US Lectures World on Human Rights as Cops Kill Blacks With Impunity, by Finian Cunningham + Rebellion Against Police Murder Tears Through the US, by Sophie Squire + Margaret Kimberley: The US is the World’s Worst Abuser of Human Rights

Image by Brett Weinstein via Flickr

by Finian Cunningham
Writer, Dandelion Salad
East Africa
Crossposted from Strategic Culture Foundation, May 30, 2020
May 31, 2020

“Being black in America should not be a death sentence” – so said Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey following the shocking, gruesome killing of George Floyd by a police officer on the streets of Saint Paul.

Floyd (46) was filmed by bystanders handcuffed and pinned to the road face down while a cop pressed his knee on his neck for eight minutes. Despite desperate pleas from Floyd that he could not breathe and protests from the bystanders to let him go, the police officer choked him to death.

Four officers have been reportedly fired following public outrage over the killing of Floyd. Minneapolis and other cities have seen riots for several nights running since the incident on May 25. Video footage shows the victim was not resisting arrest as the police force had earlier claimed. He was arrested on suspicion of passing a fake $20 note at a restaurant. The use of such excessive force by the police – even if the forgery claims are substantiated – is obscenely disproportionate.

Evidently, George Floyd was lynched by a white cop on the street of city in broad daylight. The victim’s real “crime” was being black.

Studies of official data consistently show that U.S. black males, proportionate to population, are far more likely to die from encounters with police officers compared with their white counterparts.

The case of George Floyd is grimly reminiscent of that of Eric Garner who was choked to death by a police officer in New York City in 2014. Garner was apprehended on suspicion of selling contraband cigarettes on the street. He also pleaded for mercy while in a stranglehold, telling officers he could not breathe before being throttled to death.

Most deaths, however, at the hands of law enforcement officers are caused by firearms. Invariably, the excuse is parroted that the officer “felt his life was being threatened” by the victim. Philando Castile was shot dead with five rounds at the wheel of his stationary car in July 2016 because the traffic cop claimed Castile was moving his hand suspiciously. That was after the victim had calmly told the officer he had a firearm in the car by way of alerting him to avoid fatal mistake.

The vast majority of cops accused of these kind of racist killings are never prosecuted, or else acquitted.

Michael Brown, a teenager, was shot dead in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014 even though witnesses said he had his hands up when confronted by the police officer. The cop was not even indicted after a grand jury accepted his claim of being threatened.

Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old boy, was shot dead by two cops in Cleveland, Ohio, in 2014 on suspicion of holding a firearm while he played at a children’s park. Turned out the boy was playing with a replica toy gun. No charges were brought against his killers.

This institutionalized impunity for police officers who are allowed to get away with murder inevitably spills over to wider society. The racist suspicion of black men involved in crime is invoked time and again by self-appointed, gun-toting vigilantes.

Earlier this year, in February, Ahmaud Arbery was gunned down in the street while he was out jogging in Brunswick, Georgia. His attackers, a white father and son, suspected he was connected to house burglary in the area. Video footage clearly shows the victim was unarmed and in jogging gear. Nevertheless, he was shot dead by the two men, one of whom is an ex-cop.

Another notorious case is that of Trayvon Martin, a teenager, who was stalked and shot dead in 2012 by a Florida neighborhood vigilante, again on the suspicion of committing robbery.

The shocking truth is that lynching of African-Americans in the U.S. is alive today as it was during the apartheid era of southern states and their Jim Crow segregationist laws which existed within living memory. The Klu Klux Klan may not be burning crosses openly or hauling victims from the back of jeeps along roads until their bodies burst. Equality laws since the 1960s have brought a semblance of evenness in racial rights and legal protection.

But in the real world of U.S. society, blacks are still systematically poorer, more unemployed, infirm, discriminated against and deprived. The coronavirus pandemic wreaking havoc in the U.S. – more than 100,000 dead in four months – is disproportionately hitting African-Americans harder because of their impoverished living conditions.

Shooting and choking blacks by cops or vigilantes with impunity is part and parcel of the systematic racism that pervades the U.S. That’s because of the American capitalist class system which relegates blacks and other minorities to the lowest rung among the working-class poor.

A sinister manifestation of this was seen from the incident last week in New York’s Central Park when a white woman hysterically phoned 911 claiming that her life was being threatened by a black man. The man had simply and politely asked the woman to leash her dog in accordance with the park’s rules. Video footage taken by the man showed she was in no way infringed during the encounter. Evidently, she falsely accused the man of malicious intent and, moreover, arrogantly felt her white voice would be backed by law enforcement against a black man.

If the cops had responded quickly enough to turn up at the scene, it is likely the man would have been shot dead for resisting arrest or on suspicion of threatening their lives with his bird-watching binoculars. Because the fact is being black in America is a death sentence.

And yet American politicians and media have the audacity to lecture and sanction China, Russia, Cuba, Iran and other countries about human rights.

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Finian Cunningham, is a columnist at the Strategic Culture Foundation, Sputnik, and a Writer on Dandelion Salad. He can be reached at cunninghamfinian@gmail.com.

Rebellion Against Police Murder Tears Through United States

by Sophie Squire
Socialist Worker UK
May 30, 2020

A rebellion against police brutality and institutional racism is gaining momentum as it roars across the United States. It is driven by anger at a system filled by inequality and racism.

On the fourth night of furious mobilisations against the police murder of George Floyd, protesters laid siege to the White House and protests swept across multiple states.

He was killed by cop Derek Chauvin, who pinned his neck to the ground, despite George pleading, “I can’t breathe.”

Protesters have raged through the streets in Minneapolis, and crowds are getting bigger every night.

“It’s been a volatile situation and people are scared,” Minneapolis resident Todd told Socialist Worker.

“Look at all the peaceful protests that have gone on over the years and how little they’ve done for black and brown people across the country.”

Protesters have been met with further police brutality, and a man was killed in Detroit, Michigan after shots were fired at protesters.

In a desperate attempt to force people off the streets, Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey imposed an 8pm curfew.

“I honestly thought the 8pm curfew would curtail things but it was almost more intense,” an eyewitness told Socialist Worker.

On Donald Trump’s front lawn protesters battled with secret service officers and the police, forcing the building to be locked down.

One protester shouted at the secret service, “Every last one of you knows a crooked cop and you do nothing because you’re fucking cowards.”

Trump has whipped up the prospect of more violence from police, tweeting earlier in the week, “When looting starts, shooting starts”.

On Friday night he tweeted, “Big crowd, professionally organised, but nobody came close to breaching the fence.

“If they had they would have been greeted and with the most vicious dogs, and most ominous weapons I have ever seen. That’s when people would have been really badly hurt, at least. Many secret service agents just waiting for action.”

Regain

In Minneapolis, the state government ordered around 500 members of the National Guard on to the streets in an attempt to regain control.

State governor Tim Walz promised on Saturday morning that he would triple the number of National Guard deployed.

“This is not about George’s death,” he claimed.

“This is not about inequalities that are real, this is about chaos.”

There were also heroic scenes of resistance in Atlanta, Georgia, where protesters shot at cops with BB guns and threw bricks, bottles and knives. They smashed police cars and chanted, “no justice, no peace”.

In New York, police officers attacked crowds with batons and aggressively pushed protesters around as they made arrests.

One eyewitness described how a young woman was violently thrown to the floor by a cop, causing her to “black out and have a violent seizure.”

“Our country has a sickness. We have to be out here,” said Brianna Petrisko, who was protesting in Manhattan.

“This is the only way we’re going to be heard.”

In San Jose, California, protesters fought back after cops attacked them with flash bang grenades and rubber bullets.

Right wingers, liberal politicians and media pundits were all quick to condemn the rioting and looting that has spread across the country.

Riots scare those in charge because they show the power that ordinary people can have when they take action.

So state governments line up to condemn protesters—yet they rule over a system that with racist violence at its core.

“Don’t talk to us about looting, you are the looters,” said civil rights activist Tamika Mallory.

“Don’t talk to me about the land of the ‘free for all’, this country has not been free for black people,” she said.

Workers and trade unionists are also lending their support to demand justice for George Floyd.

A New York bus driver got off his bus to huge cheers from activists as he refused to drive arrested protesters to the police station.

His Transport Workers Union tweeted, “Bus operators do not work for the NYPD. We transport the working families of New York.”

It called on bus drivers to “refuse to transport arrested protesters.”

And in Las Vegas, hospitality workers from the Culinary Workers Union were protesting bosses’ plans to reopen casinos of 4 June.

Trade unionists joined with protesters occupying the roads, and said, “We stand with Black Lives Matter. No justice. No peace.”

The movement is drawing taking on other cases on police brutality. Some protesters held banners with the names of other black people murdered by the cops.

And in Louisville, protests over the murder of a Breonna Taylor continued for a second night. Breonna was shot dead in her own home by police officers who gave no warning they were in the building.

With the US in flames, the state will desperately try any means to stem people’s anger—and smash their movement.

Margaret Kimberley: The US is the World’s Worst Abuser of Human Rights

RT on May 31, 2020

‘You can’t have a society that’s unjust in so many different ways’: Margaret Kimberley, New York-based columnist for the ‘Black Agenda Report’ website and activist for peace and justice issues, takes on the current protest situation.

From the archives:

A Long Time For Killing by Michael Parenti

Danny Haiphong: George Floyd and the Centrality of White Supremacy in America

Chris Hedges and Matt Taibbi: The Killing of Eric Garner and The Criminalization of Poverty and Institutional Racism

Glen Ford: History of Black Radicalism, Social Justice, and Antiwar

Chris Hedges: Mass Incarceration is a Form of Social Control and the Police Function as Predators in Impoverished Communities

Ban Tear Gas Entirely! by David Swanson

Chris Hedges: No Discussion of Race Is Possible Without A Discussion of Capitalism and Class

Chris Hedges: The History of Oppression of African Americans

No Indictment For #NYC Cop Who Killed Eric Garner + Almost Impossible to Indict a Cop

Chris Hedges: No Ramifications For Police Who Murder + No Indictment For #Ferguson Cop Who Killed Michael Brown