Worldwide protests say, ???End police brutality!???
Workers, youth march in cities, towns, rural areas across US
https://themilitant.com/2020/06/13/worldwide-protests-say-end-police-brutality/
BY SETH GALINSKY
Vol. 84/No. 24
June 22, 2020
Old Bridge, New Jersey, June 4, one of hundreds ??? perhaps thousands ??? of
protests that have exploded in small towns across U.S. after Minneapolis
cops brutally killed George Floyd.
MILITANT/CANDACE WAGNER
Old Bridge, New Jersey, June 4, one of hundreds ??? perhaps thousands ??? of
protests that have exploded in small towns across U.S. after Minneapolis
cops brutally killed George Floyd.
More than two weeks after Minneapolis cops brutally killed George Floyd,
protests on an unprecedented scale continue to sweep the world. From big
cities to rural towns in the U.S. and elsewhere, hundreds of thousands,
if not millions, have joined the protests ??? most for the first time in
their lives ??? and have focused attention on countless other cases of
police brutality.
The widespread protests forced prosecutors to indict the four cops
involved in killing Floyd and to lodge more weighty charges against
Derek Chauvin, who pressed his knee down on the handcuffed man???s neck
for nearly nine minutes, from third-degree to second-degree murder.
The actions boosted the fight to prosecute the cops who shot dead
Breonna Taylor, an emergency room technician, during a midnight no-knock
raid on her apartment in Louisville, Kentucky, March 13. The cops who
burst into Taylor???s home, spraying the bed where she slept with bullets,
are still on paid desk duty, while an ???investigation??? is underway.
On June 5, which would have been Taylor???s 27th birthday, calls for the
prosecution of the cops who killed her were heard at many of the actions.
Hundreds rallied at the Brunswick courthouse in Georgia June 4,
following a hearing for the three white vigilantes charged with the
February killing of Ahmaud Arbery, a Black youth slain while he was jogging.
In a sign of the depth of the outrage over police killings, several
hundred demonstrations have taken place in small towns and rural areas
across the U.S. This shows the ongoing impact of the fight for Black
rights in the 1950s and ???60s that overturned Jim Crow segregation in the
South and advanced the fight against racism across the country and
around the world. That fight, led by Black workers, transformed social
relations in the country, making it more possible for workers of all
nationalities to work, live and fight together.
Protesters at today???s actions are young and old, Black, Latino,
Caucasian and Asian ??? proof that there is less racism than ever among
working people. The real source of racist discrimination and cop
brutality is the functioning of capitalism, which seeks to foster
divisions among working people, to pit them against each other and
divert them from their real enemy.
Throughout the day on June 8 people attended a wake for Floyd at the
Fountain of Praise Church in Houston, where he was brought up. ???I owe my
condolences to George Floyd,??? Martin Dailey told Alyson Kennedy,
Socialist Workers Party candidate for president, at the event. ???I am
fighting a firing from my job as an operator from a PVC chemical plant
in Freeport, Texas, because of discrimination.???
The massive protests take place as working people also confront growing
assaults on our jobs, wages and working conditions.
Rural Kentucky an ???ally???
More than 100 mostly young workers joined a protest in Harlan, Kentucky,
June 2, organized by high school student and Arby???s worker Bree Carr.
Harlan County, which is 96% Caucasian, has a long history of strikes and
protests by coal miners.
Above, Atlanta June 5. Below, May 31 action in Alliance, Ohio. ???These
small towns coming together, is what we need to make a change,??? said
Ande Green, protest organizer there.
ABOVE: INSTAGRAM; BELOW: ANDE GREEN
Above, Atlanta June 5. Below, May 31 action in Alliance, Ohio. ???These
small towns coming together, is what we need to make a change,??? said
Ande Green, protest organizer there.
Carr told the Harlan Enterprise that she???d ???been thinking how much I
want to do something.??? So she put out a flyer and recruited others she
met at Walmart to help organize the protest.
The turnout was better than she expected, and passing cars honked in
support. ???Deep within rural Appalachia, especially in southeastern
Kentucky, people look upon us like we ignore issues that are happening
and like we???re uneducated,??? Carr told the press. ???My idea was to show
people of color who are struggling right now all over the country that
there are people in this rural place that are allies.???
There have been similar protests in Hazard, Pikeville, Paintsville and
other smaller towns across Kentucky.
Over 100 people joined a rally in Havre, Montana, a farm town of 9,700.
The protest was organized by Melody Bernard, a Chippewa Creek tribal
member. One participant was Dorian Miles, a young Black man, who moved
there just five months ago to play football for Montana State University.
He was blown away. ???A SMALL town of predominantly older white Americans
stood with me to protest the wrongdoings at the hands of police
EVERYWHERE,??? he wrote to friends on Facebook.
Two young Black women, Ande Green and Essence Blue, put out a flyer
announcing a protest in Alliance, Ohio, population 21,616, 80%
Caucasian. ???We didn???t know what to expect,??? Green told The Associated
Press. ???But over 300 people showed up.???
Green also put her finger on the reality of the working class in the
U.S. ???These small towns matter because it???s a lot of small towns,??? she
said. ???All of these small towns coming together, it???s what we need to
make a change.???
The blows of today???s capitalist social crisis hit hard on the
countryside with hospitals closing, jobs gone and social aid programs
slashed.
???People???s thinking has evolved???
What happened to George Floyd can???t be accepted as the ???status quo,???
Emma Boateng told a protest of 800 in Old Bridge, New Jersey, a majority
Caucasian town of 24,000. She was part of a contingent of Black high
school students on the march. ???We are here to build our community, not
burn it,??? she said.
???My grandmother grew up in the South and had to sit on the back of the
bus,??? high school student Zora Dancy told Candace Wagner, the SWP???s
candidate for U.S. Congress in New Jersey???s 8th District, at the march.
???She joined the fight to change that. And now here I am still fighting.???
During the first week after Floyd was killed, many of the U.S. protests
??? especially in larger cities ??? were marred by looting and in some cases
violent attacks on police stations. Some were carried out by
provocateurs on the march. Most were organized by gangs or frustrated
youth, targeting jewelry, electronics, shoe as well as grocery stores
and other large and small businesses, many already reeling from the
government-imposed coronavirus shutdowns.
Many of the attacks on cops and police stations were carried out by
antifa groups and other middle-class radicals. All of these weakened the
protests, putting barriers in the way of involving more working people
who backed the aims of the actions.
Government authorities took advantage of the violent acts to go after
democratic and political rights.
In New York, Mayor Bill de Blasio imposed a weeklong 8 p.m. to 5 a.m.
curfew. Some 2,000 people had been arrested as of June 5 for curfew
violations, ???unlawful assembly,??? disorderly conduct and resisting
arrest. But with large peaceful demonstrations continuing past curfew
every day, it was lifted.
???New York Times??? defends looting
While most working people oppose the pillaging, the New York Times took
the lead in justifying it. ???Violence is when an agent of the state
kneels on a man???s neck until all of the life is leached out of his body.
Destroying property, which can be replaced, is not violence,??? Pulitzer
Prize winning Times reporter Nikole Hannah-Jones claimed on CBS News
June 2. ???To use the same language to describe those two things is not
moral.???
To Hannah-Jones, the people who own now-destroyed small businesses, the
workers out of a job because the stores they worked at lie in ruins, and
the working people who depend on them to shop ??? often their only source
of basic necessities ??? are of no concern. She just sees ???property.???
Areas hard hit by looting include the Minneapolis neighborhoods near
where Floyd was killed, with many stores destroyed.
A two-block area there has been roped off and become a center of
discussion and protest. More than a dozen volunteer stands ??? organized
by individuals and church groups ??? provide free hot meals and water all
day and late into the evening to neighborhood residents and thousands
streaming in to visit the memorial set up to Floyd.
Several places donate food, diapers and other supplies that are now
harder to get because of shuttered or destroyed stores.
Postal workers union joins protests
On June 7, 75 members of the postal workers union and some bus drivers
marched into the area carrying a banner that read ???Postal Workers Demand
Justice for George Floyd.??? They had started out at the remains of the
nearby post office that was gutted by fire during looting the week before.
Many unions and national farmers organizations have spoken out against
the killing. More organized labor participation would significantly
strengthen the fight against police brutality. But even in its absence,
many protesters successfully pushed back looters and provocateurs.
Protesters in Spokane, Washington ??? like in many other cities ??? formed a
human chain to prevent the looting of a Nike store June 1.
Organizers of many of the thousands of protests around the country also
made clear that looting and violence would not be tolerated, helping
reduce provocative actions.
The protests have a deep impact. Todd Winn, a U.S. Marine, joined a June
5 protest in Salt Lake City in uniform for three hours holding a sign
that said, ???Justice for George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tamir Rice,
Countless Others.??? Unlike the cops, workers and farmers in the armed
forces can and are being won to the side of working-class struggles.
International protests
Protests against police brutality and racism have spread to more than 40
countries, often centered around cases of brutality perpetrated by the
cops there, including in Australia (see article on this page), Canada,
France, Iran, Israel, Italy, Kenya, Germany, Spain, Thailand, the U.K.
and many more.
At June 6 protests in major cities across Brazil, marches carried ???Black
Lives Matter??? banners emblazoned with the name of Jo??o Pedro Matos
Pinto, 14, who was gunned down by cops in a suburb of Rio de Janeiro.
After storming the youth???s home, throwing a grenade inside and spraying
it with bullets, the police claimed it was an accident.
???Now is the time to stand up and take part,??? Will Goodlake told Militant
worker-correspondents at a protest of thousands marching to the U.S.
Embassy in London.
These actions show the potential for working people in their millions to
unite and organize against police brutality, acts of racist
discrimination, and all the iniquities rooted in capitalist exploitation
and oppression.
Cops and their violence are an essential part of capitalist rule
Alyson Kennedy, the Socialist Workers Party candidate for president,
issued the following statement June 9. Malcolm Jarrett is the party???s
candidate for vice president. The explosion of demonstrations against
the Minneapolis cop killing of George Floyd that have swept the???
Protests, workers??? resistance to bosses spur interest in the ???Militant,???
books
The protests against police brutality that are sweeping the U.S. and the
world ??? combined with resistance to the bosses??? attacks as the
capitalist economic crisis unfolds ??? have boosted interest in the
Militant newspaper, books by Socialist Workers Party???
Thousands defy Australia gov???t, protest brutality
SYDNEY ??? Tens of thousands protested across Australia June 5-6,
including more than 20,000 here, in solidarity with U.S. demonstrations
against the police killing of George Floyd as well as against Aboriginal
deaths in police custody. The cops in New???
Front Page Articles
Worldwide protests say, ???End police brutality!???
Cops and their violence are an essential part of capitalist rule
French auto workers strike over Renault plant closures
Workers fight boss attacks on jobs, pay, work conditions
Planned Parenthood wins fight to keep Missouri abortion clinic open
Protests, workers??? resistance to bosses spur interest in the ???Militant,???
books
Feature Articles
Frank Gorton built communist movement in Canada, UK, US
Also In This Issue
Thousands defy Australia gov???t, protest brutality
Supreme Court upholds attack on right to worship
Florida gov???t restrictions on former prisoners??? right to vote pushed back
Hong Kong workers mark Tiananmen Square massacre
Protest in Syria: Down with Assad! Moscow, Tehran out of our country
SWP ???stimulus??? appeal climbs over $116,000
Books of the Month
???Building socialism is a voluntary task of free men and women???
25, 50 and 75 years ago
?? Copyright 2020 The Militant?? -?? 306 W. 37th Street, 13th floor -?? New
York, NY 10018?? -?? themilitant@xxxxxxx
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Carl Sagan
???Every aspect of Nature reveals a deep mystery and touches our sense of
wonder and awe. Those afraid of the universe as it really is, those who pretend
to nonexistent knowledge and envision a Cosmos centered on human beings will
prefer the fleeting comforts of superstition. They avoid rather than confront
the world. But those with the courage to explore the weave and structure of the
Cosmos, even where it differs profoundly from their wishes and prejudices, will
penetrate its deepest mysteries.???
??? Carl Sagan, Cosmos
