Above photo: Justice for George Floyd from RallyList.
Note: The Network in Defense of Humanity is the U.S. Chapter of the Network of Intellectuals, Artists and Social Movements in Defense of Humanity. They describe themselves and their work, writing:
“The Network constitutes a movement of action and thought against all forms of domination towards writers, artists, poets, scientists, lawyers, and academics, religious, athletes, students, and social movements, in order to support the processes of social change, oppose imperialism and its neoliberal policies, denounce the wars, combat hunger, poverty and the problems of education and health that plague the majority of human beings. The Network equally pronounces in favor of cultural diversity, in defense of the environment and to develop an alternative thinking with an own worldview, among other objectives.”
KZ
The Network in Defense of Humanity adds its voice to those of thousands in the United States and around the world who are demanding Justice for George Floyd.
The image of a man of African descent being killed by a racist policeman is very common in the United States. In fact, the police murder about a thousand people annually; a disproportionate number of them are Black.
George Floyd’s murder was no different, but it has been on an exponential level since the scene of his death by torture was documented in detail as he told the white policeman “I can’t breathe”–first he appealed to his torturer, then to others to listen to him, and for the eleventh time, as his life was being extinguished, he pleaded to his dead mother. An indelible image was immediately etched into the consciousness of a world in turmoil under a pandemic that exploded onto the streets of 140 U.S. cities.
Not a word of sympathy, not a message of conciliation from Commander-in-Chief Trump about the causes that lead thousands of people to protest in the streets. Instead, he flirts with fascism and mocks the governors for not taking the military into the streets to suppress the American people.
Faced with the news that he had to be taken to a bunker for his own protection, he did not miss the opportunity to come out of his lair to have an opportunistic photo taken in front of a church with a Bible in his hand while his security forces repressed hundreds of demonstrators who were practicing the right to peaceful protest in the wake of George Floyd’s murder.
The State has received a blow of significant magnitude from the current uprising. The demonstrations are multiracial, composed mostly of young people who are becoming aware of their own deprivation of rights, due to the economic crisis that has been multiplied by the COVID-19 pandemic. Although this crisis seems different, it has not meant that the ruling class has stopped using its old remedies to put the status quo of oppression and poverty back in order.
Now, as the corporate media is making a distinction between good and violent protesters, in an attempt to divide the resurgent movement, the words of Martin Luther King resonate on the streets of big cities: “A riot is the language of the unheard.”
The demand for justice for George Floyd is a basic human rights issue, a term that Trump uses to violate the sovereignty of other countries, and the violations of that right is a mirror of his domestic policies in which it can be clearly seen how the state has utterly failed to combat the COVID-19 pandemic and to recognize and protect the human right to health of the poor and working-class, including black communities and undocumented immigrants.
The current administration’s handling of police violence is an inherent pillar of U.S. doctrines and values and can only be reformed with radical and profound changes.
Justice for George Floyd!