Tidbits - June 4, 2020 - Reader Comments: George Floyd's final words; Protests for George; against police brutality, against massive militarized police, against systemic racism and white supremacy; against Trump; nature of police unions; more...
George Floyd's final words - A poem from Hell
Re: Demands for Trump Removal Grow as 'Fascist' Speech Condemned as Declaration of War Against US Public (Jackie Kuikman; Aida Rivera; Carver Foursquare)
Re: Minneapolis Council Member: 'Police in the City Failed Us' in Protest Response; The Death of George Floyd, in Context (Robin Yeamans; Alba Grace Pereira Medina; Ignacia Olvera)
Re: Officer Charged With 3rd Degree Murder in Death of George Floyd (Alan Gregory Wonderwheel; Virgil Almodovar; Clint Kerkez; Edna Martinez)
Rise Up -- meme from Organizing Upgrade
Murder of Black and Brown men and WOMEN by police (Claire O'Connor)
What to you want to be...Alive
California Police...Terrorize and Traumatize African American Girl (photo of Long Beach police by Richard Grant)
Re: Donald Trump Is Trying to Start a Race War (Byron Charlton; Donna Marie Martin; Nomar Knight)
Re: Policing in the US is Not About Enforcing Law. It's About Enforcing White Supremacy (Julio Tito Ortiz)
Re: There's One Big Reason Why Police Brutality Is So Common In The US. And That's The Police Unions. (Bruce Thompson; Ed Ott)
Re: Minnesota AFL-CIO Calls for Minneapolis Police Union President Bob Kroll's Immediate Resignation (Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, U.S. Section; Linda Crowley)
Re: America must Listen to its Wounds. They Will Tell Us Where to Look for Hope (Rosalina Rosario Melendez; Dan Morgan)
Re: Trump's Warped Definition of Free Speech (Capn' Steve Krug)
Throw another log on the dumpster fire -- cartoon by Matt Wuerker
Re: Why Trump and the GOP Don't Want Mail Voting (Mike Arney; Buz Whelan)
Re: The Corrupt Bargain: Inequities of the Electoral College, Past and Present (Bob Feb; Gog Sheklah)
Re: Coming Soon: Bipartisan Deficit Hawks Calling for Austerity (Patricia Dowling)
Re: The Bureau of Land Management Went Out of Its Way to Provide Pandemic Relief to Oil Companies (Roberto Colon Ocasio)
We Must Dismantle White Supremacy - Silence is NOT an Option (Corporate statement from Ben & Jerry's)
Line of white people forming a barrier between Black protestors and the police. - Kentucky National Organization for Women
Re: United Steelworkers on Solidarity and Justice for Black Lives (Laurel Sefton MacDowell)
An Injury To One... #JusticeForGeorgeFloyd (US Labor Against the War (USLAW))
"Stop Killing Us!" " Black Lives Matter!" (Fred L. Pincus)
Re: It's Not Whether You Were Exposed to the Virus. It's How Much. (Rosie Calderon)
Re: Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, HBO and Paramount Take a Stand in Support of Black Lives Matter Movement Amid George Floyd Protests (Robert Stapleton)
Re: Global Left Midweek - May 27, 2020 (Elisabette Calero)
Re: After Losing Hope for Change, Top Left-wing Activists and Scholars Leave Israel Behind (Harry Bowman)
Re: Another Bank Bailout Under Cover of a Virus (Alfredo Viscasillas)
Resources:
Let Us Build a New World Together (Center for the Study of Political Graphics)
Call on Me, Not the Cops (18 Million Rising)
Announcements:
Blacklisting During a Pandemic (Farm Labor Organizing Committee, AFL-CIO)
Fighting for CUNY / Rebuilding NYC - June 11 (CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies)
George Floyd's final words - A poem from Hell
"It's my face man
I didn't do nothing serious man
please
please
please I can't breathe
please man
please somebody
please man
I can't breathe
I can't breathe
please
(inaudible)
man can't breathe, my face
just get up
I can't breathe
please (inaudible)
I can't breathe sh*t
I will
I can't move
mama
mama
I can't
my knee
my nuts
I'm through
I'm through
I'm claustrophobic
my stomach hurt
my neck hurts
everything hurts
some water or something
please
please
I can't breathe officer
don't kill me
they gon' kill me man
come on man
I cannot breathe
I cannot breathe
they gon' kill me
they gon' kill me
I can't breathe
I can't breathe
please sir
please
please
please I can't breathe"
Then his eyes shut and the pleas stop. George Floyd was pronounced dead shortly after.
[Sally Dugman, in CounterCurrents.org (India) - May 31, 2020]
Get him out. He's a cancer on society and the human race
Jackie Kuikman
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
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It was a great mistake of the US to choose this man as president... the consequences will be long lasting... he us destroying this nation... and to what purpose? If there is any purpose or just plain incompetence.
Aida Rivera
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
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Carver Foursquare
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
The video of Floyd's death is horrific but not surprising; terrible but not unusual, depicting a kind of incident that is periodically reenacted in the United States. It's both necessary and, at this point, pedestrian to observe that policing in this country is mediated by race.
The investigation into Floyd's death also exists in the context of an ongoing investigation into the death of Ahmaud Arbery, a twenty-five-year-old African-American who was shot in southeast Georgia when two men attempted to enact a citizen's arrest while a third recorded a video of the incident. There is yet another investigation of fatal police force in Louisville, Kentucky, where Breonna Taylor, a twenty-six-year-old African-American E.M.T., was shot to death in her apartment by officers who were conducting a drug raid at what her family said was the wrong address.
City Council Member Jeremiah Ellison is among those condemning the police response to protests over the killing of George Floyd. Officers in riot gear responded with force.
Robin Yeamans
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
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It would be interesting to know whats going on internally with the culture and the training police are receiving. How is it that a policeman openly kills a human being without any fear of consequences.
Alba Grace Pereira Medina
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
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Now is the time to demand that all political prisoners are free. There are many wrongly incarcerated.
Ignacia Olvera
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
Re: Officer Charged With 3rd Degree Murder in Death of George Floyd
"3rd degree murder" is based on the claim that he did not "intend" to kill him and Floyd's death was not foreseeable under the circumstances, and Floyd's death was just the result of negligent conduct. I don't agree. He should have been charged with 2nd degree murder because the officer intended to choke Floyd and the death was foreseeable after 7 to 9 minutes of choking.
Alan Gregory Wonderwheel
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
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Virgil Almodovar
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
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Yes , they have a rock solid case I feel for 2nd degree not 1st and 3rd degree isn't enough .
Clint Kerkez
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
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Animal. Monster. All 4 need to be charge.
Edna Martinez
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
Rise Up -- meme from Organizing Upgrade
Organizing Upgrade
post on Facebook
Murder of Black and Brown men and WOMEN by police
YES I get it. I get why and how George Floyd was brutally murdered. And I get that if we are going to get justice for him and end a system that rests on racially motivated violence we must continue and escalate the people's peaceful and non violent push back. BUT has anyone noticed??? Breonna Taylor of Louisville Kentucky was murdered in her bed by a policeman. Where is the outrage? Oh, never mind. True she was Black but only a woman. Until this morning, I had forgotten her too. Why is that?
Claire O'Connor
Minneapolis MN
What to you want to be...Alive
Richard Grant
Twitter
[Richard Grant is an Army Veteran. Aspiring Journalist and Photographer. CSULB Class of 2021 Photographer for Cal State Long Beach and the @Daily49er ]
Re: Donald Trump Is Trying to Start a Race War
I disagree, the race war started in 1619 at Jamestown. Unfortunately, Trump is convening the open version that most Americans were in self-denial of its existence.
Byron Charlton
=====
THIS WOULD NOT surprise me............his upbringing in a KKK home life would almost guarantee that to happen!!!!!
Donna Marie Martin
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
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We've been in a race war. He's just trying to crank it up a notch.
Nomar Knight
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
Re: Policing in the US is Not About Enforcing Law. It's About Enforcing White Supremacy
' On Friday the CNN journalist Omar Jimenez was arrested on live television as he covered protests of police brutality in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Jimenez identifies as African American and Hispanic, and when the cops confronted him, he did just what minority parents tell their kids to do. Jimenez cooperated; he was respectful, deferential even. He said "we can move back to where you like . We are getting out of your way . Wherever you want us, we will go."
It didn't matter; the police officers put handcuffs on him and led him away, and then came back to arrest his crew. Jimenez narrated his arrest as they led him away. His voice is steady. His eyes, though. Jimenez is masked so his eyes are the only clue to what he's feeling. His eyes are perplexed and terrified. I get it. When a black or brown person goes into police custody, you never know what is going to happen. You just know that when you leave police custody, if you are lucky enough to leave, you will be diminished. That is the point.
What's most interesting is not that Jimenez and his colleagues were released shortly thereafter without any charges filed (or even being told why they had been taken into custody). That's what class will buy a black man in America. You don't get it quite as bad as your lower-income brethren. Jeff Zucker, the CNN president, talked to Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota, and the crew was quickly released. With an apology from the governor, not the cops. Cops rarely apologize, especially to black men.
But what's most interesting is what happened to Josh Campbell, a white CNN journalist who was in the same area as Jimenez and not arrested. Campbell said his experience was the "opposite" of Jimenez's. The cops asked him "politely to move here and there". "A couple times I've moved closer than they would like. They asked politely to move back. They didn't pull out the handcuffs."
It's a cliche that the US has two systems of justice, separate and unequal, but I prefer the word Campbell used. The US has "opposite" systems of justice - one for white people and another for racial minorities, especially African Americans, Latinx and Native American people.
Julio Tito Ortiz
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
(posting on Portside Labor)
Not the union. Blame the people in the union.
Cities, counties, and states are hiring bad people. Stop hiring bullies.
Bruce Thompson
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
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I agree. They use their," Rights", to deny others theirs.
Ed Ott
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
Re: Minnesota AFL-CIO Calls for Minneapolis Police Union President Bob Kroll's Immediate Resignation
(posting on Portside Labor)
Minneapolis Police Union President, Bob Kroll, has failed the Labor Movement and the residents of Minneapolis. Bob Kroll has a long history of bigoted remarks and complaints of violence made against him. The Minnesota AFL-CIO has asked him to resign.
Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, U.S. Section
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
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Cops are Workers Too. BUT. They And Their Leader Act Like They are ABOVE THE LAW !!
KROLL. R E S I G N !!
Linda Crowley
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
Re: America must Listen to its Wounds. They Will Tell Us Where to Look for Hope
Black people are not invisible, of course you have to see them, that is precisely the problem , people don't accept them for what they are BLACK !!!!!
Rosalina Rosario Melendez
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
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I remember asking why bussing was stopped. It aimed at ensuring racial integration in schools. Until Black and White grow up together, racism will not end.
Dan Morgan
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
Re: Trump's Warped Definition of Free Speech
This exactly sums up the far rights idea of free speech: I get to say what I want, you cannot criticize/respond to what i say. It is why they created Fox News, not because their message wasn't getting out, but because they can blather on and on without being challenged.
Nat Hentoff is probably rolling in his grave, toward the end of his life he took the left to task for censorship, we now see how the rich and powerful really feel about free speech as they try and squelch opposing ideas.
Capn' Steve Krug
Throw another log on the dumpster fire -- cartoon by Matt Wuerker
Matt Wuerker
August 14, 2018
Re: Why Trump and the GOP Don't Want Mail Voting
Hartman is on target: absentee voting can be a countermove against some GOP voter suppression, thriving in states with many organized Democratic Party voters. Guaranteed on that list, though not exclusive to it, are states with large Black and (certain) Latino populations.
Readers should not conclude that Republicans everywhere are against mail-in voting or absentee ballots. They are not always opposed to it, and in fact favor it, in states in which they have (practically) nothing to lose. Utah is one of five states that conducts "all-mail" elections. It is nearly our "reddest" state, with Republicans holding the governorship, nearly 80 percent of the state senate and house seats, both U.S. Senate seats, and three of the four seats in the House. (The fourth seat is held by a Blue Dog Democrat, not a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.) Of course, this method of voting is not the country's norm. But it shows that the GOP is fine with mail-in voting from the Right voters.
Republicans in Florida have mobilized the absentee vote for decades. Since 1999, the GOP has controlled both houses of the state legislature and all but two years of the governorship. Of course, that tactic does not preclude anti-democratic maneuvers (gerrymandering, voter registration impediments, voter suppression, including purging Democratic voters without telling them), in Florida or anywhere else.
For South Dakota's June primary, every active registered voter will receive an absentee ballot in the mail. Admittedly, not sending to "inactive" voters will clip more Democrats and perhaps independents than Republicans. Regardless, this is one of the safest states for the GOP. The governor is Republican, as are around 85 percent of the state legislators, both U.S. Senators, and its one House member. Like Utah, South Dakota has no formidable, organized, enfranchised political threat to extreme right rule. True, its absentee voting rules are harsh: ballots must be notarized or include a photocopy of acceptable photo identification. For voters without access to copy machines, however, photos from phones or cameras can be emailed.
Especially in our new COVID-19 reality, voting by mail might become necessary to hold off the Right and score our own electoral victories. Yes, state and local boards of elections are uneven and often inefficient. And yes, each state's absentee voting rules differ in fairness, obstacles, requiring excuses or not, deadlines, costs to voters, etc. (Your U.S. brand of federalism at work.) The left, progressive and liberal movements must organize and fight these obstacles, in courts, legislatures, and voter assistance work.
And if Florida's Democrats get significantly stronger and eventually are poised to end the Republican trifecta, the state GOP will realize that absentee voting hurts more than helps its hold on political power.
Mike Arney
Bronx, NY
=====
Any vote not cast is a vote for Trump.
Buz Whelan
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
Re: The Corrupt Bargain: Inequities of the Electoral College, Past and Present
(posting on Portside Culture)
I could never understood, why every city, county, state and as a matter of fact every county in the world, a political candidate wins an election by getting 50% plus one vote and it's all over. Even our SCOTUS decides for approximately 330 million people on a 5 to 4 vote, but in the good old of the USA we need to have electoral votes. I know that our founding fathers were thinking right for those times, but we're living in a new world now.
Bob Feb
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
=====
Yikes! That's a lot more convoluted, corrupt and racist than I ever could imagine.
Gog Sheklah
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
Re: Coming Soon: Bipartisan Deficit Hawks Calling for Austerity
Soon the self-appointed guardians of "fiscal responsibility" will call for cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and SNAP, while leaving the defense budget and large tax breaks for the wealthy intact.
Patricia Dowling
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
Re: The Bureau of Land Management Went Out of Its Way to Provide Pandemic Relief to Oil Companies
The world is looking for alternatives to petroleum, prices are lowering, there is over-production and yet, the US government is opening for production its lands. Why? Who will benefit from this?
Roberto Colon Ocasio
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
All of us at Ben & Jerry's are outraged about the murder of another Black person by Minneapolis police officers last week and the continued violent response by police against protestors. We have to speak out. We have to stand together with the victims of murder, marginalization, and repression because of their skin color, and with those who seek justice through protests across our country. We have to say his name: George Floyd.
George Floyd was a son, a brother, a father, and a friend. The police officer who put his knee on George Floyd's neck and the police officers who stood by and watched didn't just murder George Floyd, they stole him. They stole him from his family and his friends, his church and his community, and from his own future.
The murder of George Floyd was the result of inhumane police brutality that is perpetuated by a culture of white supremacy. What happened to George Floyd was not the result of a bad apple; it was the predictable consequence of a racist and prejudiced system and culture that has treated Black bodies as the enemy from the beginning. What happened to George Floyd in Minneapolis is the fruit borne of toxic seeds planted on the shores of our country in Jamestown in 1619, when the first enslaved men and women arrived on this continent. Floyd is the latest in a long list of names that stretches back to that time and that shore. Some of those names we know - Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Oscar Grant, Eric Garner, Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Emmett Till, Martin Luther King, Jr. - most we don't.
The officers who murdered George Floyd, who stole him from those who loved him, must be brought to justice. At the same time, we must embark on the more complicated work of delivering justice for all the victims of state sponsored violence and racism.
Four years ago, we publicly stated our support for the Black Lives Matter movement. Today, we want to be even more clear about the urgent need to take concrete steps to dismantle white supremacy in all its forms. To do that, we are calling for four things:
First, we call upon President Trump, elected officials, and political parties to commit our nation to a formal process of healing and reconciliation. Instead of calling for the use of aggressive tactics on protestors, the President must take the first step by disavowing white supremacists and nationalist groups that overtly support him, and by not using his Twitter feed to promote and normalize their ideas and agendas. The world is watching America’s response.
Read full statement here.
May 28 - 6th and Jefferson in Louisville. This is a line of white people forming a barrier between Black protestors and the police. This is love. This is what you do with your privilege. #NoJusticeNoPeace #SayHerName #BreonnaTaylor
Photo credit: Tim Druck
Kentucky National Organization for Women
post on Facebook
Re: United Steelworkers on Solidarity and Justice for Black Lives
(posting on Portside Labor)
My father was a director of the USW. It is a great union and a wonderful organization. Thank you for printing this message. It filled me with great pride.
Laurel Sefton MacDowell
An Injury To One... #JusticeForGeorgeFloyd (US Labor Against the War (USLAW))
George Floyd was a worker. For those in the labor movement, police being used to break up our pickets, strikes and frame trade unionists on behalf of the boss is nothing new. Both at home and abroad, the big business elite use militarization to destruct our communities and target black workers. Racism and the divide-and-conquering of the working class is all a profit-driven system knows.
Our affiliate Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) and Local 1005 are leading a response for justice in a time when black workers are hurting deeply. The bus drivers local in Minneapolis and St. Paul, issued a bold letter of solidarity with the protesters, calling for “a new Civil Rights Movement ... that is joined with the labor movement.” ATU President John Costa, representing more than 200,000 transit workers, responded swiftly by calling any use of union labor to transport police to protests "a misuse of public transit.”
All working people must stand with them and the black working class at large. Policing is looking more and more like a military operation, and the constant presence of police in black communities is a war occupation. This is bold union leadership on the right side of history.
Meanwhile, in the mainstream press, large defense contractors are continuing their racist hysteria against workers in China, Venezuela, Iran and throughout the globe. Just during this pandemic, the U.S. big business class has made $485 billion off of working people, but they have been looting from black workers from around the world for centuries. After all, war is a big business.
The demand is clear: All four of the Minneapolis police officers must be charged and arrested. As a labor movement, we must stand with the family of George Floyd and all of our black brothers and sisters whose communities have been uprooted by police violence.
In struggle and solidarity,
Yasemin Zahra
USLAW Chairwoman
U.S. Labor Against the War (USLAW)
"Stop Killing Us!" " Black Lives Matter!"
These are two of the chants heard by protesters around the country following the videotaped, brutal murder of George Floyd by white Minnesota police officers. The large, militant protests carry the burden of history.
President Trump's authoritarian, militaristic, law-and-order approach reflects the traditional conservative, hard-line view blaming outside agitators and criminals for the disorder. Liberals, on the other hand, focus on underlying causes including improving relations between the police and communities of color.
The explanations are old hat. For those who are knowledgeable about the history of racism and riots in the United States, these comments have a familiar ring. Consider the following quotation from a report analyzing a previous race riot that eerily overlaps with what we are hearing in 2020:
"[The} Chief of Police, in explaining the inability of the police to curb the rioters, said that there was not a sufficient force to police one-third of the city. Aside from this, Negroes distrusted the white police officers, and it was implied by the chief and stated by [the] State's Attorney that many of the police were `grossly unfair in making arrests.'"
If you thought these quotes described the 1992 Los Angeles riots that resulted from the acquittal of white police officers who had participated in a videotaped beating of motorist Rodney King the year before, you would be wrong. Nor did the quote come from the Kerner Commission Report describing the 1967 riots in Detroit and other cities prior to the assassination of Martin Luther King.
These words were written almost a century ago in 1922, by the Chicago Commission on Race Relations in their report The Negro in Chicago: A Study of Race Relations and a Race Riot in 1919. On July 27, 1919, almost 101 years before George Floyd's murder and ninety-six years before Freddie Gray died in police custody in Baltimore, a black boy drowned after a clash between blacks and whites on a Chicago beach. A three-day riot exploded resulting in thirty-eight deaths (23 blacks and 15 whites) and 537 injuries.
The official 672-page report, has chapters about the underlying causes of the 1919 riot including racial discrimination in housing, criminal justice, education and employment. Other chapters outline white prejudice against blacks which, according to the report, is partly caused by stereotyped reporting by the media. "Constant identification of Negroes with certain definite crimes could have no other effect than to stamp the entire Negro group in the public mind as generally criminal. This in turn contributes to the already existing belief that Negroes, as a group are more likely to be criminal than others, and thus they are arrested more readily than others."
Although much has changed since 1919, Black men and women are still disproportionately being killed by police. The media is generally more aware of racial inequality now than in the past, although Fox news is more mired in the past. Most of today's protesters probably never heard of the 1919 Chicago riot, but they have experienced enough injustice to know that things have to change. It took three days to charge the Minneapolis officer who suffocated George Floyd and five more days to charge the other three. The shooting of Ahmaud Arbery in April shows that white vigilantes still don't respect black bodies. It took more than two months to arrest Arbery's killers. Breonna Taylor was killed in her bed after police broke down her front door; they had the wrong address.
"No justice, no peace" is another chant that is frequently heard. Many protestors expressed frustration and anger at the mounting toll of innocent blacks being killed by the police.
Sixty-nine years ago, Langston Hughes, the famous black poet, expressed it better than any of the reports in his poem "Harlem:"
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore --
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over -
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
[Fred L. Pincus is Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. His memoir, Confessions of a Radical Academic, will be published by Adelaide Books in June.]
Re: It's Not Whether You Were Exposed to the Virus. It's How Much.
Three factors seem to be particularly important for aerosol transmission: proximity to the infected person, air flow and timing.
"This is not a virus for which hand washing seems like it will be enough," Dr. Rabinowitz said. "We have to limit crowds, we have to wear masks."
Rosie Calderon
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
(posting on Portside Culture)
Great. Look forward to them hiring more black directors and writers for creative content.
Robert Stapleton
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
Re: Global Left Midweek - May 27, 2020
Thank you, absolutely necessary. A new reality to be assumed immediately.
Elisabette Calero
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
Re: After Losing Hope for Change, Top Left-wing Activists and Scholars Leave Israel Behind
It isn't just the activists. Some estimates suggest that something like 10% of Israeli Jews have left in the last 40 years, and the hopelessness of the Jewish state's endless war on the non-Jewish people of the Land of Israel is a big part of why they left.
Harry Bowman
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
Re: Another Bank Bailout Under Cover of a Virus
A disaster is ripe for taking advantage of it. It's time to make money!
Alfredo Viscasillas
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
Let Us Build a New World Together (Center for the Study of Political Graphics)
Design: Mark Suckle
Photo: Danny Lyon
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)
Lincoln Lithograph Company
Offset, 1962/3
Atlanta, GA 32404
Nearly 60 years separates these two images -- but the toxic racism that was protested during the Civil Rights Movement still requires protest. The need for justice is the same. The top photo was taken in 1962, during a protest organized by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) against a whites-only swimming pool in Cairo, Illinois. Praying on the left is John R. Lewis, then SNCC field secretary, later SNCC Chair (1963-66), and a member of Congress from Georgia since 1987.
The lower image was taken today at the site where George Floyd was murdered last week in Minneapolis. Kneeling from the left is Floyd family attorney Ben Crump with Quincy Mason, one of George Floyd's children.
In spite of Covid-19, tens of thousands of people continue to protest around the country and around the world....
Center for the Study of Political Graphics
3916 Sepulveda Blvd, Suite 103
Culver City, CA 90230
Call on Me, Not the Cops (18 Million Rising)
What is Black Lives Matter in action for Asian Americans?
In this defining moment, with powerful uprisings across the country in defense of Black lives stolen by state violence, the time to reimagine safety and practice solidarity is now.
In addition to supporting Black-led movements, we must have hard conversations with our loved ones and commit to not calling the police on Black people.
Across the country, police are killing Black people. Tony McDade, Breonna Taylor, Sean Reed and George Floyd were all murdered by police officers. The police increase violence against all Black people. That we can name at least four Black people who have been murdered by the police in the past three months, shows us that this is more than an issue of a “few bad cops.”
Calling the police means someone could lose their life. Especially if we own businesses or are homeowners, we can stop violence against Black people by not involving the police. In Minneapolis, a convenience store employee called the police on George Floyd for allegedly using a fake $20 bill. What was the police’s response? They killed him. Police do not deescalate conflict, they incite it. Had this convenience store owner and his employees known to not call the police, George Floyd would be alive today [1].
Organizing our families towards Black liberation is essential work. Yet, we know there are few roadmaps for having these hard conversations. In addition to taking this pledge, we wrote a letter for you to share with family members on why they must stop calling the police [2]. When it comes to police violence, we cannot afford to ‘agree to disagree.’ We ask that you share this letter with them and transform how Asian Americans show up in defense of Black lives.
In solidarity,
sumi, Laura, Cayden, Bianca, Turner, Irma and Charlene -- The 18MR Team
[1] The Cut
[2] "Call On Me, Not the Cops" Letter
Blacklisting During a Pandemic (Farm Labor Organizing Committee, AFL-CIO)
I write today with an urgent action to support two dozen blacklisted FLOC members on Reynolds farms that grow tobacco and sweet potatoes.
Please sign here to tell Reynolds, PMI, and their industry front group that enough is enough!
With a global crisis ongoing, Reynolds continues to avoid taking action to support tens of thousands of exploited workers in their supply chain. Last year, FLOC members bravely spoke up and demanded an end to wage theft, unsanitary kitchen facilities, and the recognition of their union. Instead of negotiating, the grower simply retaliated and refused to rehire any union members in 2020. Reynolds and PMI are complicit, knowing this and simply asking the grower not to do it again, but otherwise continue business as usual, even as they cut contracts with union growers who comply with higher standards.
Instead, they are spending millions of dollars to create an industry front group to hide abuses in their supply chain. We have to take a stand and tell them to put that money where it belongs: Into the pockets of the growers and the men and women that harvest tobacco, sweet potatoes, and dozens of other crops by changing the way they do business.
This is why we #boycottVUSE, Reynolds key e-cigarette brand in the US!
Follow us on Facebook for more info about how workers are fighting back during the pandemic and please sign and share the petition!
On behalf of thousands of hardworking FLOC members, we thank everyone who continues to support our efforts to bring justice to the agricultural system.
|
To find out more about the Farm Labor Organizing Committee, AFL-CIO, please visit our website at www.floc.com. |
Fighting for CUNY / Rebuilding NYC - June 11 (CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies)
FIGHTING FOR CUNY / REBUILDING NYC
Thursday, June 11 -- 10 AM to 11:30 AM
Register here
PLEASE NOTE: The ZOOM link will be sent to registrants the day before the event.
A Zoom forum on past, present and future efforts and struggles to save CUNY as a working-class institution that embodies the best of our city’s hopes and aspirations for equality and diversity in public higher education. Sponsored by the CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies (SLU).
Featured Speakers:
- Stephen Brier, Professor of Urban Education, CUNY Graduate Center and Professor of Labor Studies, SLU
- Jamell Henderson, Coordinator, CUNY Rising Alliance and 4-time CUNY graduate
- Justin Sánchez, Co-chair SLU Student Union and student in the B.A. Program in Urban and Community Studies
- Andrea Ades Vásquez, First Vice President, Professional Staff Congress, CUNY
The panelists' presentations, which will focus on ideas and examples of how CUNY can be saved from austerity and how NYC can be resurrected, will be followed by a Q&A session with the Zoom audience, moderated by Penny Lewis, Professor of Labor Studies, SLU.
CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies
25 West 43rd Street, 18th Floor
New York, NY 10036
Spread the word