Systemic Racism

The Disproportionate Blues

June 25, 2020 Kevin Cooper, Scheer Post. Educate! Black America, Blues, COVID-19, Systemic Racism

Here in the year of 2020 of the 21st century, we descendants of the people who created and first started singing the blues set to music, way back in the 19th century, are still singing the blues today. Those people who historically gave us the reasons to write and sing the blues because of our ill treatment and overwhelming oppression could not truly understand, appreciate or relate to our historical or present-day pain and suffering. We African Americans have often been told that times have changed. We have been told by the powers that be throughout this country’s history and our existence to stop crying, to get over it, to move on, and for the most part we have tried to do so. We have tried to stop complaining and crying about our collective pains, and that is why the blues was created.

Too Late To Reform, Time To Disband Philly Police

June 23, 2020 Betsy Piette, Workers.org. Resist! Philadelphia, Police Abolition, Police violence, Systemic Racism

Philadelphia - The Philadelphia Police Department, the fourth largest in the U.S., is one of the oldest municipal police agencies, founded in 1854. Its history has been marked by patterns of police brutality, intimidation, coercion and disregard for constitutional rights. Recently, a statue of former Police Commissioner Frank Rizzo (1967-71), whose tenure is synonymous with racist police brutality, was finally removed. While welcomed, simply removing his statue changes nothing fundamental. It is only a first step. Philadelphia Mayor James Kenney had ordered the removal of the hated statue in the middle of the night on June 3, robbing activists, who for years had fought for its removal, the pleasure of taking it down themselves. Back in 2017, Philadelphia REAL Justice had launched a campaign called “Rizzo Down.”

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.

Abolishing Policing Also Means Abolishing Family Regulation

June 17, 2020 Dorothy Roberts, Chronicle of Social Change. Create! Child Abuse, Families, Systemic Racism, White Supremacy

The uprisings taking place across the nation and the world have brought unprecedented attention to abolition as a political vision and organizing strategy. More Americans are recognizing that police killings of black people are so pervasive that they can no longer be considered aberrations. Rather, police violence stems from the very function of policing to enforce an unjust racial order. Policing, therefore, cannot be fixed by more failed reforms; it must be abolished. The most prominent demand emerging from the protests is to defund the police and reallocate the money to provide health care, education, jobs with living wages, and affordable housing. I am inspired by calls to defund the police.

The Police May Pull The Trigger, But It’s The System That Kills

June 16, 2020 Richard E. Rubenstein, Transcend. Strategize! Police violence, Poverty, Rebellion2020, Systemic Racism

Fifty years ago this year, I published my first book, entitled Rebels in Eden – an exploration of mass political violence in America focusing on the uprisings that had by then incinerated substantial portions of the inner city communities of Los Angeles, New York, Newark, Detroit, Chicago, Baltimore, and Washington, as well as scores of smaller towns and cities.[i] Those riots were far more destructive than anything experienced in the protests following the recent killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery by police and ex-police officers. The sixties uprisings killed several hundred people (almost all Black civilians), injured more than 12,000, and caused billions of dollars in property damage.

Medical Workers Die-In To Protest Police Brutality

June 7, 2020 Ben Verde, Brooklyn Paper. Resist! COVID-19, Healthcare workers, Public Health, Systemic Racism

New York - Hundreds of medical workers at SUNY Downstate staged a die-in on Thursday to protest police brutality and the health disparities that affect black Americans. Emergency medical residents and other hospital staff kneeled or lay on the ground for eight minutes and 46 seconds — the amount of time former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin knelt on the neck of 46-year-old George Floyd, killing him. “I can stand here as a brown, female, immigrant physician with a loud voice — and I can do this because of the sacrifices made by black people a long time ago,” said Dr. Smruti Desai, an emergency medical resident. “It is our turn to fight for them.” While hundreds of staff at the central Brooklyn hospital — which serves a predominately black patient population — kneeled or lay on the ground, speakers read aloud the names of victims of police violence.

Black Lives Extinguished, Black Ancestors’ Bodies Desecrated

June 7, 2020 Marsha Coleman Adebayo, Black Agenda Report. Educate! African Cemetary, Slavery, State Violence, Systemic Racism

This week, the progressive community is deeply traumatized over the slaughter of innocent Black people and the determination of ruling elites in politics, media and civil societies to patch up a deprived, debased and white supremacist system. One prime example is Minneapolis officials charging Officer Derek Chauvin with 3rd degree murder and manslaughter. Is this charge a revisiting of the idea that Africans are 3/5th human? White supremacy fault lines have intentionally deepened and the murder and incarceration of young, primarily black men, is the norm -- in fact, it is expected. Black leadership, usually channeled through corporate sponsorship called the Democratic Party, has completely failed.

Push Back: US Police State Faces Revolt

June 5, 2020 Aaron Maté, The Grayzone. Resistance Report Black Liberation, Police violence, Rebellion2020, Systemic Racism

Dr. Gerald Horne on the George Floyd protests, the black freedom struggle, and Trump’s expansion of the US police state at home and around the world. Historian and author Gerald Horne discusses the US uprisings against police brutality and systemic racism sparked by George Floyd’s killing; the devastating impact of the US government’s decades-old war on the black freedom struggle; the ongoing “Russia-baiting” of the protests; and how, amidst the suffering and repression at home, the U.S. government, in bipartisan fashion, continues to attempt to impose its will on countries abroad, from China to Venezuela. Guest: Dr. Gerald Horne, Moores Professor of History and African American Studies at the University of Houston. Author of more than three dozen books, including the forthcoming The Dawning of the Apocalypse.

An Uprising Was Inevitable

June 3, 2020 By Zenobia Jeffries Warfield, Nation of Change. Educate! Police, Rebellion2020, State Violence, Systemic Racism

There’s no greater frustration than working every day to build and inspire others to build a more just, compassionate world, only to be so brutally reminded of how far away that world is, as we are bombarded by videos of an atrocity such as the police killing of Minneapolis resident George Floyd. Witnessing someone being killed is terrorizing. I am experiencing episodes of terror after seeing the life leave Floyd’s handcuffed body under the knee of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, while two officers held down Floyd, and another stood idly by. That image will stay with me for a long time, just as Eric Garner’s has, just as Philando Castile’s has, and Terence Crutcher’s, and 12-year-old Tamir Rice’s.

Media Smeared Ahmaud Arbery After His Lynching

May 30, 2020 Joshua Cho, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. Educate! Ahmaud Arbery, Media, Police abuse, Systemic Racism

While it took two and a half months for the authorities to finally make arrests in the killing of Ahmaud Arbery, corporate media were much quicker to follow the time-honored practice of besmirching victims of racist violence (FAIR.org, 3/22/17). First they kill your body. Then they kill your reputation. When white supremacy is the foundation of the US’s media, political, legal and corporate system, victims of racist violence are often killed twice in this way. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation on May 7 arrested former cop Gregory McMichael, 64, and his son Travis McMichael, 34, for the murder of Arbery, an unarmed 25-year old African American out for a jog—only after a widely circulated video of the lynching became too difficult to ignore.

Health Care Workers Call On Labor Movement To Take Action

May 30, 2020 Left Voice. Organize! Healthcare workers, Labor Unions, Police abuse, Systemic Racism

As health care workers, we condemn the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers as an act of racist violence. We condemn the murder of Breonna Taylor by Louisville police officers as an act of racist violence. We condemn the murder of Tony McDade by Tallahassee police officers as an act of racist violence. Their killings are just a handful of countless examples of police brutality responsible for the early deaths of many Black people in the United States. Black people are three times more likely than white people to die by police violence. As health care workers, we witness first-hand how widespread racist police brutality harms Black and brown people. We understand the anti-Black, racist origins of the institution of policing, initially created to patrol and entrap people who had escaped enslavement.

Against Police Violence And Capitalism, To Rebel Is Justified

May 30, 2020 Monica Moorehead, Workers.org. Strategize! George Floyd, Minneapolis, Police abuse, Systemic Racism

Workers World salutes all the brave protesters in Minneapolis, currently ground zero against police terror. We also salute those activists in Los Angeles, Memphis and other cities who are organizing protests and braving the pandemic to be in the streets or in car caravans to show solidarity with the demand: Justice for George Floyd and all victims of police violence. The corporate media call the May 27 protest in Minneapolis a “riot.” In a speech on March 14, 1968, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. defined that term, saying, “A riot is the language of the unheard.” Following his assassination less than a month later, Black people rose up in hundreds of cities in righteous protest. They were heard.

Racial Health And Economic Disparities Are Two Sides Of The Same Coin

May 17, 2020 By Dedrick Asante-Muhammad and Sally Sim, Inequality. Create! Poverty, Recession, Systemic Racism, wealth inequality

In Baltimore, like in the rest of the United States, Covid-19 exacerbates racial inequality and economic marginalization. The legacy of discrimination and the continued corruption and disenfranchisement take shape in the city’s biggest issues – homelessness, food insecurity, crime, poverty, and lack of access to resources. Covid-19 magnifies these issues and shows that they cannot be fixed without systemic change. The Baltimore Brothers, a nonprofit organization serving the city’s most vulnerable people, have been providing food and necessary resources to the communities who aren’t reached by local agencies or state government. After a devastating shooting on March 17, the Brothers fed the community for 3 days straight after watching the city fail to provide any kind of social aid.

Racism And The National Soul

May 14, 2020 By Robert C. Koehler, Common Wonder. Educate! Police abuse, Racism, State Violence, Systemic Racism

“Black folks need more than a trial and a verdict. Our problems are deeper, rooted not in the details of a particular case, but in distrust of the system charged with protecting us and punishing those who do us harm. This cynicism is well earned, arising out of repeated disappointments. To begin to heal this distrust we need this country to take responsibility for its devaluation of blackness and its complicity in violence against black bodies.” Obviously, some enormous approach to change is necessary. Can this country grow up — finally? We won’t “end” racism. We won’t end fear, hatred, projection, stupidity or mental illness, but can we not at least begin disinfecting our legal and political structure of racism’s horrific consequences? What would it take to deinstitutionalize racism?

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