A genuine pacifist movement is a movement against systems of violence, and in that sense the on-going wave of anti-racist movements are decidedly pacifist—even including instances where protesters engage in looting, burning, and tactical violence.
Category: Racism
On the Attack on Robert Cuffy at the Mass March to Defund the NYPD
While leading Monday June 29th’s Mass March to Defund the NYPD & Abolish the Police, Robert Cuffy was filming the march when he was blindsided and tackled by an unidentified man who then slammed Robert into another car, dislocating his shoulder. Police released the attacker without charges.
The Movement for Black Lives Is Different This Time
Late May and early June saw the biggest wave of mass rebellion in the United States since the 1960s. Protests erupted in every major city and in all fifty states, demanding an end to racist police brutality. The character of these uprisings has been less like protests and more like rebellions.
A Review of Claudia Rankine’s ‘Citizen, An American Lyric’
Claudia Rankine’s provocative and polyphonic work, Citizen: An American Lyric, has spurred much-needed conversations around race and racism. In the wake of the recent protests following the death of George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer, this book finds itself all the more relevant and also unnervingly prescient.
Another Martyr and a Call for Mass Rallies to Inspire the CT Legislature
George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Rayshard Brooks, are names made famous in their martyrdom, blacks killed this year by police. Another name should be added, a young black man named Mubarak Soulemane. The 19-year-old was shot dead in West Haven, Connecticut on January 15 by a state trooper.
Socialists and the Uprising Against Racism – Sunday, July 5, 4-6 PM (EDT)
The mass protests in response to the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis constitute the biggest popular uprising in the US since the 1960s. Join us for a discussion of the opportunities and challenges that exist for making socialist politics relevant to the new rebellion against racism.
Punched in the Face: Minneapolis Labor and the Fight for #JusticeforGeorgeFloyd
While much of the labor movement in Minneapolis has embedded itself in the city’s struggle against police brutality, union leadership at the national level has shied away from demands that it clean house.
What Would Abolition Look Like?
Policing and the wider criminal justice system have a long history as an integral part of capitalism and colonialism. That history informs their continued function of ‘managing’ marginalized communities who might resist the expansion of capital.
A Global Black Call to Action
We are the children of uprisings, a generation standing on the shoulders of those that came before us, and a people united to usher in a new world. We call on our siblings across the world to join us on June 19th.
Are We Also Ready to Confront the Wages of Complicity?
As this movement against systemic anti-blackness continues to take shape, it’s really important that we call out this “system” by its name–racial capitalism, which has always functioned through racial domination and class hierarchies, on appropriated land.
Protests over George Floyd’s Murder Open National Debates on Racism
Polls show that 80 percent of Americans support the protests that took place in 700 cities in all 50 states and which have fostered in virtually every institution, from public agencies to private businesses, a national discussion about racism.
From Passionate Uprising to Sustained Rebellion
The passionate uprising that began in Minneapolis after police murdered George Floyd quickly spread across the country and around the world, is now the biggest upheaval since 1968.
Notes on the Black Lives Matter Uprising in Historical and Global Context
The Black Lives Matter uprising in the USA, the working-class resistance to unsafe conditions in Italy, and the fight by Hong Kong youth against the repressive Chinese regime exemplify a new generation on the move for radical change.
Why Affluent Indians Speak Up about Race but stay Silent about Caste
The fact that average upper-caste Indians speak up about racism but not about caste shows their duplicity, hypocrisy and armchair activism for believing in a concept that should be discarded.
Ten Days that May Have Changed the World: An Internationalist Perspective
Sparked by the police murder of George Floyd and fueled by Minneapolis authorities’ reluctance to arrest and charge the murderer’s three police accomplices, mass protests have been sweeping across the United States with an intensity not seen since the 1960s.
America’s Unfinished Revolution
How quickly the government wants us to get back to the status quo where the ruling elite has been looting from the working poor every single day of our lives.
Stop Police Violence against Anti-Racist Protesters!
This violence is an extension of the police violence that took the life of George Floyd and, more generally, the state violence visited on Black and other people of color on this continent over the last five hundred years.
Firing Up the House of Labor to Fight for Racial Justice: Confronting Hard Truths
Defending truths about union democracy and the inseparability of racial and economic justice in our society has shown to be extraordinarily demanding work, yet it is an unavoidable goal if the organized power of the working class is to (help) free the human race.
History Marched Past my Door Last Night Carrying the Future on Her Shoulders
A march came by my house in Brooklyn a few nights ago, a river of thousands of young people of all races, wearing masks because of the pandemic, walking together, shouting out the name of George Floyd, demanding justice. I saw history making its way through the city.
The U.S. protests: Lessons from Syria
In the spirit of solidarity with those on the streets, Leila Al Shami offers lessons from the Syrian revolution that might be applicable to the uprising against police violence in the United States.
The Uprising in Minneapolis
Since the the murder of George Floyd, in Minneapolis, MN, on May 25th, the city of Minneapolis has become the center of a national uprising against the murder of black and brown people by police.
Top