These old eyes of mine, and the rest of us, are likely experiencing just the beginning in the campaign to get justice for George Floyd. It’s the beginning of, if not a sea change, at least the swelling of a tide that, once it gets its bearing, will spell, if not the end, at least the prelude to the beginning of the end of the reign of capitalist organized terror.
People, a multi-racial, multi-ethnic, mass of people—Black, Brown, White, Yellow, Native, Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, male, female straight, gay, trans—were in the streets by the hundreds of thousands, demanding justice for a Black man. Wow, just wow!
Nobody should misunderstand what’s going on in the streets of the U.S. We are winning!
Over the last few days there have been protests in Anchorage, Alaska; Boise, Idaho; Dubuque, Iowa; Minot, North Dakota; and Grand Island, Nebraska, wherever that is. From Minneapolis to Boston, to Miami, to New Orleans, to Chicago, to Denver, to Phoenix, to LA, to Seattle, to Portland, to New York and all the way across the water to Honolulu, people are taking it to the streets. NBC News reported that 300 cities have had protests or rallies demanding justice for George Floyd.
Across the world, people are standing up in Paris, Amsterdam, Dublin, London, Rome, Berlin, Japan and Nairobi just to name a few. Even Syria has had a spirited response to the murder of our Brother Floyd.
The people are winning. They sure aren’t losing, as the U.S. government is being exposed. And in the process, the system of policing is being laid bare, as people are beginning to wake up to its true intentions and true mission.
This time, rather than blaming the murder of Floyd on “bad apples”—a lie that has been exposed—they have rolled out the “good apple” approach with the cops attempting to join the protests. After all, they say they “feel our pain,” and they are heartbroken by our brother’s murder just like you; they say they are upset just like you.
However, their true motive for attempting to join the protest is to try to convince young people that this murder is just an aberration, and that police violence is an exception rather than the rule, and that police in general are good guys who exist to serve you.
A few young people with the veil still over their minds are kneeling with them and taking the bait, hugging their class enemy; but the overwhelming majority of the fighters aren’t fooled.
Houston Police Chief Art Avecedo was masterful. He stood in a crowd of Black people and told them, “You know the Black community needs the police,” and many in the crowd applauded. But the people are starting to wake up to the fact that they, indeed, do not need the police, because the police neither protect nor serve them, but are in fact a threat to their well-being.
While the system attempts to misdirect and confuse, it’s not working. The scales are coming off lots of eyes. The youth noticed as the cops offered to take a knee and embrace them during the daytime while under the cover of darkness the same cops attack them with sticks, fists, rubber bullets, paintballs, mace and tear gas, locking them up for little or no reason.
The people are waking up.
The leader of the U.S. decided it was time to get religious as he orchestrated a scene in which he went to church and posed with an upside-down Bible. Did anyone notice that it appeared that the Bible was going to catch fire in his hands at any time? It appeared as if “Cheeto-man” was going to spontaneously combust right before our eyes.
Imagine that: The best response to the demand for justice from the leader of the demonic system of U.S. Imperialism was to go to church.
The power structure is nervous, just a bit afraid that they may be losing their grip. They tried holding the line by refusing to indict the psychopathic cops because they don’t want the people to recognize their power. They were still trying to show us that they were in charge.
But that is a facade; they are not winning. If they were they would have held the line. But at this moment we, the people, are winning.
Furthermore, don’t let anyone tell you that the protests did not force the hand of the power structure. It was absolutely because of the protests that the killer cops were charged. And who doubts that had the system not given in, nearly the entire country would have burned after Floyd’s funeral on Thursday?
And make no mistake: Protests will have to continue to ensure the system understands that we will settle for nothing short of a conviction of the murderers.
No, this is not “the revolution” many of us have anticipated, but the million people in the street demanding justice for George Floyd are a prequel of things to come. George Floyd’s name is going to become iconic. This moment of protest is going to be how people mark their lives. Years from now people are going to ask, “Where were you when George Floyd was killed? Were you in the streets?”
The mainstream media, the ruling class’s vehicle of distraction and disinformation, has been fighting an uphill battle as they worked feverishly to ignore the demand of “JAIL ALL FOUR KILLER COPS NOW” by hundreds of thousands by repeating it like a broken record.
“But what about the looting? What about the violence?” Ironically, some of mainstream media’s own well-paid hands refuse to toe the line and are exposing the real source of violence at the protests, the real outside agitators, the real provocateurs: the cops.
Incredibly, the handmaiden of the one percent, which during this pandemic showed little concern for the health and wellbeing of so-called “essential workers” and Black people, had the nerve to feign concern about the health of their children as they take a stand for justice.
NBC News sent a Black woman reporter to ask young fighters if they were concerned that attending a protest may make them susceptible to catching the coronavirus. One young Black woman looked directly into the camera and said, “I’m willing to risk my life for People of Color, for my people and people who suffer from injustices.”
“I think the benefits of being out here outweigh the risks,” was the response of a young White male medical student.
“It’s not going to stop until we get justice,” a young Black man told the reporter with all of the steeled determination he could muster.
Yes, these eyes have seen the glory of what is to come. We will not stay down forever. A beaten people will eventually rise up, because truth crushed to earth will indeed rise again!
Justice, then peace.
The article appears courtesy of Minneapolis Spokesman-Recorder; feature photo appears courtesy of Jason Hargrove via Flickr
The Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder (MSR) enjoys a living legacy as the oldest Black-owned newspaper in the state of Minnesota and one of the longest-standing, family-owned newspapers in the country.