United National Antiwar Coalition
Defend Black Lives! NO
Police State!
NO Military Dictatorship! Release All Arrestees!
NO More Attacks on Anti-Racist Protesters!
The United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC)
stands in solidarity with communities across the country who are rising
up in protest against racist police violence. As Donald Trump calls for
the deployment of the U.S. military in response to these national
protests, UNAC condemns the use of any police and military forces being
deployed to violently suppress these protests. We call on all anti-war
activists to help organize or join in these actions demanding justice
and an end to the state-terror being inflicted upon black and brown
communities within this country.
The ongoing protests began in Minnesota on Monday
May 25, 2020 in response to the murder of George Floyd, a 46-year old
Black man, by four police officers in the city of Minneapolis. The
horrific killing was caught on multiple videos which revealed two cops
pinning an already handcuffed Floyd facedown to the ground, one cop
standing over him, and a fourth one pressing his knee into the victim's
neck for nearly nine minutes even as he cried, "I can't breathe," and
soon became unresponsive. Floyd died moments later.
On May 29, only after FIVE DAYS straight of
militant protests in Minneapolis and in major cities across the
country, the cop caught kneeling on Floyd's neck was finally arrested
and charged with third degree murder. His three accomplices have yet to
be charged. [With determined demands raised across the
country, Chauvin has now been charged with second degree murder and the
three others with aiding and abetting second degree murder -- Ed Note.]
Of course, this tragic killing did not happen in a
vacuum. It represents a trend that has gone on for too long in this
country. There are over 1,000 victims of lethal force every year in the
U.S. And unarmed black men and women and children have been terrorized
and killed by police for over a century with hardly any of the cops
involved ever facing charges for their crimes. Within the last years
alone, only those cases caught on camera or other recording devices
have caught the eyes and ears of those in power; and even then, justice
is rarely served.
Most recently, cases such as that of Breonna
Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery have gained national attention weeks after
they were killed by police and former police officers and only after
videos and 9-1-1 recordings were leaked to the media. The police who
murdered Taylor in her own apartment have not been charged, and
Arbery's killers who shot him while he was out jogging were not
indicted until video of the incident caused public outcry and protests
weeks later.
This current nation-wide uprising has been
characterized by a week of major protests and acts of civil
disobedience in nearly every state throughout the country. Hundreds of
actions have taken place in cities big and small, from coast to coast,
to denounce not only the murder of George Floyd, but the long history
of oppression and state-violence against Black Americans that never
ended and that has never even been truly acknowledged by the United
States.
Just as the antiwar movement has challenged the
ongoing U.S. racist and imperialist wars abroad, the massive protests
across the country today are challenging the institutionalized racist
violence at home. The millions in the streets today are a harbinger of
the broad and united mobilizations to come that have the potential of
posing a fundamental challenge to the oppressive, racist, violent
system itself.
This article was published in
Volume 50 Number 21 - June 13, 2020
Article Link:
United National Antiwar Coalition
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
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