George Floyd killing: Violence and fury hit US cities in ‘widest unrest for decades’
By Alasdair Sandford
May 31, 2020
Violence has flared again overnight on Saturday in many cities across the United States, as protesters took to the streets for a fifth night running amid the wave of anger sparked by the killing of black American George Floyd at the hands of the police.
Demonstrators have ignored curfews and calls to stay away — including in Minneapolis, the city where Floyd died. Meanwhile, unrest and chaos spread to major cities from New York to Los Angeles — but also to smaller cities such as Eugene, Oregon and Richmond, Virginia.
Several state governors have called in the National Guard. As clashes continued into the evening and early hours of Sunday, mass arrests have been reported.
Read more at https://www.euronews.com/2020/05/31/george-floyd-killing-violence-and-fury-in-cities-across-us-as-protesters-ignore-curfews
Protest, Uprisings, and Race War
May 29, 2020
The moralizing has begun.
Those who have rarely been the target of organized police gangsterism are once again lecturing those who have about how best to respond to it.
Be peaceful, they implore, as protesters rise up in Minneapolis and across the country in response to the killing of George Floyd. This, coming from the same people who melted down when Colin Kaepernick took a knee — a decidedly peaceful type of protest. Because apparently, when white folks say, “protest peacefully,” we mean “stop protesting.”
Everything is fine, nothing to see here.
It is telling that much of white America sees fit to lecture black people about the evils of violence, even as we enjoy the national bounty over which we claim possession solely as a result of the same. I beg to remind you, George Washington was not a practitioner of passive resistance. Neither the early colonists nor the nation’s founders fit within the Gandhian tradition. There were no sit-ins at King George’s palace, no horseback freedom rides to affect change. There were just guns, lots and lots of guns.
Read more at https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/05/29/protest-uprisings-and-race-war/
‘If You Want to End Unrest, End the Conditions That Create It,’ Declares Ocasio-Cortez Amid Nationwide Protest
Instead of calls for things to simply calm down and “go back to normal,” said New York Congresswoman, “let’s create a new world—one where all people are held to the same standard of the rule of law.”
by In a video message posted to Instagram on Saturday amidst days of nationwide protest in response to the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota earlier this week, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez issued a plea to anyone calling for the end of the “unrest” stirred by brutality and oppression to focus on the root causes of poverty, distrust, and violence in American society.
“So if you’re out here asking for an end to unrest, you better be asking for healthcare as a human right, you better be calling for accountability in our policing, you better be supporting community review boards, you better be supporting the end of housing discrimination, you better be standing up to for-profit real estate developers that are intimidating people and trying to evict them from their homes—that’s what you better be calling for.”
—Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY)“If you are calling for an end to this unrest… but you are not calling for the end to the conditions that created the unrest, you are a hyppocrite,” Ocasio-Cortez said in the post.
Read more at https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/05/30/if-you-want-end-unrest-end-conditions-create-it-declares-ocasio-cortez-amid
Mass protests voice outrage over police murder of George Floyd
By Patrick Martin
30 May 2020
Tens of thousands of people, mainly young and working class of all races, have taken to the streets of American cities to protest the police murder in Minneapolis of George Floyd, a 46-year-old African American man who died with a policeman’s knee on his throat for nine minutes, while horrified bystanders pleaded for his life and recorded the killing in videos that have shocked the world.
Thousands defied the 8 p.m. curfew imposed by Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and quickly extended to neighboring St. Paul, to many suburbs in surrounding Hennepin and Ramsey counties, and to all of Anoka and Dakota counties in the Twin Cities exurbs.
The sheer extent of the curfew demonstrates that the state and local authorities were concerned about violence not merely in a small inner-city neighborhood in south Minneapolis, but about eruptions in any area populated by the working class throughout the huge metropolitan area, home to more than three million people.
Read more at https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/05/30/floy-m30.html
Hundreds of thousands stage multiracial demonstrations against police violence in a powerful show of working-class unity
30 May 2020
The Socialist Equality Party and the International Youth and Students for Social Equality welcome and support the multiracial, multiethnic demonstrations of thousands of working people and youth that have swept the country in response to the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota. These demonstrations—which are taking place in the midst of the pandemic despite the serious risks involved—are a powerful and inspiring manifestation of a deep-rooted commitment to the defense of democratic rights, hatred of fascistic police and the Trump administration, and a profound commitment to the unity of all sections of the working class.
On Friday night, thousands continued their protest in Minneapolis, in defiance of a curfew imposed by the state government. Outside of Minneapolis there were significant protests Friday in Houston, Texas, Floyd’s hometown; Atlanta, Georgia, where protesters forced their way into the headquarters of CNN; New York City, where dozens were arrested after being attacked by police, and protesters have reportedly overrun police precincts in Brooklyn; Lexington and Louisville in Kentucky, where protesters also demanded justice for Breonna Taylor, who had been killed by police in March; Washington, D.C., outside the White House, which temporarily went into lockdown; Fort Wayne, Indiana, where police fired tear gas to disperse the crowd; and Las Vegas, Nevada, where protesters shut down traffic on the Las Vegas Strip.
Read more at https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/05/30/pers-m30.html
