

Chapter Orientation
8:00 pm – 9:00 pm
RSVP

Down the Road

September 6 Coffee With Comrades
September 26 New Orleans DSA General Meeting
September 28 FemSoc Planning Meeting