NOlympic Day Statement: Cancel the Tokyo 2020/2021 Olympics

The Olympics Kill The Poor. They accelerate inequality, policing, and displacement everywhere. Tokyo, Beijing, Paris, Milan, Cortina, Los Angeles, and beyond. Their existence is deadly, and for the past 17 months, the whole world has witnessed the depraved lengths IOC members will go to make themselves and their rich friends even richer. They are gambling with global public health, and the world is rejecting them. However, let us not forget, the Tokyo 2020 Olympics were illegitimate and ruined lives well before anyone knew what COVID was. They’ve been used to destroy public space, increase and entrench policing and surveillance, and evict people from their homes. And they’ve been used to falsely claim that Fukushima has “recovered” from the 2011 earthquake-tsunami-nuclear disaster.

Like Paris and Tokyo, Los Angeles has already played “host” to the parasitic Games before, two times too many. So we know firsthand what the Olympics did to poor, Black and brown, and other underserved communities in 1932 and in 1984. They led to hotel speculation, exclusionary development, policing expansion and militarization, surveillance, homeless and ‘gang’ sweeps, and the diversion of much-needed resources away from where they’re needed most.

We reject the LA 2028 bid, as do more and more Angelenos with every passing day. We know the Olympics aren’t “good for LA.” We know the only way LA 2028 will “put us on the map” is by marking us as a target for more speculation, exclusionary development, private security, and law enforcement.

We know the Olympics are a gigantic disaster, both for Los Angeles and communities around the world. Our struggles are fundamentally linked. We know it’s not too late to stop them.

We know that the world is awakening to the incalculable harm the Olympics pose no matter where they go, and we invite others across the globe to collaborate with us.

On this NOlympic Day, June 23, we stand in solidarity with our allies around the world.

Cancel ALL Olympics

Abolish the IOC

NOlympics Anywhere!

Join our NOlympic Day Global Solidarity Action
Tuesday June 22 in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles
Meet 6:30pm at Toriumi Plaza (1st St & Judge John Aiso St), march at 7pm