May 28th 2020.
The George Floyd protests (since May 26th 2020) are still going on two weeks after George Floyd, a Black man, was killed by a White police officer in Minneapolis. It has led to the worst wave of civil unrest the US has seen since 1968, when Martin Luther King, Jr was assassinated and over a hundred cities burned.
On May 25th 2020 the US was in the grip of a coronavirus pandemic. Nearly 100,000 were dead because they could no longer breathe. The pandemic lockdown had thrown 40 million out of work. And then the teenage son of the owner of Cup Foods at 38th and Chicago Avenue in Minneapolis called the police on George Floyd, a Black man who stood nearly two metres tall. He said Floyd had tried to use a fake $20.
The police arrested Floyd, put him in handcuffs – and then Officer Derek Chauvin, who is White, put his knee on Floyd’s neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds. Floyd called out to his dead mother and said “I can’t breathe!” Chauvin was unmoved, looking straight into the camera of a bystander who would show the world the wrong that had been done.
Officer Derek Chauvin did not “fear for his life”. This was no “split-second decision”. Even most White people could see that a crime had been committed – but not the county prosecutor. So Chauvin walked free.
Protest quickly turned to riot. The nearby police station was burned down (pictured above). The protests and riots spread to other cities and then other countries. Pearls were clutched.
The protests against police brutality led to – police brutality. In living colour, coast to coast. And it was directed not just against Scary Black People or looters even, but against Real People themselves – peaceful middle-class Whites and White reporters. Everything Black people had been saying about the police since forever was shown to be – shockingly true.
President Trump, instead of speaking to the nation to bring calm, hid in a bunker when the protests reached the White House fence. Later he cleared the nearby streets of peaceful protesters and journalists with tear gas and rubber bullets – so he could walk to a nearby burned-out church that he did not attend to hold up a Bible he did not own.
June 1st 2020.
Metal barriers went up round the White House like he was the dictator of a banana republic. And the beginnings of a presidential guard could be seen forming in the streets nearby. He showed himself to be the fascist thug he truly is.
June 9th 2020.
The standing army, remembering its oath to the constitution, distanced themselves from the president.
Statues of White racist heroes of the US and UK came down or were vandalized. Merriam-Webster dictionary looked at its definition of “racism” and found it wanting. Even NASCAR banned the Confederate flag.
“Defund the police” is the main slogan to come out of the protests. But the Republican Bubble, informed by pro-police reporting and racist fearmongering, remained unmoved.
– Abagond, 2020.
Source: Living through the last 17 days.
See also:
- George Floyd
- The assassination of Martin Luther King Jr
- The coronavirus
- Real People – one of the four kinds of humans
- The police
- defund the police
- wilfully obtuse
- The Republican bubble
- The Confederate flag
- Webster’s dictionary
- The word “racism” in 2019
- banana republic
564
Abagond 
‘Defund the police’… Sort of like a power vaccuum left after pretty much every war.
I don’t know where my residual fear is springing from regarding having no cops around, other than criminals are not really preferable? Plus “the government” is not going to let everyone just carry a gun around.
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Cops kneeling and dancing with protesters is garbage. How long will Black Lives still matter to white people? Even if they did go protest, in a couple of months white people protesting that Black Lives matter will be nothing but a fad.
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There it is, 2nd best to an ideal beats what seems to be human nature…
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/bryan-preston/2020/06/11/seattles-chaz-gains-first-feudal-warlord-takes-steps-to-become-rogue-state-n516917
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I am glad to see statues and other monuments of oppression dismantled.
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Looks like an efficient first step in Kremlin’s attempts to tear the USA apart under interracial and intercultural conflicts.
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So now celebrities like Alyssa Milano,Alanis Morrisette,Shania Twain,Justin Timberlake care about black lives??? They want to end racial and social oppression?? This is a joke! They are being told to push this agenda. This whole thing is orchestrated chaos to bring in martial law. These celebrities are influencers. The brainwashed masses think they’re fighting racism. The media is purposely using BLM to slowly bring in more surveillance,contact tracing,travel bans and loss of civil liberties. They’re using the issue of police brutality to create a dystopian future. If they get of the police…..what will replace them? National guard or robot police?? People better wake the hell up!! I see a future of oppression,famine and total anarchy. Something has to change or we’ll all be enslaved. Your race or color won’t matter. It’s going to get ugly.
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It’s already starting. Be careful what you wish for.
https://www.blacklistednews.com/article/77139/military-occupation-of-america.html
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Oh yeah i forgot, also ‘civil law enforcement’ ie civilian no matter what they say about that — is probably the only reason the army is running checkpoints… So that is also a segue into martial law, potentially, declawing the police. Curiouser and curiouser!
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@ v8driver
I don’t think we can totally get rid of the police. Even if we make drastic reforms, there will still need to be someone who deals with major crimes, who tracks serial killers, who responds to mass shooter events, who investigates burglaries, etc.
But I think quite a few things can be shifted to people better trained. For instance, mostly on this blog we’ve talked about the disproportionate rate of black people killed (or shot or tased or otherwise seriously injured) by the police. But occasionally we’ve discussed the disproportionate rate of the police killing or wounding the mentally ill of any race or ethnic background. The police are very ill-equipped to deal with mental illness and far too often have “solved” the problem of a person threatening suicide by killing that person. I’ve thought for a long time that these types of calls would be better handled by mental health professionals, with the police available as backup only if needed. The same holds true for people with intellectual disabilities (mental retardation) or on the autism spectrum.
The police also generally do a terrible job dealing with domestic violence, sexual assaults, minor drug offenses, and the homeless.
We need to demilitarize the police. During the last ~18 years, they’ve gotten way too many hand-me-downs from the military and way too much training that encourages them to see and treat their fellow citizens as enemy combatants.
There needs to be zero tolerance for racism within police departments. They need to start by ousting the officers who are members of known white supremacist organizations. It is beyond ridiculous that people who belong to white power groups are given a badge and a gun. It should be an automatic disqualifier.
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“Looks like an efficient first step in Kremlin’s attempts to tear the USA apart under interracial and intercultural conflicts.”
Disagree.
So-called “interracial and intercultural conflicts” are self-inflicted wounds in the USA. They predate US-Russian rivalry. They also predate the founding of the USA.
The Kremlin is busy with it’s own issues re: COVID-19.
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I’m not really in the set and setting to make a policy statement on police tactics, politics, and my agenda for reform thereof atm; however, the buzzword ‘defund,’ it seems to be a fungible concept! Is it abolish, bolster social programs with cop car money? Seems like a carrot on a string.
But i do feel ‘a disturbance in the force’ ie there is something just under the surface with all of this, it’s just out of reach yet.
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I’m interpreting “defund” as meaning: keeping the psycho racist policemen, but not giving them the funds to inflict as much damage. A win win situation?
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@Afrofem
The only thing Kremlin is really busy with is how to grab the Russian Constitution good to rape it thus turning Puting’s saga into a never-ending-story. Most of Russian opposition observe the American events with a mixed feeling of envy, self-loathing and regret [also typical for many post-slavery countries].
The self-inflicted wounds might predate the USA or otherwise, but I doubt they got that bad since the ’90s — the Los-Angeles street fights, etc.
Manosphere’s best minds are seeing the riots as anti-Trampists actions without any objection from their infiltrated Russian peers.
As for the virus, COVID-19 is international, COVID-19 is global, COVID-19 is the future, vote for COVID-19. It’s not just some nation’s internal issue, it’s worldwide.
It’s like Putin’s vision of Russia and it’s position in the world; catchy, toxic and dangerous.
I wouldn’t underestimate the threat of already existing union between Russian and Anglo-Saxon/White European and Russian alt-rights. That could be a virus worse and a way more dangerous than COVID.
If I were you, I wouldn’t be relying so much on short-term perspective of tactical succes which is detrimental to a long-time strategy.
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@ Dus’khor Dechen
You are always projecting this image of a guy, Russian guy, who is concerned mainly with the possible grow of Russian influence worldwide, under the current regime in the Kremlin in a time when Western powers seem to be concerned with details of their own domestic life, and either unconcerned or not concerned enough with the potential danger posed by that Russian regime for the medium to long term.
Ok, we take notice.
But let me ask you a naif question: Are or aren’t you concerned with the fact that the current POTUS tend to be friendly to the current head of state in Russia? Much friendlier than any previous POTUS, by the way! Because I’ve not seen yet you say something about that, despite your apparent concern with Russian influence in world politics.
I apologize our host with this off topic remark.
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@munubantu
From where I stand, the political system of the USA is doing fine. Americans still have some elections, private civil initatives and privacy in broader sense, multiple social institutions competing for their influence and freedom of speech with rights for possessing and using firearms plus riot rights. Even if not impeached, your POTUS could be restrained or backed off and there is no such servile ‘unanimous’ approval to any crazy fantasy he might have.
This is a way better than no elections, thwarted NGOs and political parties, cryptocracy of ‘security’ junta, no privacy and no freedom of speech in Russia — not to mention both rich and fruitless imagination of our DWARF (Dishonoured Weakling Administering
Therefore I don’t take your POTUS as any kind of threat to you or us. What is a real political force outside of Russa is its Eastern neighbour, that’s China.
Russia is not actually a friend to the USA right now, what they actually do in Kremlin is ‘trying to sit in two chairs at the same time’, balancing between China and the USA. Even our DWARF (Dishonest Weakling Administering Russian Federation) could do that.
Actually, taking a closer look at what has recently happened between the American-Chinese relationships, I think they might already have done it. My concern is not about a friendship between your POTUS and our DWARF, but rather the animosity between the USA and Chine.
But these things could be related, of course, and then we should be worried, too.
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@ Dus’khor Dechen
“I wouldn’t underestimate the threat of already existing union between Russian and Anglo-Saxon/White European and Russian alt-rights. That could be a virus worse and a way more dangerous than COVID.”
I don’t. Over the past five years, I’ve been reading quite a bit about international collaboration and coordination between groups you called, “Anglo-Saxon/White European and Russian alt-rights”.
Believe it or not, we absolutely agree about the existence and danger those networked groups pose to the rest of the world.
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Reblogged this on Steph's Blog and commented:
Thank you, Abagond. These are sad and wicked times hard to deal with, especially in the age of Trump and the coronavirus. Race relations are getting worse and it’s not going to get better as long as the dominant group stays in defensive mode and in denial of the past and present racism.
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A 12 second clip of a #Black Lives Matter protest in Paris, France 6-13-20:
African and Arab descent people have their own police brutality issues in France.
I guess they are tired of knees on the neck too.
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…… 8:46
“Why would our guys do that…because they believed, just like they did when they were joining the f***ing military, that they were fighting acts of terror.”
Chappelle on Chris Dorner and Dallas shooter Micah Xavier Johnson
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Pearls were indeed clutched.
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@ Afrofem
Over the past five years, I’ve been reading quite a bit about international collaboration and coordination between groups you called, “Anglo-Saxon/White European and Russian alt-rights”
If you find it feasible to share any data you’d come across in your research on this topic — links, books, articles, etc. — , I would appreciate it very much indeed.
I read in English, Dutch, Swedish (also in Norwegian and Danish, but worse), Spanish, French, Finnish, Estonian, Polish and Russian.
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@ Du’skhor Dechen
Search at Google for “David Duke and Russia” or “Richard Spencer and Russia” and you’ll find copious links to start with. I remember reading years ago David Duke, who is a notorious White Nationalist in the USA, praising Russia as the “last bastion of White survival” or something similar.
By the way, “White survival” depends, in my modest opinion, of the desire of people of European descent in any corner of the planet, to have children, as much as they find fit, not of what people of other races think or do.
@ Afrofem
I saw a few days ago following article
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/06/10/europe/belgium-king-leopold-ii-statue-intl/index.html
where it is said that that protesters in Europe are in the forefront of the movement of removing symbols of centuries of European history which are reminiscent of the colonial era.
I understand why they are doing that, being my own country a former colony of an European power, but frankly I would like that Black Lives Matter and other Black organisations in Europe, remained out of this acts. The reason why is that I think that native White Europeans must do this themselves if they find it fit. The sons and grandchildren of immigrants should give their moral support if they agree (each individual person can make his/her mind about those issues and take a personal stand) but abstain themselves of further involvement in such acts.
I honestly fear that otherwise we will witness soon a strong backlash by the far-right and other nativist organisations in those countries against descendants of immigrants because of that.
Fighting against racism (daily contemporaneous racism) is one thing, and I’m fully with them in that. To mess with national symbols of a sovereign nation is something else.
Regarding the Black Lives Matter movement or any other representing positions inside the Black community in the Americas, is different. They are not descendants of immigrants, in any sense of the word. They share with the White population – and the Native Indians – all the rights to define what national symbols should or shouldn’t be acceptable in their nations.
P.S.:
Seeing at the huge achievement of Black Lives Matter in the past few weeks and looking at the discussions with had here at this forum, a few years ago, about the merits or demerits of this same movement is amazing how almost nobody wasn’t able to predict that they could become so relevant at world stage today.
We are witnessing history being made! Some changes in the way Blacks are treated will not go away easily not only in the USA but also in many European societies.
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@ munubantu
Your comments about nation symbols brings up a lot of conflicting thoughts and feelings. I will add an opinion soon.
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@ Afrofem
A manifestation against the accusation the existence of racism in Portugal and supposed preferences given to the descendants of immigrants took place last Saturday in Lisbon, Portugal.
See, https://www.web24.news/u/2020/06/unprecedented-manifestation-of-a-populist-party.html
I’m surprised only that they waited too long to speak out.
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And you Brutus? Where do you stand vis-a-vis BLM?
An essay on the conundrum faced by Brown people in the context of BLM. See https://edition.cnn.com/2020/06/29/world/indians-migrant-minority-black-lives-matter-intl/index.html
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@ munubantu
Agreed. I think they did not speak up earlier was because they were surprised by the intensity and global nature of anti-police and anti-White supremacist protests.
The comments by Andre Ventura and his followers are almost comical considering Portugal’s long history of violence, colonialism, exploitation and White supremacy in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
They forgot to mention the nature of those “links with other peoples”. They also forgot that it is the oppressed who are experts on racism, what behavior constitutes racism and who is a racist. The oppressed are experts because they are on the receiving end of racism. They are intimately familiar with racism in all its forms. The racist is not.
Thank you for sharing that article, munubantu.
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A few days ago the Aurora, Colorado police attacked a peaceful violin vigil honoring Elijah McClain. McClain was a young Black man who was also murdered by police for no cause.
McClain was well known to many in Aurora for playing his violin at animal shelters because he believed his music comforted the cats and dogs.
The vigil was held in a public park filled with dozens of local musicians and family groups with children. More can be found about the violence here:
https://www.mintpressnews.com/aurora-police-violently-crackdown-peaceful-vigil-black-man-killed-police-chokehold/269061/
This is a video of the beginning of the police violence:
https://twitter.com/jessiedesigngal/status/12771260192462602242F
They were beaten and pepper sprayed for playing violins!
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Elijah McClain’s death by those cops is horrendous. This gentle soul who played the violin for cats was brutalized and beaten and injected with the drug Ketamine by an EMT. Out of all the awful deaths Elijah’s death upset me. I saw a video of Elijah having a little surprise birthday party, and he was such a lovely soul. Even seeing the video and Elijah pleading with the cops is haunting. May this gentle soul rest with the angels.
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The photo where he’s playing the violin to the shelter cats was what broke me down.
And then again on the video when he cries to the cops, “I’m a vegetarian! I don’t even kill flies!” I couldn’t watch any more after that.
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There are so many names. You learn about more of these cases every day. Elijah McClain was literally just walking home after buying snacks at the gas station. Elijah McClain would have been about 15 when Trayvon Martin was killed at 17 for doing the same thing. I’m sure he would have heard about it, not knowing he would be killed under similar circumstances years later.
This is why people are demanding change.
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@Abagond: There needs to be a separate post for Elijah Mcclain.
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Like Mary I found it deeply distressing. His life cut off so early. Words really can’t express.
It’s likely we would never have heard of Elijah McCain if it hadn’t been for the muder of Geroge Floyd. How many more innocent people are murdered that we never hear about because there is no video evidence or media coverage.
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@ Mary Burrell
Agreed. So well said. Thank you, Mary B.
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Elijah McClain’s horrible death makes you think about the interlocking systems that causes the murder of innocent people by police and vigilantes.
◆ the anonymous caller who called 911 about a “suspicious person”.
◆ the three cops who responded to the call and their aggressive actions.
◆ the EMT’s who dosed McClain with a tranquilizer like he was a wild animal.
◆ the coroner who determined that McClain’s cause of death was “undetermined”.
◆ the police supervisors who did not reprimand the cops. Instead they were treated “paid administrative leave”, which is a fancy term for paid vacation.
◆ the district attorney who did not seek any charges in McClain’s murder.
◆ the local and national news media that ignored his murder.
All of the people in these systems normalized McClain’s death and subsequent coverup. All of those systems deserve extra scrutiny in the coming years.
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@ Mary
I agree!
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@ Afrofem
All this developments after the killing of George Floyd made me remember a saying in my culture according to which “in his adventures initially a thief is very careful and difficult to catch; later, however, he becomes full of confidence and makes mistakes, being then caught”.
The police in the USA has been killing Black civilians for a while without meaningful consequences. It has been normal to kill Black civilians.
The way George Floyd was murdered could only happen in a environment of impunity in which that officer could do what he did and think that his egregious act would not face consequences.
But he was wrong this time.
This time the novel coronavirus is around reigning supreme and forcing everybody to stay at home, and at that particular week, forcing everybody to watch again and again, in minute detail, this heinous crime being committed. As somebody aptly said, “this time White people weren’t able to tune off the crime scene in their TV- box or switch it off and go outside to do something else”. This time the crime was splashed in their faces repeatedly up to exhaustion. No escape. A racist murder was committed by an agent of authority, their authority. White police officer killing a Black civilian! No possibility of lies or contortions about it!
And therefore the consequences, the wave of protests, that in the end went far beyond that particular crime and encompass now a deeper questioning of the foundations of a civilization which allowed that to happen, in the first place. Now is the time of reckoning of the sins of the past! As Sigmund Freud would say: now we are seeing in exquisite detail “das Unbehagen in the Kultur”, “this discomfort in the civilization”. Something must be done urgently to put that uneasy away, be it by removing statues, renaming symbols, reviewing history, or finally looking the truth in the eyes, the truth about themselves, their civilization.
Truth will make you free!
It is a privilege to live at such a momentous and eventful epoch! Big changes are in the air, you can almost smell.
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@MJB
So true about other things coming to light because of the blatant torturous daylight murder of George Floyd. A few days ago I heard about the case of the Wayne Jones in West Virginia from 2013.
He was homeless and had schizophrenia and was walking late a night but adjacent to the sidewalk instead of on it. This qualified as “jaywalking” so the police stopped him. That escalated into Jones being tased multiple times, kicked, choked and riddled with 22 bullets.
He had actually told the cop he had a knife on him and that’s when the cop got more aggressive. At the moment when he was shot by multiple cops, reports are that his body may have been resting on the arm under which they knife was tucked (under the sleave). It’s unlikely that he was a threat at the point when he was killed.
The family tried to sue but the district court granted summary judgment in favor of the cops on the basis on “qualified immunity”. However, the appeals court recently reversed that decision. That allows Jones’ estate to continue their legal action. That’s how I learned of the case since it came back into the news just now.
https://www.winchesterstar.com/winchester_star/court-reverses-qualified-immunity-judgment-in-wayne-jones-shooting/article_5bcfbbaa-6166-53ce-9d31-a09075dc5f79.html
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And this is India:
Custodial Deaths: Christian Groups Demand Independent Probe
+-
By Jose Kavi
New Delhi, June 29, 2020: Several Christian groups in India have demanded an independent probe into the death of a father and his son in police custody in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu.
While the All India Catholic Union (AICU) seeks the probe by a High Court Judge, the Indian Christian Women’s Movement (ICWM) says a team of human rights activists and lawyer should conduct the investigation.
Condemning “the gruesome torture” and murder of the father and son, the Evangelical Fellowship of India (EFI) calls on “competent authorities” to ensure justice in the case.
AICU and Abraham Mathai, president of the Indian Christian Voice and former vice chairman of Minorities Commission in Maharashtra, see the custodial deaths as part of an ongoing persecution of Christians in Thoothukudi (formerly Tuticorin) district.
Mathai points out that the police officers accused of the custodial deaths “are believed to have also been involved in religious persecution and human rights violations earlier this year.”
AICU, the 101-year-old largest body Catholic lay people in India, alleges that the accused policemen “have been complicit in other custodial deaths in recent months, apart from fomenting caste clashes.”
The latest case started on June 19 when the police arrested P Jayaraj and his son J Bennix, both members of the Church of South India. They were then lodged in Kovilpatti sub jail in Thoothukudi for allegedly keeping their mobile phone shop in the city open beyond 9 pm, the deadline for closing business establishments under the lockdown norms.
AICU says Jayaraj was arrested after an altercation with the police. His son was arrested when he tried to protect his father from the blows of the police.
The two were taken to the police station in Sathankulam (pool of the devil) “on the pretext of an enquiry and were tortured by the policemen who inflicted severe injuries on the men.”
They were admitted to a government hospital on June 22. While the 31-year-old son died that same night, the father, who was 61, died next morning.
Observing that the two “had been beaten, brutally tortured, sodomized with rods,” an AICU statement on June 29 points out that the “police brutalization” has shocked the nation “which is still to come to terms with police atrocities in other states which have gone unchecked under the cover of the Covid curfew.”
The ICWM, the network of women from various Christian denominations, on June 29 wrote to federal Home Minister Amit Shah and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edapaddi Palanisami to demand “a just trial and commiserate punishment of the policemen, and others involved in the murder.”
“We are deeply shocked by the evidence of sexual torture of the men, apart from other brutal physical injuries,” the Christian women bemoan.
They assert that the deaths cannot be dismissed as “mere negligent acts” as they are the result of “the unholy nexus between the police, local judiciary and medical personnel.” They regret that the guilty policemen are not arrested even after a week.
Echoing the same views, the Evangelical Fellowship regrets that the accused officers, although suspended, are free to terrorize witnesses. “They must be arrested and charged with murder,” says a June 29 statement from the evangelical alliance founded in 1951.
The Catholic union and the women’s movement want the inquiry to study the conduct of the local magistrate and government doctors who handled the case.
“Magistrate P Saravanan did not bother to see their condition, and remanded them to police custody on June 20. Bleeding profusely, they were taken to a hospital almost on the verge of death,” the AICU statement regrets.
The Christian women say the magistrate and the doctors are equally guilty in the crime. The magistrate ruled the two men to be fit after watching them seated in a police van from far fearing coronavirus infection.
“It is observed that the government doctors to whom they were taken had given false certificates of health in spite of several hours of insane beating with lathis (baton) and other acts of brutality that they had to undergo,” the women explain.
AICU president Lancy D’Cunha wants the government to modernize police force and educate policemen and women to respect “human rights guaranteed to all people under the Constitution of India” and help them appreciate “the diversity of communities that exist in the country.”
He also wants the police trained “in modern forensic sciences instead of using third-degree methods on suspects, innocent or guilty, to solve crimes.”
Meanwhile Jesuit-managed St Xavier’s College of Management and Technology in Patna, eastern India, organized an online protest against the Tamil Nadu incident.
Addressing the participants on June 29, Congregation of Jesus Sister Cynthia Mathew, an NGO representative at the United Nations, termed the incident as “gross violation of human rights” and “blatant misuse of power” by policemen.
Sister Mathew, who is engaged in advocacy for women, Dalits and Adivasis at the UN, pointed out that as many as 1,731 people had died in police custody in India in 2019. The nun, who also practices law at Patna High Court and Buxar district court, regretted that India was yet to ratify the UN Convention against Torture.
Ashish Ranjan, convener of the National Alliance of People’s Movements, blamed democratic institutions in the country for failing Jayaraj and his son.
“They did not commit any crime. They were only guilty of violating the Covid-19 lockdown, which is a bailable offence,” said the former student of Florida International University, Miami.
Ranjan, who now lives in Bihar’s Araria town, drew a parallel between the Tamil Nadu incident and the killing of George Floyd by the police in the US in May that sparked worldwide outrage. He then urged the students to “rise now to protect human rights of ordinary citizens, law of the country and prevent police atrocities.” He also cited several cases of police brutalities, including blinding of prisoners in Bihar’s Bhagalpur.
In a series of incidents in 1979 and 1980, police in Bhagalpur, some 275 km southeast of Patna, blinded 31 undertrial prisoners by pouring acid into their eyes. The incident became infamous as the Bhagalpur blindings.
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@ Benny
A link with an introductory summary would have sufficed.
As I stated on the Asian History Month thread, the real targets of Modi’s reign of terror in India are Muslims, Dalits, Adivasis and Christians; pretty much in that order.
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Those whom the police “protect and serve” also protect and serve them:
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@ munubantu
Your thief proverb is quite appropriate. The “thieves” and their masters are confident that overwhelming violence, propaganda, unceasing surveillance, bribery and seduction of the most capable leaders and imprisoning the remainder will work like it nearly always does to quell this upsurge. And it will…for a while.
I agree with you that COVID-19 made a major difference this time. It is both a curse and a blessing.
The problem is that the entire structure is corroded. At some point in the next decade it will collapse under the weight of its own contradictions. Until that collapse, people in the USA and around the globe will continue to be harmed by the structure.
While the times are momentous and historic, I’m not as optimistic as you are. Life after the collapse could go either way in the USA. We may be able to finally build a more just society or descend into long term instability. I feel like we are picking our way down a road strewn with jagged boulders—in a dense fog. We have to move carefully and deliberately. I hope the sun burns the fog away before too many innocent people collide with those boulders.
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Walking through the neighborhood today, I came across this sign in a window:
“Filipinx for Black Lives Matter—No Justice, No Peace”.
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Afrofem.
Where I live in Los Angeles there is a large Armenian population. During the protest it was common to see “Armenians for BLM” signs ect
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@ Michael Barker
I’ve seen amazing things lately:
⤳ middle-aged White women on street corners holding Black Lives Matter signs and getting a chorus of honks from passing cars.
⤳ “We run with Armaud [Arbery]” written on sidewalks. This is in fairly affluent White areas of North Seattle.
⤳ fewer instances of White people grabbing their kids and purses when I approach them on sidewalks and in grocery stores. That is the most common microaggression I encounter on a daily basis. It has not gone away, but it has gone down.
At the same time, the open bigots have gotten louder and more visible…yelling out of cars or on street corners. I guess they feel a need to increase the volume.
I don’t know yet if this is a fad, a trend or a true shift consciousness. I’m in wait and see mode. Still waiting to exhale….
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@ Afrofem
Same here.
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@ Afrofem
Perhaps it’s because so called White people do have a internal moral compass but because oft they are not totally aware of how racist attitudes are pervasive in American society, specially in the Police they scantly react.
Once becoming aware they react as one could expect from a normal moral human being to do.
On a side note. Nowadays, to be anti-racist has become fashionable too.
The brute Black stereotype is beginning to tremble. Good news!
Whites are beginning to see Blacks as fully human. No reason to fear anymore!
Many other Whites in other corners of the globe had come to similar awakening, at different moments of recent history Ask the majority of Whites in South Africa, for example.
On a side note. I didn’t know that Black women were also feared! This is astonishing: not only men but women too!
& @Abagond
I feel changes in the air. I’m very optimistic.
When even “sacred cows”, I mean sacred institutions like universities consider removing statues and/or change old names to which they are/were linked for long, then something deep in the White mind must have happened. Things will not remain the same, I’m sure.
When the sinner recognized his sins and repent, the healing process has begun in earnest.
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@ munubantu
We shall see…
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https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/black-lives-matter-bristol-statue-removed-scli-gbr-intl/index.html
1.
Curious episode, to say the least.
At this point, it’s not clear what the population of Bristol, at large, thinks about that, but it must be said that civilians took the first statue down, whereas agents of the state removed the second statue.
2.
Last month in an interview a former Mozambican head of state was asked about the George Floyd’s demonstrations worldwide and he said that it was something with progressive elements but he hoped that the movement would not reach Mozambique, because “we have already gone beyond racism here”.
I was astonished because for me, at first thought, those protests could only happen in a White ruled society where people of color haven’t yet been adequately accommodated. Why could anyone associate a similar movement with a country ruled by a Black majority? If Blacks rule, it doesn’t stands to reason, why they would protest against racism directed to them, except if in solidarity to a situation in another society.
But reviewing the whole topic later, I came to the conclusion that yes, such a thing could happen in a pos-colonial society, mainly because those societies remain to some extent dependent of the former centers of power, in a phenomenon known as neocolonialism. The faces of the new masters can be Black but in some instances the interests behind them can be foreign.
In the case of Mozambique, after its independence in the 70’s, the new government of the country decided very early to change the names of most of the cities and towns, of streets and plazas. Statues of former heroes of the Portuguese epic of overseas expansion were removed to museums. Not all, but most. Some of these personages remained because they were seen as having an universal value.
One example of the former is the name Maputo of the capital of the new country, that replaced the former name Lourenço Marques, taken from a Portuguese trader and explorer.
An example of the latter is the name of the great Portuguese poet Luis Vaz de Camoes in whose literary work was recognized human universal values. Some streets in our cities and towns retain his name.
Looking to a wider space, at other countries and realities, I notice that many places worldwide, and in Africa in particular, are named after Victoria, a former British Queen, for example. The city of Lagos in Nigeria has the island where its main business district is located, named after that Queen (Victoria Island). One of the largest lakes in Africa is called Lake Victoria. And the most impressive falls in the Zambezi river (the largest in Southern Africa) are called Victoria Falls.
There is no hint whatsoever that those places will be renamed anytime soon. Those societies have become comfortable accepting that name for those places. Probably they see more positive than negatives things in that historical personage. Or maybe they haven’t thought about it yet as an issue.
But at the opposite side, a few years ago a statue of Cecil Rhodes was removed from the campus of one of the most prestigious universities in Africa, the University of Cape Town, in South Africa. See the link https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-32236922.
Even the name of a country can change. For example: the former British colony of Rhodesia turned Zimbabwe, when it became an independent country.
So, because some names of historical European characters are seen as objectionable and others not, what is to some extent subjective, it is clear that somebody can always come with a reason to be against this or that name that remain in those former colonies places. But I hope that, at this stage, that does not happen too oft. As somebody who as a teenager had as heroes personages of science like Isaac Newton or Albert Einstein, I remain loyal to the concept of humanity at its totality, not necessarily as “we” versus “them”. After you remove statues of crooks, retain the names and memorabilia recalling benign figures of history be them European or not.
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The ongoing protests against police brutality in Portland, Oregon have not gotten much national attention. However, it has caused quite a blowup in Portland itself.
Portland is in the crosshairs of the Trump administration. The president and his henchmen have been using heavy handed tactics against protesters as a form of political campaign theater directed to Trump’s White Supremacist base.
Many of the protests have centered around the federal building and courthouse in downtown Portland. The protests have gone on unabated for weeks. Local authorities have followed a strategy of limited de-escalation. They have reduced the use of projectiles and chemical weapons such as tear gas and pepper spray. They have kept out of sight on some nights. They have closed parks and other public spaces to dampen the protests.
The Trump administration has followed a different path. According to Oregon Public Broadcasting(OPB), the feds lead by Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf, has gone whole hog in violent intimidation tactics. OPB reported Secretary Wolf saying,
https://www.opb.org/news/article/federal-law-enforcement-unmarked-vehicles-portland-protesters/
[Buildings and “symbols” matter more than the citizens who pay for them!]
Secretary Wolf sent officers from the US Marshalls and Custom & Borders to Portland against the wishes of local officials to “quell” the nightly protests. In addition to shooting one protester in the face with a teargas canister (leaving him hospitalized with skull fractures), federal agents have taken to kidnapping people at random on the street and holding them without charge for hours. Then the feds deny they have arrested or detained the citizens they plucked from the streets.
Attorney Juan Chavez, director of the civil rights project at the Oregon Justice Resource Center said of this tactic, “It’s like stop and frisk meets Guantanamo Bay.”
Oregon politicians have also expressed their displeasure at the Trump administration. Portland mayor Ted Wheeler feels federal agents should be restricted to guarding federal property, not policing Portland’s streets. Mayor Wheeler said, “We do not need or want their help,” Wheeler said. “The best thing they can do is stay inside their building, or leave Portland altogether.”
Oregon’s democratic senator and governor had similar strong opinions. Governor Kate Brown issued a statement condeming the actions of federal agents. She wrote:
Left unsaid in this exchange of rancor between the feds and state and local officials is a major reason for Trump’s interest in Portland, Oregon: Antifa.
Portland in the 1990s was a magnet for violent, rightwing extremists like skinheads and neo-Nazis. In response, a strong anti-fascist movement arose in Portland. The Trump administration has made persecution of Antifa a centerpiece of their campaign against ‘internal enemies’. The Trump administration thinks there is an Antifa member hiding behind every tree and rose bush in Portland. They are determined to root them out to curry favor with the violent Right and appear “tough”.
Heavy handed and unconstitutional “jump-outs” on the streets of Portland are part of that effort by the federal government to intimidate and get more information about Antifa. Antifa is a moving target because they are very decentralized and leaderless.
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@ Afrofem
Thank you. I will probably be doing a post on this.
Portland is all over my Twitter feed but only minimally covered by the news. That in itself is disturbing.
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@ Abagond
Looking forward to your post.
There is a lot of nuance to the Portland story. Oregon has a very tortured racial history. That is a contributing factor to the draw for violent Right types and the development of Antifa.
I also noticed little to no coverage in local Seattle media about the situation in Portland even though it is only three hours away by car.
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Yup all over twitter.
There tactics come right out of the Nazi play book. .
Unmarked SUV’s, Van’s ect.
They pull up, jump out and grab random protestor. They are heavily armed dressed in blue jeans, casual clothes with bullet proof vests.
Very aggressive and threatening to shoot for non compliance or if other protestors try to interfere.
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Yesterday in Columbus, Ohio.
I’m worried its only a matter before someone gets shot. A lot of different groups and a lot of guns.
The traditional White militias are older, over 40 and pro Trump and cop.
The boogy boys are younger and seem to be supporting BLM in this video. The Anarchists are young white males as well.
(https://youtu.be/dH65NQ66YZ4)
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An armed BLM protestor was shot dead over the weekend in Austin, Texas. The shooter is currently free pending investigation.
It’s a tragic story.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/07/what-we-know-about-the-austin-blm-protest-shooting.html
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Padres posted from Facebook:
“So proud of the beautiful people in Portland.”
“It’s now after midnight, it’s now the 69th day of the Portland uprising. And tonight I couldn’t be prouder of everyone else in the streets. Two months ago a single concussion grenade or tear gas canister sent folks fleeing. So we got gas masks and helmets. Built shields and started wearing ballistic googles. We lost our fear of their bullets, grenades, and gas.”
“The one tactic they still had that terrified us, that we couldn’t figure out how to stop, was the violent brutality of bullrushes and billy clubs. The anger and hatred in their faces as they came down on you with all they had still struck terror in us. Until tonight.”
‘We’ve talked about various ideas to stem the bullrushes, ranging from the cartoonish to the, um, less cartoonish. In the end though, it just took holding the line with our bodies and facing our fear. When the cops rushed us tonight, clubs high in the air, fueled by pure hatred, we just held. We refused to move. As they rushed in we broke their line. They beat one of the Moms to the ground. We surrounded them. We de-arrested folks. We stopped their batons with our hands and our bodies. We got up, and so did the Moms.”
“The cops retreated. We’ve now chased them back into their precinct. We broke the last weapon they had. And we’re just getting started.”
“Tonight’s action at the East Precinct was autonomously called and organized in just two hours. Hong Kong calls it “blooming.” We call it “swarming” (since we’re a “beehive of terrorists” according to the President.) Actions are popping up across the city every night this week. It’s beautiful and amazing. I’m so proud of Portland.”
“Those batons f***ng hurt though.”
(photo by Beth Nakamura / The Oregonian)”
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Every unjust social order is based on fear. Jim Crow did not crack till people stopped giving into their fear – like John Lewis at the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge.
The police do not have enough fire power or man power to control a city. That is why they depend on their perceived legitimacy and on fear.
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One thing the media forgot when unfavorably comparing the current protesters to MLK’s demonstrations was that the civil rights marchers trained for it. They learned nonviolent techniques and practiced them over and over before they ever stepped foot into the street or tried to cross any bridge.
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I think it also reflects the “will’ of the people. ..
Once they overcame their fear then their will prevailed. That is what allows revolutions to succeed..
Now if we could get the rest of the country ….
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“Laurie Cumbo, a Black councilwoman from Brooklyn who is majority leader, compared calls to defund the police to “colonization” pushed by white progressives. Robert Cornegy Jr., a Black councilman also from Brooklyn, called the movement “political gentrification.”
So there seems to be some push back against defundiing the police. I don’t quite understand this. Maybe I’m missing something..
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@Michael Barker
I belive it is due to the belief that defund means no police in the minds of many. It is the fear that crime will run wild without the police. Yet I see very little planning or talking from these politicians about what defunding could and should look like.
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Nationalism versus Anti-Racism in Portugal…
https://www.offthebus.net/2020/08/13/portugal-investigates-death-threats-from-the-extreme-right-against-three-deputies/
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@ MJB
“…there seems to be some push back against defundiing the police. I don’t quite understand this. Maybe I’m missing something..”
What you are missing is the payoffs from the police union to these sellouts to put a black face on their opposition to slashing bloated police budgets.
I bet they were bought off real cheap, too. Just a few grand to spout meaningless word salads like “colonization” and “political gentrification”. Lost in their chicanery is the fact that grassroot Black groups have pushed for repurposing chunks of police funding to social needs for years.
In 2016, Los Angeles based Youth Justice Coalition proposed redirecting funds from the LAPD to youth programs. According to Sikivu Hutchinson of the site BlackFemLens:
http://blackfemlens.blogspot.com/2016/10/counselorsnotcops-youth-justice-against.html
“White Progressives” did not initiate defunding proposals, ordinary Black people have pushed for these changes for years.
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This happened last Friday in the town I live in.
Were not fighting police. We are fighting nazis.
(https://youtu.be/J7PPp083Isg)
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@ Michael Barker
I came across this “Activist Guide to the Armed Far-Right” today. Created by Political Research Associates (PRA), the guide helps people on the ground identify which armed and violent group they are dealing with during anti-police brutality protests.
(https://www.politicalresearch.org/sites/default/files/2020-06/PRA%20Field%20Guide%206.19.20%20%28rev.1%29.pdf)
I have read a lot of PRA’s materials over the years. They have been tracking and analyzing the Right since the 1970s.
As the guide says, “Be brave but don’t be a martyr”. Take care of yourself while protesting.
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@ Abagond
I was going for a link, not an embed. Should I have put parentheses around the pdf link?
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@ Afrofem
I put parens around it. If in doubt, paren.
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@ Abagond
Thanks! Will do.
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It seems the nature of the protests are changing.
At first some violence and riots followed by mostly peaceful protests around the country.
The second phase lines were drawn between the police and the Feds against the people.
Now what we are seeing is white supremists joining Trump supporters with the police. When the police do act they are going after our people.
In my town Friday the police showed up in full force and eventually called our counter protest and “unlawful assembly” and started shooting bean bag rounds.
The next day a repeat of BLM and Trumpers going head to head in Beverly Hills and Whittier.
This has also happening in Portland.
(https://youtu.be/FWP1-GYtRCI)
Video of our event getting shut down.
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I have a post in moderation because of a YouTube link.
This follows my post showing the spread of BLM and Trumpers/supremists going head to head in Portland and the shift the direction that the protests are taking.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/08/22/portland-police-far-right-protest/
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Afrofem,
We have been able to ID most of the supremists agitators that attacked our assembly.
https://itsgoingdown.org/antifascists-are-facing-off-against-the-far-right-backed-up-by-local-cops-weekly-in-sunland-tujunga/
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@ Michael Barker
Thanks for the link to the article on It’s Going Down. This passage caught my eye:
Local small business owners are a major part of Trump’s base. They are in that $72k per year household income group that is most reactionary. Many have blue collar roots and have worked hard to start profitable businesses. So far, so good.
Then a lot of them get sucked into “Maker and Taker” mindsets. They fancy themselves as the “makers” and ordinary wage earners and the poor as “takers”. Some include the very wealthy as “takers” also.
They tend to support the police because they think of the police as protectors of their investments and their property. The irony is that when protests or unrest occurs, police backed saboteurs will damage small business assets to instigate violence that can be filmed and used as propaganda—–for the police.
Speaking of propaganda, many rightwing counter-protestors instigate and film their violent attacks on Black people, Antifa, LGBTQ and other progressive groups. They use those videos to recruit more members to their gangs.
In June, High Country News interviewed an anti-fascist spokesperson. Her Portland, OR group, Popular Mobilization uses a variety of non-violent tactics to counter rightwing organizing. The Pop Mob spokesperson described their response to rightwing rallies in Portland:
https://www.hcn.org/articles/north-social-justice-what-really-is-antifa
MJB, past movements (Abolitionists, Women’s Suffrage and Civil Rights) have used a variety of tactics to achieve their goals. Your adversaries revel in violence. Is is possible for your local group to use tactics that short circuit the violence porn that local fascists crave?
Please stay as safe as possible in these scary circumstances.
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Afrofen said,
“Thanks for the link to the article on It’s Going Down. This passage caught my eye:”
“Activists told LCRW that some of the right-wingers who engage in violence at these protests are local small-business owners…”
“It’s Going Down” is anti-captalist so they are going to be biased and probably are not aware of local small business owners like myself who are actively involved in this.
When we show up to protest we don’t wear anything that indicates our businesses for fear of reprisal.
I do believe it is true that across the U.S. small business owners largely support Trump.
Here in California many small businesses and trades employ Hispanic workers many of who started working for them as undocumented workers more then twenty years ago before there was political stigma about “illigal aliens”. Those that married and had children eventually were able to get green cards but that hasn’t been the case for single men.
So businesses are reluctant to fire people who have spent 20 years of their lives working for them. They are discreetly willing to take a risk because it is the moral thing to do. They also find the Trump rhetoric disgusting and BS.
The other part of this is those businesses with work trucks are constantly getting written up by the Highway patrol for bogus fix it tickets because their drivers get profiled. If you try to fight it who is the judge going to believe? Julio whose English is a second language or the up standing police officer.
So while the police on one hand protect property owners they are also parasites on the working class and many business owners hate the thousands and thousands of dollars that has been extorted from them over the years.
Defund the police is music to their ears.
As I posted up thread it is “plumber against plumber”.
A friend of my pointed out his competition across the street. So here at least working class, self employed and business owners are divided on BLM, Trump ect.
We have identified one restaurant in the Tujunga area whose owners are bugots.
One of our primary leaders (he is currently getting a bullet proof vest) here on the ground works locally for a women owned business as a mechanic. She is a Trump supporter but like many California Republicans is socially liberal. She is a kind of feminist and advertises as a “women owned and operated”.
Trump supporters approached her place of business to try to get him fired (he’s Black). She told them to go pound sand. You dont tell a feminist, even a conservative one, who she can hire and fire.
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@ MJB
Thanks for your view of on the ground details. On the ground reality adds meat to theory.
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“Please stay as safe as possible in these scary circumstances,”
Thanks Afrofem and you stay unharmed as well.
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https://edition.cnn.com/2020/10/21/africa/nigeria-protests-eyewitnesses-intl/index.html
To remain true to the core idea that every human life is sacred, we cannot stand still as the events of police brutality in Nigeria are unfolding. We must condemn them with the same vigor we did in the case of George Floyd in America a few months ago.
The Nigerian government must act to stop immediately police violence against its own citizens. Enough is enough!
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@ munubantu
I agree. The Nigerian government is trying to solve their problems by shooting at their citizens. Instead it’s kicking a hornet’s nest.
The ultimate irony is President Buhari’s appeal for “understanding and calm” after soldiers under his command opened fire on police-brutality protesters.
“Be understanding and calm while we fire indiscriminately into crowds of unarmed protesters.”
Meanwhile multinational corporations spend pocket change to virtue signal and proclaim themselves on the side of the beleaguered protesters.
https://oyogist.com/2020/10/were-in-this-together-coca-cola-donates-n20m-to-endsars-shooting-victims/
20 million naira (N20 million) equals $ 52,356.00
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https://edition.cnn.com/2021/10/03/uk/everard-uk-police-gbr-cmd-intl/index.html
A strong reminder that women, besides people of African descent, are also victims of police brutality in many societies, be it in the First as well in the Third Word. All this must change.
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Errata: instead of “in the First as well in the Third Word” should be “in the First as well in the Third World”
Continuing my previous comment I must say that despite the similarities between the police abuse in the USA against Black Americans and the police abuse in UK against women, there are two main differences:
1) in the latter case the police didn’t shield their rogue colleague (Certainly no room for “fearing for his life”, in that “split-second decision”)
2) no significant part of the population knowingly tried to argue in defense of such abuses (as many White in the USA do regarding police abuse against Blacks); actually quite the opposite – everybody went to the streets to protest that violence!
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