The International League of Peoples’ Struggle-US Chapter (ILPS US) expresses its firmest solidarity and support to the Black liberation movement, the friends and family of George Floyd and to all of the people taking to the streets in Minneapolis and elsewhere to demand justice, accountability and an end to racist and colonial police terror.
As the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression stated,“Yet another murder of an unarmed Black person in the month of May. Finan Berhe, in Springfield, MD, Ahmaud Arbery in Brunswick, GA, Breonna Taylor in Louisville, KY and now George Floyd in Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN and all this in the worst pandemic in a century. What an outrage, what an American made tragedy that the lynching of Black people continues unabated, that racist terror continues to stalk the land like a beast of prey.”
The officers responsible for the death of George Floyd would not have been arrested and charged if not for the militant struggle waged by the people of Minneapolis. The recent murders are a reflection of the institutional, racist, oppressive structure of U.S. policing linked to imperialism and neoliberalism.
Black lives are being taken by police during a global pandemic that has disproportionately affected Black people in the U.S. This pandemic has already exposed the contradictions of capitalism as a system that hordes profit for the elite, keeps basic human needs inaccessible to the poor and working class, and leaves individuals to find their own means of survival. During COVID-19 when resources are desperately needed, thousands of dollars go instead to the police to terrorize black communities, attack protestors, and defend the riches of the ruling class.We condemn the police’s militarized practices against protestors, which includes firing marking rounds, flash bang grenades, and deploying tear gas. We condemn the ruling class – including mayors and governors across the U.S. – who sanction increased terror and violence against people, prioritizing the safety of property and businesses over the safety of people and communities. The current imposition of curfews across multiple cities and deployment of upwards of 5,000 National Guard troops across the nation are martial law tactics in an increasingly militarized state to control the peoples’ uprisings against this rotten racist and imperialist system.Just as the U.S. military is a force of occupation in colonial and semi-colonial countries around the world, time and time again we see that the U.S. police nationwide are also forces of occupation inside cities and communities.
Thus, it is no surprise that the U.S. police and U.S. military continue the sharing of tactics and joint colonial approach to wage terror on poor, working class, Black, and Brown communities both at home and abroad. The promise of the Trump Administration to Minnesota Governor Tim Wallace to provide military support to the racist and violent policing of protesters in Minneapolis exposes the links between domestic and foreign imperialist U.S. policies.The guise of national security and combating the destruction of property has turned the U.S. imperialist state and its coercive instruments more violent and more terrorist than ever before.
The aggravated use of militarized police force on civilians organizing actions is a violation of peoples’ civil and political rights. We must expose and oppose imperialist violence and aggression at home and abroad in the spirit of genuine internationalism.We must move toward escalated and meaningful action in solidarity with the Black liberation movement. There is a profound legacy and history of internationalism and joint struggle against the imperialist state that resonates in the past, present, and futures of all anti-colonial, anti-imperialist liberation struggles around the world.
We know that these structures will not budge without a united mass struggle that calls for a new social order.Tens of thousands have already mobilized in different cities across the nation, making clear that we must resist the state-sanctioned terror being waged by police forces and vigilantes against oppressed communities. As we continue to resist, we must also learn from Black revolutionaries to not just rebel, but to also organize.The murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis Police Department is part of a larger history of heinous crimes committed by United States locally, nationally, and globally, from the genocide of Indigenous peoples and the enslavement of Black people (which continues today with their mass incarceration), to the killings of Black and indigenous peoples, especially Black and Indigenous women and trans communities, to continued wars of aggression and murderous sanctions of U.S. empire.
Imperialism is digging its own grave by agitating the masses of oppressed people around the world. We will continue to heighten its contradictions through united mass struggle and growing people’s defense of their lives and livelihood.
The ILPS US Chapter calls on all people of the world to fight for liberation and justice against all forms of oppression and exploitation by U.S. imperialism and its accomplices. We urge people to 1) mobilize and continue speaking out in solidarity, and 2) join organizations and alliances against imperialism to continue the struggle for a new world.In the spirit of international solidarity, we support the uprisings in Minneapolis and around the world, and honor the traditions of Black struggle, Black organizing, and Black resistance.#JusticeForGeorgeFloyd#CommunityControlNOW#StopPoliceCrimes#MassReleaseNOW#FreeThemAll
Article published by ILPS US on June 5, 2020