To: Detroit/Seattle
Workers' Voice mailing list
June 1, 2020
Re: Black lives matter! A wave of struggle against racism engulfs the US
by Joseph Green, Detroit Workers' Voice
A wave of struggle against racism has grown from Minneapolis to the entire country in the last week. In over 140 cities across the country, people have come out to demonstrate: New York, Boston, Detroit, Chicago, Seattle, Los Angeles, Houston, Atlanta, Louisville, Washington, DC, and many more. (1)
George Floyd was murdered on Monday, May 25, by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who knelt on Floyd's neck for almost eight minutes while Floyd was on the ground, face down with his hands cuffed behind his back, and unconscious for the last three minutes. Three other officers were involved, two of them putting weight on Floyd's back. This was one in a long series of police murders of black people, and this time the country exploded in outrage, with many cities seeing thousands of demonstrators.
In one city after another, the demonstrations, once started, would generally take place again the following days. The demonstrators aren't just black, but are racially diverse, noticeably more so than the great urban explosions against racism in the past. The actions are marked by determination and militancy. In Oakland, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, San Jose, and elsewhere, highways and freeways would be blocked for a time. The actions would continue despite police attacks and over 2,000 arrests (2), and despite the deployment of the National Guard in 23 states and the District of Columbia.
Bus drivers in Minneapolis and New York have refused to drive buses commandeered by police to transport arrested people to jail or police officers to demonstrations. One Minneapolis driver, Adam Burch, wrote on Facebook: "As a transit worker and union member I refuse to transport my class and radical youth to jail. An injury to one is an injury to all. The police murdered George Floyd and the protest against it is completely justified and should continue until their demands are met." Other drivers took the same stand, and the Amalgamated Transit Union then backed the right of its members to make this decision. In New York, Transit Workers Union Local 100 took a similar stand. The ATU and various Minneapolis unions have issued statements denouncing Floyd's murder. (3) However, most unions have taken a passive stand with regard to the protest movement. Even worse, AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka gave an interview to Fox News in which he denounced the protest movement for allegedly threatening the national conversation on racism. (4) This is the result of the present-day domination of most unions by no-struggle leaders, who have fought against worker militancy, thus ensuring one defeat after another.
The present movement is the first mass wave of demonstrations in the US since the start of the COVID-19 crisis. Most demonstrators wore masks, and it appears that actions at time showed social distancing. There has also been right-wing demonstrations to force states to abandon anti-COVID measures, but they were quite small compared to the mass outpouring of anger over the murder of Floyd. Moreover the pro-Trump rightists are under the influence of the idea that COVID is hardly worse than flu, or that it won't strike them, but only those they regard as inferior. The anti-racist demonstrators, on the other hand, know that COVID-19 is particularly deadly for minority and working-class communities, but regard that fighting racism is also a matter of life and death.
When Floyd was murdered, the first reaction of the police was the usual coverup. It was announced that Floyd had resisted arrest, which he hadn't. But videos of the incident, and the immediate beginning of protest, caused the authorities to take the murder seriously. The Minneapolis police had first issued a statement defending the officers involved, but the next day were placed on leave, and later the same day fired. Soon Chauvin was arrested and charged with third-degree murder and 2nd degree manslaughter, but not with intent to kill -- as if squeezing an unconscious person's neck for several minutes didn't show deadly intent. The other officers still haven't been charged. The official autopsy pretended that Floyd hadn't died of strangulation, but a second autopsy, commissioned by Floyd's family and carried out by two imminent pathologists, has found otherwise.
Since then, in most places the authorities, even in cities and states with Democratic governors and mayors or even African-American police chiefs (as in Minneapolis) declare curfews, call in the National Guard, watch while the police brutalize demonstrators, and blame everything on outsiders. As for the underlying problems, they have no other solution than the repetition of some tired old promises that are always made and never kept, as is seen by the fact that the police murders continue, and hunger and inequality are growing as fast as ever. And the police, for their part, have been the main instigator of violence. The New York Times reports, "Facing protests over use of force, police respond with more force: videos showed officers using batons, tear gas, pepper spray and rubber bullets on protesters and bystanders." (5) This doesn't stop the authorities from relying on them. New York Mayor De Blasio even defended for a time the New York police driving two SUVS through a crowd of demonstrators.(6)
The police have also made a special target of journalists,
especially black ones. The Guardian reports that the attacks on media
workers
"included the blinding of Linda Tirado, a freelance photojournalist and activist who has contributed to the Guardian, who was hit in the eye with a nonlethal round while covering unrest in Minneapolis; the arrest of the HuffPost US reporter Chris Mathias during protests in New York; and the shooting of the Swedish foreign correspondent Nina Svanberg, who was struck in the leg by several rubber bullets on Friday night. ...
"Numerous media outlets, including CNN, Reuters and MSNBC, reported that their staff covering protests in the city had been hit by rubber bullets fired at them. Media outlets and journalists in numerous cities reported being targeted by police with chemical agents or less-lethal rounds, and several reporters were arrested." (7)
This brutality did not suppress the movement, but spurred violence. The areas with police violence were usually those that ended up with clashes, fires, and looting. Meanwhile the majority of those arrested might well have been those who blocked highways, which the authorities call "violence".
Trump himself has called for bloody suppression of the protest movement. The last week has seen him cowering in his reinforced bunker for an hour, and also tweeting about setting vicious dogs on protesters, or shooting them, or having MAGA thugs confront them on the streets of Washington DC. (8) He mobilized the military police, but his advisers weren't yet sure what to do. Just now he has stepped up his threat to use military force. Meanwhile, his incitement of the racist right-wing throughout his presidency seems to have its effect in a series of incidents. A black protester in Omaha, James Scurlock, was shot to death by an owner of two bars who volunteered for the Trump campaign in 2016. (9) In Detroit, a 19-year-old was killed on May 29 when someone fired shots from a car into a protest demonstration, although it isn't known who did this. (10) In Salt Lake City, an older white man got out of his car and aimed a bow-and-arrow at protesters. (11) In Louisville, on Thursday night, seven protesters were injured by gunshots that the police swore wasn't from them -- they were shooting rubber bullets -- and so may have been from right-wing activists. (12) And on Sunday, a tanker truck ran through a crowd of demonstrators on a highway bridge in Minneapolis. (13)
The demonstrations are a major turning point in the present situation. They show that the working people aren't just going to passively accept what's going on. They are making an impression abroad, too, as supporting demonstrations have taken place in Toronto, London, Berlin, and New Zealand. What the protest movements leads to will influence the political situation in the US for some time to come. Today it is welcomed by those who see that we need change now. It is a sign that the bourgeoisie can't go on just destroying the livelihood of millions of people, or evicting them from their homes, or stripping them of health protection in the face of COVID-19, or having the police shoot them down in the street. The welfare of the people has to be seriously taken into account.
But support for this historic movement doesn't require support for anything that is done. Within the movement itself, there are differences of views that show up at demonstrations. This is a movement that embraces large numbers of people. There is no one organization or political trend that dominates the movement. Mostly actions turn into clashes because the police seek to suppress them. There is also some generalized burning and looting. Some of it reflects the views of people who say that they have seen the same promises over and over, and nothing will change unless something gets burned. It is an erroneous view about how a movement for change should be built, but it reflects years in which the situation simply got worse. (14) There seems to be some demonstrators who are influenced by the anarchist idea that the point of demonstrations is "to do material damage" to the enemy. (15) It is also suspected by some people that far-right groups have come in and done some of the trashing and looting. (16). And finally, some nonpolitical trashing and burning has no doubt taken place.
In the streets, in social media, in your community, in your union (if you have one), in your workplace (if you still have one), in your professional association, wherever you are, and according to what's possible for you to do, stand up for justice for George Floyd!
This is the start of a new round of struggle, prepare for a lengthy fight!
Let the minorities and working people unite for struggle against racism, against COVID-19, against global warming, against hunger, against inequality, and for a real voice in how the world is run!
Black lives matter!
Unless the minorities and working people have their voice, the world will face disaster!
[1] See the map in the article "Cities on Edge as Fires Burn Near White House".
[2] A partial count of 1,700 arrests in just three days in 22 cities, according to Peter Sblendorio "Nearly 1,700 arrests made in U.S. during three-day stretch of George Floyd protests".
[3] Lauren Kaori Gurley, "Minneapolis Bus Drivers Refuse to Transport George Floyd Protesters to Jail: Organised labour throughout the city is banding together in solidarity against police violence in the aftermath of Floyd’s death. Marina Fang, "Transit Workers Union Backs Members Who refuse Transporting Minneapolis Police". Madeleine Carlisle, "Bus Drivers in Minneapolis and New York City Have Refused to Transport Arrested Prisoners for Police", in Time. The ATU and the TWU are two separate unions that both represent transit workers.
[4] Sam Dorman, "AFL-CIO chief condemns people using Floyd death to 'perpetuate violence'".
[5] Shaila Dewan and Mike Baker in the May 31, New York Times.
[6] Henry Austin, Suzanne Ciechalski, and Tom Winter, " 'They didn't start the situation': NYC mayor defends police after NYPD trucks drive into protesters".
[7] Michael Safi, "George Floyd protests: reporters targeted by police and crowds: Journalists report being shot at, teargassed, arrested and intimidated"'.
[8] "Trump took shelter in White House bunker as George Floyd protests raged".
[9] Tracy Connor, "Black Protester Shot to Death Outside Omaha Bar".
[10] Jennifer Henderson, "Man shot and killed as protests continue in Detroit".
[11] Mark Klekas, "'Bow and Arrow Man' to be identified, arrested for attacking protesters".
[12] Amy Wallace and Roman Stubbs, "Protest in Louisville turns violent, leaving seven wounded by gunfire".
[13] Daniel Politi, "Tanker Truck Speeds Into Thousands of George Floyd Protesters on Minneapolis Bridge".
[14] Chris McGreal recounts in the Guardian a clash of views among people demonstrating in the street in which "a young African American woman said people should look to the Los Angeles riots after the Rodney King verdict nearly 30 years down" and another says "When we were protesting peacefully, nothing get done". They carried the day against those opposing the burning. See "Night of flames and fury as Minneapolis swells with outrage over George Floyd killing". A division arises between those who would burn, and those who would protect the neighborhoods from damage.
[15] It is not clear at present if the anarchists had any connection to the provocative individuals in black clothes reported to be at some actions. But the anarchist ideology is more widespread than the anarchist groups. So there is value in seeing how these issues have come up in earlier demonstrations. The issue of whether to aim at doing "material damage" to the enemy came up sharply back during the anti-globalization demonstrations in 1999 that were called the "Battle of Seattle", which saw a conflict between anarchist "black bloc" tactics and other demonstrators. See "Reply to an anarchist: about the activities of the 'black bloc' at the anti-World Trade Organization demonstration", and "Uphold the 'Battle of Seattle'! A new call for action" by Seattle members of the Communist Voice Organization. At that time, this concerned the issue of whether smashing the windows of corporate buildings. In the present movement, the issue also arises of buildings and economic zones in the minority communities.
[16] According to an
article in Bellingcat, the far-right Boogaloo movement has denounced
the murder of George Floyd and argued for forming a private armed group
to oppose the Minnesota Police Department. (Robert Evans and Jason
Wilson, "The Boogaloo Movement Is Not What You Think"')
So one possibility is that it sent people to some protests, and acted
there in accordance with its reactionary "accelerationist" ideas.
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Posted June 2,
2020
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