Rebellion2020

Albany Must Do More To Stop The Criminalization Of Our Communities

July 18, 2020 By Eliana Fernandez, Mateo Guerrero, And Adilka Pimentel, City Limits. Educate! Criminalization, New York (NY), Police violence, Rebellion2020

As Black, Brown, immigrant, and trans New Yorkers continue to take to the streets, it’s clear that the mass uprising taking place across the state, and indeed the country, is far from over. In New York, this movement moment has already helped produce real results for long-fought campaigns: we have already won major policy victories in the fight for police accountability, including the repeal of 50a (a police secrecy statute), the STAT Act (a data reporting bill), and special prosecutor legislation. But the criminalization of our communities continues. With Albany legislators slated to return next week, they must take further action to keep community members with their loved ones, and youth in their schools—not in cages.

Cops And Their Supporters Unite To Attack BLM Counter-Protesters

July 18, 2020 Madeleine Freeman, Left Voice. Educate! New York (NY), Police, Police violence, Rebellion2020

George Floyd’s murder, along with the murders of Breonna Taylor, Rayshard Brooks, and so many others, laid bare for the world how police are mandated by the state to terrorize people of color, especially Black people. The severe repression against protesters put this violence on display on a mass scale and showed the lengths the state is willing to go to keep its hold on “law and order.” Yet, even as politicians, NGOs, and nonprofits try desperately to co-opt and pacify the movement, the most leftward expression of protesters’ demands — from defunding and disbanding police departments to abolishing police and prisons altogether — have seeped into the national consciousness and gained substantial support.

Toppling Statues As An Act Of Historical Redemption

July 15, 2020 Onur Acaroglu, ROAR Magazine. Educate! Racism, Rebellion2020, Slavery, Statues

The brutal murder of George Floyd by the Minneapolis police set off an unprecedented wave of protests. In a highly publicized, graphic execution, Floyd was killed in broad daylight for possession of an alleged counterfeit bill. The ensuing rebellion of global dimensions is undoubtedly fueled by the exposure to uncertainty, stress and anxiety that the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated. In the United States and beyond, frustration and anger at unprepared and incompetent governments overlap with the pressures of systemic racism, seen in sheer wealth gaps and repressive state practices. Across the pond, protests have also erupted in Britain. In a context of recession and repression, it is common for widespread rebellions to flare up at instances of injustice.

How Protester Occupations Can Succeed

July 14, 2020 Nick Licata, Medium. Strategize! Occupy, Rebellion2020, Seattle, Seattle Autonomous Zone

There are examples of where occupying a piece of land has resulted in success. It involves taking control of real property and that property is not critical to the needs of another community. It literally moves a protesting groups’ objective from being against a number of social and political existing conditions to wanting a real physical object in order to better mobilize a community to change those conditions. It moves from controlling an open public space, which may have little or no connection to directly addressing their grievances, to controlling a particular building to help them pursue those grievances. By making that change, leadership and an organization are required to focus on a finite, measurable, and achievable goal.

The Struggle For No Police In Los Angeles Schools: Victory In Sight

July 12, 2020 Eric Mann, Counterpunch. Create! Los Angeles, Police, Public schools, Rebellion2020

On Tuesday, June 23, in Los Angeles, the decade’s long struggle for No Police in the Schools had a major breakthrough. Los Angeles School Board member Monica Garcia introduced the most structural and hopeful motion to make “defund the police” a reality. Her motion, expressing gratitude to the national Black uprising, called for cutting the $70 million budget of the Los Angeles School Police Department—with 350 armed officers—by 50% in 2021, 75% in 2022, and 90% in 2023—essentially phasing out the entire department. We think “50%, 75%, 90%” is a model for the “Defund the Police” movement nationally. Any movement that gets to 100% first wins. Her Civil Rights motion did not pass but neither did any of the toxic compromises.

Ajamu Baraka: Race, Class And US Protests Today

July 12, 2020 Look Left Online. Strategize! Racism, Rebellion2020, United States, Working Class

Speaking at an event organised by the Workers’ Party, the national organiser of the Black Alliance for Peace and the 2016 Green Party candidate for vice president said that: “The current ongoing capitalist crisis has created the most serious crisis of legitimacy since the collapse of the capitalist economy during the years referred to as the Great Depression. We are now seeing, within the economy, the genocidal implications of economic conditions in which young black workers have more value as human generators of profit locked up in prisons than as participants in the economy as low wage workers.” Founded in 2017, the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) seeks to recapture and redevelop the historic anti-war, anti-imperialist, and pro-peace positions of the radical black movement.

Strike For Black Lives In 25 Cities On July 20 Wins Union Support

July 11, 2020 Mike Elk, Payday Report. Resist! Black Working Class, Rebellion2020, Strikes, Worker Rights and Jobs

The growing Black Lives Matters Strike Wave has reached over 600 strikes since June 1 got a massive boost of momentum today. A coalition of 150 organizations, including major unions like SEIU, AFT, and Teamsters, all put out a call for #Strike4BlackLives on July 20. Other organizations supporting the strike include the National Domestic Workers Alliance, the Movement for Black Lives, and the Center for Popular Democracy. The coalition is calling on workers everywhere to stop work for 8 minutes and 46 seconds in honor of George Floyd. In some cities, workers intend to strike all day. Many workers may aways start organizing to plan for a short work stoppage, may choose to then extend it into a larger work stoppage as momentum for #StrikeforBlackLives builds.

Why Did The Bureau Of Prisons Impose A National Lockdown?

July 8, 2020 By Natalia Schuurman, AFGJ.org. Resist! COVID-19, George Floyd, Prisons, Rebellion2020

Following the murder of George Floyd by a white police officer in Minneapolis on May 25, a nationwide uprising of unprecedented proportions has swept the U.S. in thousands of cities and towns, large and small, across all 50 states. This surge of mass resistance around issues of racial injustice, occurring against the backdrop of a major public health crisis and increasingly deteriorating economic conditions, has laid bare the failure of our capitalist system to protect working class communities of color. In addition to facing a much higher possibility of being endangered by an encounter with law enforcement, these communities are also coping with disproportionately high rates of unemployment and COVID-19 contagion.

Black Women In Italy Weren’t Being Heard, That’s Changed

July 7, 2020 Stefania Dignoti, The Lilly. Resist! Black Activists, Italy, Racism, Rebellion2020

Ariam Tekle had just begun co-hosting a podcast about black identities in Italy when, in late May, George Floyd was killed in police custody and a series of Black Lives Matter protests erupted across the United States. That outcry for social change resonated across the Atlantic, hitting many cities in Europe with unprecedented force, including her hometown of Milan. And for local black communities, the protests became an opportunity to speak out about issues of endemic racism beyond the U.S. experience. “We stand in solidarity with what is happening in the U.S., but we also want this to be a starting point to openly confront racism at home that is no less alarming than police brutality in America,” Tekle, a 31-year-old documentary filmmaker, says.

Seattle’s CHOP Advanced The Movement For Black Lives

July 6, 2020 Micheal Reagan, Institute for Anarchist Studies. Strategize! Anarchism, Police, Rebellion2020, Seattle Autonomous Zone

What is unthinkable, or was at the beginning of the month, is the power of the Black Lives Matter movement in the streets. The emergence of the autonomous zone is a pinnacle of that power, a significant victory. It demonstrates the ability of popular power to win the impossible from structures of white supremacy – the state and the propertied interests they represent. That victory, and the subsequent diminution of state violence, is a major step forward for community self-control and autonomy. It shows that ending anti-Black violence is the first and most basic step to honoring Black life. But it is just the beginning. Honoring Black life means constructing a society where Black autonomy and Black power are the cornerstones of community and one where Black freedom is the foundation for broader, collective liberation. The advent of the movement’s autonomous zone was a step in that direction. Taking the city’s east police precinct demonstrates not only that our movements can win, but we can win previously unimaginable victories for Black lives.

Protesters Attacked By Police Are Suing To Vindicate Their Constitutional Rights

July 6, 2020 By Marjorie Cohn, Truthout. Resist! Constitutional Rights, Legal System, Police abuse, Rebellion2020

Victims of police abuse are filing litigation, and at least one judge has put a halt to some of the most egregious misconduct. Plaintiffs allege that police misconduct resulted in the violation of their First, Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights. They charge that the LAPD used “indiscriminate and unreasonable force against thousands of protesters” and used unreasonable and excessive force by hitting “at least close to a thousand protesters with batons and/or ‘rubbers bullets.’” Plaintiffs attest to being restrained with tight handcuffs, denied bathroom access and access to food or water, and provided insufficient ventilation during transport, making them vulnerable to COVID-19.

Protest And Power

July 4, 2020 Glen Ford, Black Agenda Report. Strategize! Capitalism, George Floyd, Police violence, Rebellion2020

The last thing the Black Misleadership Class wants is a Black power-seeking movement. Wedded as they are to a token “place” in the capitalist spoils system, these misleaders have shown remarkable loyalty to their bosses in the Democratic Party and, until recently, to the police that kills their constituents at will. Despite decades of Black grassroots warnings against the growing militarization of the U.S. police, in 2014 the Congressional Black Caucus voted 32 to 8 to continue the infamous Pentagon 1033 program that funneled billions of dollars in weapons and gear to local police departments. (A program that increased 24-fold under the First Black President, Barack Obama.) The “Black Lives Matter” movement was born only months later but had virtually no effect on the Black Caucus’s slavish politics. The Black Misleadership Class was impervious to pressures from within the Black community and responsive only to its handlers in the Democratic Party.

An Historic Rant

July 2, 2020 Eleanor Goldfield, Art Killing Apathy. Strategize! History, Rebellion2020, storytelling, West Virginia

We don’t need another post about “these times.” We can all pretty much agree that shit is weird – that we’re confused, bewildered and feel like we’re on a boat captained by Bond villains heading towards a waterfall, stuck in a cyclone, trying to build rafts out of shoelaces and hope. Indeed, the discussion of where we are has hit a bit of a monotonous groove, a broken record type feel that just grates at us whenever we hear it. Someone just needs to kick the turntable and get us another round of beers. A more interesting Pilsner pondering – one that’s at once more mysterious and more clarifying – is the future we dream of, and the past we can learn from. More than just simple cause and effect, the past is our map, and the future is our navigation plan. Without that map, how the hell can you know where you are, where you started, where the path has taken you, how the hell you got into this storm headed straight for a waterfall, and how to navigate out of it?

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