George Floyd

United Nations Sets Up Inquiry Into Racism After George Floyd Death

June 21, 2020 Stephanie Nebehay, Reuters. Educate! George Floyd, Systemic Racism, United Nations, United States

Geneva - The U.N. Human Rights Council on Friday condemned discriminatory and violent policing after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis last month and ordered a report on "systemic racism" against people of African descent. The 47-member-state forum unanimously adopted a resolution brought by African countries. The mandate also asks U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet to examine government responses to peaceful protests, including alleged use of excessive force, and deliver findings in a year's time. Philonise Floyd, the brother of the Black man whose death under the knee of a white officer roused world protests against racial injustice, urged the forum on Wednesday to investigate U.S. police brutality and racial discrimination.

Life And Times At The Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone

June 17, 2020 Shane Burley, ROAR Magazine. Resist! Autonomous Zone, George Floyd, Police violence, Seattle

Over the past few weeks we have witnessed one of the largest uprisings in recent US history. The police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota, brought millions of people in the US and around the world out into the streets in aggressive demonstrations. In cities across the country, police precincts were set on fire, corporate stores looted, and as the police turned their sights on the protests, the numbers only grew. In Seattle, Washington, confrontations with protesters in a gentrified part of the city known as Capitol Hill led to law enforcement’s retreat from their office. Organizers and community members advanced on the area and transformed this eight-block segment of the neighborhood into a collective space, which they soon called the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ). nI spoke with two organizers of the CHAZ about what drew them there, how it has been working, and where they hope to go with the project. Both are using pseudonyms, one going by Officer CHAZ (OCHAZ) and the other going by Frank Ascaso (FA).

Parallels Between Minneapolis And Jerusalem Are More Than Skin Deep

June 16, 2020 Jonathan Cook from his website. Educate! George Floyd, Israel, Palestine, Police violence

It is hard to ignore the striking parallels between the recent scenes of police brutality in cities across the United States and decades of violence from Israel’s security forces against Palestinians. A video that went viral late last month of a Minneapolis police officer, Derek Chauvin, killing a black man, George Floyd, by pressing a knee into his neck for nearly nine minutes has triggered a fortnight of mass protests across the US – and beyond. The footage was the latest disturbing visual evidence of a US police culture that appears to treat Black Americans as an enemy – and a reminder that rogue police officers are all too rarely punished. Floyd’s lynching by Chauvin as three other officers either looked on or participated, has echoes of troubling scenes familiar from the occupied territories.

Minneapolis Is Trying To Punish Transit Workers Who Wouldn’t Help The Police

June 15, 2020 Sarah Lazare, In These Times. Resist! George Floyd, Minneapolis, Police, Transportation, Unions

The Amalgamated Transit Workers union’s public support for the uprisings, and some members’ public refusal to do work that helps the police, sparked praise and inspiration around the country. As the Black Lives Matter protests spread, so did transit workers’ refusal to assist in police crackdowns. In New York, bus drivers refused to transport people arrested at protests, as crowds cheered them on. “None of our bus ops should be used for that,” J.P. Patafio, vice president of New York’s Transport Workers Union Local 100, told Motherboard on May 29. Ryan Timlin: We are working on a class-action grievance because they cut the pay for those who refused to transport state troopers. I hope it helped protesters. To be honest, I don’t know if it did. It clearly excited people, especially the letter of solidarity.

President Maduro: United States Is Living An Anti-Racist Spring

June 15, 2020 By HispanTV. Educate! Donald Trump, George Floyd, Nicolas Maduro, Racism

President Maduro said that the US is experiencing an anti-racist spring, in reference to the massive protests for the murder of George Floyd. “People on the street are saying who Donald Trump is every day,” said the Venezuelan president during his participation on Monday in the TV show “Between Values,” in which he also asserted that the American people “live an anti-racist spring”. On the other hand, he stressed that historical figures such as Malcolm X and Martin Luther King are more present today than ever among Americans who fight for their rights. “They are the martyrs for a future hope, for a new society that is emerging in the US,” he said. He also stressed that individualism and pettiness are the essence of systems of world domination through the denial of social being. “Capitalism is based on the use of collective work for enrichment and the conquest of individual power.”

Will The Death Of George Floyd Mark The Rebirth Of America?

June 15, 2020 By Nick Turse, Tom Dispatch. Create! George Floyd, Police violence, Racism, Rebellion2020

I you had told me that, in the span of a few months, a novel coronavirus that dates back only to last year and systemic American racism that dates back to 1619 would somehow intersect, I wouldn’t have believed it. If you had told me that a man named George Floyd would survive Covid-19 only to be murdered by the police and that his brutal death would spark a worldwide movement, leading the council members of a major American city to announce their intent to defund the police and Europeans halfway across the planet to deface monuments to a murderous nineteenth-century monarch who slaughtered Africans, I would have dismissed you. But history works in mysterious ways.

Unfinished Revolution: Where Do The George Floyd Protests Go From Here?

June 15, 2020 Tosh Anderson, Josephine Lee, Zishun Ning, The Indypendent. Strategize! Equal Rights, George Floyd, Police violence, Rebellion2020

Will we release some steam for a few days, be satisfied with the prosecution and (if we’re lucky) conviction of a few cops, accept a few reforms of a police system that will never be accountable to anyone else but their maker — the ruling class? Will we settle for mere survival, be content not to be killed, so that we can live under the peace of everyday violence and robbery forced upon our communities, our health, and our lives? Will we hang onto illusions that equate equal opportunity with being as exploited as a vanishing group of white, middle-class workers are or as a few black and brown faces rising into positions of power and wealth? That is not the liberation of us all. If we’ve learned anything from our history, it is that our history’s turning points failed to turn toward true transformation and liberation for people because at each critical juncture from Reconstruction to the Civil Rights Movement to the recent Occupy Wall Street movement, ruling power has hereto been able to disunite working people...

From Rebellion To Revolution

June 14, 2020 Kali Akuno, Viewpoint Magazine. Strategize! Capitalism, General Strike, George Floyd, Rebellion2020, White Supremacy

The Floyd rebellion is changing the world before our very eyes. What type of change and to what degree it will shift the balance of forces between rulers and ruled, haves and the have-nots remains to be seen. What is clear is that there is an active and open political contest to shape the outcome. For the moment, the right wing and the Republicans have been relatively sidelined in this debate. The real contest as it stands is between the liberals and Democrats on the one hand and the radical mass that has taken the streets all over the country and the world, which is increasingly examining and advancing critical left demands emerging from anarchist, communist, revolutionary nationalist, and socialist analytical and organizing traditions, such as police and prison abolition, economic democracy, and decolonization.

The World On Fire

June 14, 2020 By Mumia Abu-Jamal, Prison Radio. Resist! George Floyd, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Police Killings, Rebellion2020

Protests from London to Paris; from Berlin to Nairobi; from Toledo, Ohio, to Tokyo, Japan. Protests in solidarity with Black Lives Matter and against police aggression and racism. Protests stemming from the cruel brutality that led to the slow-motion killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minn. The solidarity from Sydney, Australia, stems in part from the long-standing discontent from the dark Aborigines, the Indigenous communities in Australia and New South Wales, who like Black folk in America, have suffered from generations of state repression. And how have the cops responded to this challenge? With tantrums. With attacks on protesters, male or female. A 75-year-old white man who was pushed to the ground as they stepped over his fallen and bleeding body.

The Black Lives Matter Protests Are Working

June 14, 2020 Sarah Ruiz-Grossman, Lydia O’Connor, and Celeste Lavin, Huffington Post. Resist! Black Lives Matter (BLM), George Floyd, Police violence, Rebellion2020

so far, the Black Lives Matter protests — which built off years of work by BLM activists since 2013, in the streets, in halls of government and educating the public — have spurred some significant changes. From cities redirecting funding from police departments to Confederate monuments coming down in droves, here are some of the steps toward racial justice and ending police brutality that we’ve seen in just 16 days since protests began. For activists out on the streets today and the movement for Black lives and racial justice more broadly, the work is far from over. Much of these moves represent incremental change or simple promises of change, and fall far short of what activists are calling for. For instance, while over a dozen cities are considering reducing police budgets, Minneapolis’ city council is still the only one to go so far as to announce it will “dismantle” its police force, and it still has to develop a plan for what “transformative public safety” model will take its place.

Hong Kong’s ‘Pro Democracy’ Movement Allies With Far Right US Politicians

June 11, 2020 Ajit Singh, The Grayzone. Create! George Floyd, Hong Kong, Racism, US politicians

A leading Hong Kong “pro-democracy” figure, Jimmy Lai, has denounced nationwide protests in the United States against police brutality and systemic racism, which were sparked by the police killing of an African-American man, George Floyd. Lai’s views reflect a significant segment of the city’s protest movement, who affirm the exceptionalist myth of the US as a beacon of “freedom and democracy.” Hong Kong’s “pro-democracy” activists have gone so far as to derail the efforts of an African-American woman who attempted to organize a Black Lives Matter demonstration in the city, accusing her of being an agent of the police and Communist Party of China.

Abandoned Communities Arrange Black/Brown Truce

June 10, 2020 By Jacqueline Serrato, Southside Weekly. Create! Chicago, Conflict Resolution, George Floyd, Racism

“After days of tensions and anti-black racism fueled by the Chicago Police Department, gangs from Little Village and the West Side are negotiating an understanding.” “Latinx and Black street organizations from the west side of the Little Village neighborhood and from North Lawndale have come together in a day understanding to commit to continuing working on Black and Brown unity,” the post continued. “We have confirmation similar conversations are happening in Humboldt Park, Cicero, and the west side of Chicago in an effort to stop the tensions that are being fueled by the police.” A dozen more Black Lives Matter marches from Belmont-Cragin to South Chicago, mutual aid efforts, mural projects, art campaigns, banner drops, and signs of solidarity have been organized since, as Black and brown neighborhoods lick their wounds and attempt to rebuild their communities. On Thursday, June 11, North Lawndale and Little Village residents are planning a Truce Peace March that will culminate in Douglass Park.

Over A Thousand Cyclists Take Over City Streets On Solidarity Protest Ride

June 10, 2020 By Elizabeth Kim, Caroline Lewis, Ben Yakas, JB Nicholas, Jake Offenhartz and Karen Yi, Gothamist. Resist! Bicycle protest, George Floyd, New York City (NYC), Police violence

Over a thousand cyclists biked their way from Brooklyn to Manhattan as part of a Black Lives Matter solidarity ride Monday evening. The ride started at Grand Army Plaza just before 6:30 p.m., and made its way to Atlantic Avenue and then Bedford Avenue; the riders then crossed over on the roadway of the Williamsburg Bridge, snaked through lower Manhattan, and started biking up the West Side Highway. Along the way, there was lots of cheering and seemingly supportive honking—and probably some not-so-supportive honking from drivers who had to wait for the cyclists to pass them. A large group of the cyclists looped around over the Manhattan Bridge, and headed back toward Barclays Center. Some cyclists were snared in traffic on the roadway of that bridge, with several people getting flat tires—and at least one driver running over a person's foot.

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