The Ugly Truth of the "World's Greatest Democracy" for All to See
- Nick Lin -
Washington, DC protest against the killing of
George Floyd, May 30, 2020.
For twelve days, hundreds of thousands of people
have burst out in militant protests in more than 140 cities across the
United States against police brutality, impunity, racism and injustice.
They mourn the death of George Floyd killed in cold blood by police in
Minneapolis, Minnesota on May 25.
Solidarity protests with tens of thousands of
people have also taken place worldwide.
 The outrageous
circumstances of George Floyd's killing highlight the inhumanity, daily
injustices and imminent threat to life that the political
disempowerment, impoverishment, class divisions, police brutality and
impunity pose for working people in the United States, especially
African Americans, Indigenous peoples, Puerto Ricans and oppressed
minorities. Floyd was 46 years old. He had a family. He lost his life
after being arrested on "suspicion of passing a counterfeit $20 bill."
Over the course of nearly 8 minutes and 46 second, a 19-year veteran
officer of the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD), Derek Chauvin,
knelt on Floyd's neck while he lay on the ground. Reports indicate that
knee on neck is authorized police procedure. Three other officers were
also present and involved in immobilizing Floyd while he gasped "I
can't breathe" for several minutes and then became unresponsive. None
of the MPD officers attempted to revive him. Chauvin kept his knee on
Floyd's neck even as emergency medical technicians attempted to treat
him. All of this was filmed by passers-by, who the police prevented
from intervening. Two separate autopsies have determined Floyd's
killing to be a homicide.
Protesters in Minneapolis and across the country,
along with civil rights, social justice, anti-war and labour
organizations, immediately made clear that the officers must be fired
and charged with murder for Floyd's killing; putting them on paid
suspension or other typical slap-on-the wrist measures for police
wrong-doing would not suffice. On May 26, all four MPD officers were
fired. As protests grew in size and breadth across the country, on May
29, charges of third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter were
filed against former MPD officer Chauvin. On June 3, after days of
sustained mass protests that could not be quelled by curfews, the
police or the National Guard, Chauvin's charges were amended to include
second-degree murder, while the other three former officers were
charged with aiding and abetting second-degree murder. The more
profound demands for police accountability and an end to all racist
police violence against African Americans remain on the agenda.
 George Floyd's
brutal and unjust killing at the hands of the police came not long
after two other recent outrageous killings of African Americans in the
name of law and order. On March 13, Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old
African-American woman, was killed in a raid on her home in Louisville,
Kentucky by police who allegedly failed to identify themselves after
bursting into her home in the middle of the night using a "no-knock
warrant" based on spurious information. On February 23, Ahmaud Marquez
Arbery, a 25-year-old African-American man, was killed while out
jogging near his home in Glynn County, Georgia. His killing was
apparently an act of vigilantism by a former police officer and his
son, trying to find a culprit for thefts in the area. Arbery's killers
were finally charged with felony murder 74 days later on May 4, only
after a video of the killing came to light. These injustices against
African Americans by the failed U.S. state and its police agencies
bring to mind the events of six years ago and the popularization of the
slogan "Black Lives Matter," with the police killing of two
African-American men. The first was 43-year-old Eric Garner in July
2014, who, like George Floyd, died gasping the words "I can't breathe"
while police pinned him to the ground. The second was 18-year-old
Michael Brown, shot by police in Ferguson, Missouri in August 2014.
Many other unjust killings of African Americans at the hands of police
have taken place in the intervening six years. Twenty-eight years ago
four Los Angeles policemen -- three of them white -- were acquitted of
the savage beating of Rodney King. Caught on camera by a bystander,
graphic video of the attack was broadcast into homes across the United
States and the world. Los Angeles Police Department officers kicked him
viciously, repeatedly and beat him with batons for a reported 15
minutes. The video showed that more than a dozen cops stood by,
watching and commenting on the beating. Fury over the acquittal
resulted in five days of rioting in Los Angeles and ignited the
national movement against racial and economic disparity and police use
of force.
The escalating state violence, lawlessness and
impunity are features of the U.S. failed state, which is unable to
resolve any crisis, whether it be the COVID-19 pandemic, the racist
treatment of African Americans, Indigenous peoples, minorities,
migrants or refugees, or any issue facing working people. This is
paralleled by the lawlessness and use of force on which U.S. foreign
relations are based. This was amply demonstrated by U.S. President
Donald Trump himself, who, as the people put further weight behind
their demands, acted to inflame the situation by sowing divisions and
giving licence to police forces to commit further crimes in the name of
law and order.
National Guard amass in Seattle, June 4, 2020.
On June 1, Trump emerged after having taken
shelter in a White House bunker to hold a press conference in the Rose
Garden. He spoke of the killing of George Floyd as if it was an
isolated case, and claimed that his "administration is fully committed
that for George and his family, justice will be served," never mind
that similar crimes by the police were unfolding around the White House
and across the country at that very moment. In the face of unprovoked
police attacks and the acts of agents
provocateurs carrying out vandalism and random violence --
the shopworn modus
operandi of the state security agencies to undermine the
people's movement and their demands -- Trump claimed that "our nation
has been gripped by professional anarchists, violent mobs, or,
arsonists, looters, criminals, rider rioters, Antifa and others."
With this strawman of "professional protestors" in
place, Trump sought to equate the people's mass collective acts of
empowerment and defence of their rights -- especially African
Americans' right to live in dignity and security -- with terrorism, to
justify the use of more state violence, exceptional measures and
arbitrary powers against the people and progressive forces. "These are
not acts of peaceful protest," he claimed. "These are acts of domestic
terror." He then went on say that all federal resources, "civilian and
military," would be mobilized to quell the protests. Trump concluded
his speech claiming that his administration is the defender of the rule
of law and unifier of the people.
From the Rose Garden he went to "pay [his]
respects to a very, very special place." This was a staged photo op,
where Trump clutched a bible upside down in front of St. John's
Episcopal Church. "Near the White House, police tear gassed peaceful
protesters in order to facilitate President Trump's scheduled photo
op," American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) reports. Riot police
violently cleared Lafayette Square and the church patio of protestors,
who were calmly assembled there and receiving assistance from members
of the clergy.
On June 2, President Trump and the First Lady
visited a Washington, DC shrine erected in honour of Pope John Paul II,
for another photo op. The opportunism of both incidents amidst the mass
protests was criticized by leaders of each denomination. Mariann Edgar
Budde, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, in a Washington Post
op-ed said that Trump "used sacred symbols to cloak himself in the
mantle of spiritual authority, while espousing positions antithetical
to the Bible that he held in his hands. That's why I drew the line, as
did my colleague Archbishop Wilton Gregory when the very next day Mr.
and Mrs. Trump made an unannounced visit to the Saint John Paul II
National Shrine." Bishop Gregory remarked of the June 2 photo op: "I
find it baffling and reprehensible that any Catholic facility would
allow itself to be so egregiously misused and manipulated in a fashion
that violates our religious principles, which call us to defend the
rights of all people, even those with whom we might disagree."
 
Seattle street before and after police disruption of peaceful protest,
June 2, 2020.
Since George Floyd was killed, people from all
backgrounds, young and old, have been out in the streets across the
U.S. to protest police brutality and impunity, and to demand
accountability. The justness of their cause is underscored by the fact
that in many major cities especially, police forces have met these
protests with a spirit of revenge, arrogantly sending a clear message
that they can and will continue to act with impunity. Protestors have
been confronted with arbitrary threats from the police, the military or
other security forces. Police response with rare exceptions has been
more brutality. In New York City, police vehicles drove into protesters
and one officer pulled a Black protester's mask down to directly pepper
spray him in the face, the ACLU reports.
There are widespread instances of unjustified arrests and use of force
by police against protestors, legal observers, medics, journalists and
bystanders. These include unprovoked beatings and attacks using
rubber-coated metal bullets, tear gas and chemical weapons. People shot
with "less lethal" ammunition or otherwise assaulted by police have
been seriously injured and hospitalized. Reporters have also suffered
at the hands of police, including one reporter who was shot in the eye
with a rubber bullet and blinded. A young woman is reported to have
died from an asthma attack triggered by tear gas. Mass detentions are
taking place, with some 10,000 people arrested in recent days. On May
31, curfews had been declared in 25 cities in 16 states, affecting more
than 40 million people. Across 34 states, governors are now
reported to have called out 43,000 National Guard, with more than
10,000 in Minneapolis alone. This must not pass!
The vicious response of the U.S. president and the
whole state security apparatus to the people's just demands reveal the
ugly truth of "the world's greatest democracy," for everyone to see. It
underscores the need for the peoples to find the ways to empower
themselves so as to provide themselves with security that is based on
defending the rights of all.
It is important for everyone to take part in
actions to demand justice in the wanton killing and persecution of
African-Americans, support the courageous working people in the U.S.
fighting for their rights, as well as to demand justice for all similar
acts of injustice, police violence and impunity in Canada as well as
the United States.
Since June 4, 2020 the White House grounds are
surrounded by a tall fence, almost three km long. Commentators have
pointed out the irony that the Trump administration, which sought
to build a wall along the border with Mexico to "protect Americans"
from "illegal immigrants," has had to build a wall around the White
House to protect President Trump and the
illegitimate power that he wields from being held to account by the
American people he purports to represent.
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