Abolish the racist police system
Defend our movement
Organize for people’s power
We demand:
- Abolish the racist police system
- Police and National Guard withdraw now
- Release all arrestees — Drop all charges
- End the curfews and escalation of violence by police
- Black, Brown and Indigenous communities must have the right and resources to create and control their own entities to keep them safe
From Minneapolis to Los Angeles, Atlanta, New York City, Chicago, Philadelphia, Dallas, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and even internationally, people in cities and towns have taken to the streets in outrage over the inhumanity of racist police terror. U.S. police and vigilantes have been given a license to murder Black, Brown, Indigenous and poor people. The victims of police terror must have the right to defend themselves, their families and their children.
While the egregious murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery have ignited mass anger and pain nationally, it is the racism and white supremacy integral to the system of capitalism that is the underlying cause of the rebellion.
Capitalism and imperialism have failed the people
The massive movement in the streets in every town and city also takes place in the context of the massive failure of capitalism to protect people from the deadly coronavirus and its imperialist promotion of poverty and war.
The lack of health care, housing, food and income has deepened suffering for the vast majority of workers. Black, Latinx and poor people have suffered disproportionately, especially as essential workers are forced to work in unsafe conditions without the proper personal protective equipment (PPE). The disparity of death rates is glaring. The refusal to address what is a near-death sentence for millions of prisoners and immigrant workers and their families locked up in detention camps and the callous disregard of frontline workers who are being sacrificed for profits has fueled this new movement.
The community doesn’t own corporations, banks and police precincts
Useless arguments emerge aimed at distorting and clouding the events surrounding rebellions and insurrections to both mislead, divide and confuse the people. Arguments like “People are destroying their own neighborhoods” are one example.
Target — a billion dollar chain store whose workers are low paid and mercilessly exploited — is not owned by the community any more than the banks or a dozen other businesses. And the police precincts in cities are nothing more than outposts of an occupation army in Black and Brown communities.
Who really looted our communities?
It is the bankers and billionaires who are responsible for the austerity measures that have defunded education, health care and housing in every major city. The mortgage crisis created by these same banks ripped off and stole millions from Black and Latinx working-class families who lost their homes. Black families lost half their wealth in this crisis, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition.
What is the real source of violence?
How can the media and politicians equate the breaking of windows, the burning of police cars and what they describe as “looting” with the deep white supremacist violence that is a daily part of the lives of Black and oppressed people in this country. What about the violence of poverty threatening workers and poor people 365 days of the year? What about the horrific conditions that immigrant workers and their children face in detention camps?
You cannot compare a broken window with the lives lost to police or racist murders. A window can be repaired. A mother’s son or daughter’s life cannot be brought back. And without protests those murders will continue.
It is hypocrisy for government officials to pretend to be concerned about small businesses or to pit them against protesters and the movement. The recent stimulus package was a giant giveaway to billionaires while small community businesses, particularly Black businesses, were frankly ripped off. Nothing has been done during the pandemic to assist these businesses.
Solidarity against police and military repression!
As people are risking their lives from both the viral pandemic and the pandemic of racist state terror that has escalated to military troops, tanks and chemical weapons, it is of utmost importance that organizations unite to defend the Black community’s right to protest the life-threatening terror by the police — an entity originally created for the purpose of capturing runaway slaves.
Trump has encouraged genocide and called for the military to put down the people’s movement. The Movement for Black Lives has advocated for Trump’s immediate removal. The Democratic Party has been complicit with its silence, or worse, imposed curfews and ordered National Guard troops into our neighborhoods.
Let our movement unite in strength and solidarity to defend itself and become a force that can win these demands and abolish the root cause of police murder and state repression: capitalism, war and imperialism.
Contact: Struggle for Socialism/La Lucha por el Socialismo
Socialist Unity Party/ Partido de Socialismo Unido
National Contact: info@struggle-la-lucha.com
PDF flyer
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