MAS DE 150 PERSONAS DEMANDARON UN ALTO A LA BRUTALIDAD POLICIACA RACIAL / More than 150 demand an end to racist police brutality
By Carlos Mark and Niger Arevalo
Video coverage to follow soon (English below)
Mas de 150 personas marcharon al sur de la ciudad de Minneapolis en las calles Chicago y Lake, para demandar un alto a la brutalidad policiaca y justicia para Oscar Grant que fue asesinado por agentes policiales en Oakland California.
El 8 de Julio, del 2010 el oficial de la policia Johannes Mehserle fue encontrado culpable de asesinar sin prejuicio premeditado a Oscar Grant el primero de Enero del 2009, en Oakland California. Mehserle fue sacado de la corte esposado y bajo custodia. La sentencia fue esperada este dia, por el cual muchos movimientos en contra de la brutalidad policiaca al rededor del pais se tomaron las calles para demandar justicia.
Las personas comenzaron a llegar a las 8pm en la Chicago Avenida, al sur de Minneapolis, en donde comenzaron con cantos a voz baja, conforme el tiempo fue pasando mas personas se hicieron presente y los cantos comenzaron a escucharce con mayor fuerza, demandando justicia.
Estas voces se alzaban entremedio de los carteles y mantas que adornaban la marcha, Una frace que resonaba a toda viva voz eran " Fuck the Police".
La marcha siguio su curso en cual consistia en visitar la estacion de policia que esta situada en la Nicollet Avenida y La calle 31, luego siguio su recorrido hasta la Avenida Lyndel, en donde se dio retorno al punto de inicio. No hubo agresion de parte de la policia ni de los manifestantes, al llegar al punto en donde la marcha habia comenzado, la marcha se torno en una celebracion y baile, con cantos demandando Justicia.
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More the 150 people took the street in Minneapolis to demand justice for the assassination of Oscar Grant. Protesters drew parallels between the Oscar Grant case and Fong Lee, who was shot by St Paul police in 2006. Speakers also talked about police killings coast to coast and in Minnesota. Since there is no official, effective method of holding police accountable for their crimes, speakers said that street demonstrations and popular resistance were the only options.
As it progressed down Lake Street, the march was cheered by the majority of passers-by and joined by a number of people. Watchers expressed all kinds of feelings, from rage at police unaccountability here in Minnesota to shock at the Oscar Grant verdict to frustration that people of color are often arrested when they protest police brutality.
On July 8th, 2010, former BART police officer Johannes Mehserle was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter for shooting and killing Oscar Grant on January 1st, 2009 in Oakland, California. Mehserle was led away from the courtroom in handcuffs and is now in custody. His sentencing is expected on Friday, August 6th. Involuntary manslaughter can carry 2, 4, and 6 years, with 10 added for a gun enhancement--although there is a "probabation" option.
People started gathering at 8pm at Chicago and Lake street in south Minneapolis, where they were ready to demand justice and stop the police brutality. Chants started off low, but after a few minutes they started raising their voices. Carrying banners and posters they demanded justice and they used the popular phrase " Fuck the Police". There was no aggression between the protesters and the police. The protesters took one side of Lake street, where they demonstrated the power of the people by holding the street until Uptown, and after a long walk returned to where they began, ending with chanting and a dance party in the street. As officers watched from their squad cars, the enthusiastic crowd kept chanting, "Nobody likes you, everybody hates you!"
Comments
After the march I went to a
After the march I went to a house show/party not far from the gathering spot and two interesting things happened I would like to share:
1) Someone in attendance at said party who was not participating in the march but was on the sidewalk overheard one cop telling another passerby "we're waiting for the signal so we can light them up" - I’ll leave you to interpret this phrase yourself.
2) Eventually this party was crashed by two uninvited guests who happened to be officers involved in surveillance of the march earlier in the night. My friend and I asked them if they had heard about it without informing them we participated and with the arrogant tone cops are known for they tried to discredit the march by saying that it consisted of only twenty people, maybe less. After this my friend and I informed them we were there and that there was clearly way more than twenty people and they still stuck to their story even though they knew they were wrong.
The party went on without further police interference
That sure is interesting to
That sure is interesting to know. I wonder, were we too many to "light up", did they think it would look bad, were local cops on call for something else at the critical moment?
Thanks for posting this.
attendance, etc
i think the actual attendance was certainly less than 100, but i suppose if the cops say 20, then we can make a pretty obvious exaggeration on our end, too ;-)
i also think a number of factors may have played a part in the cops behaving. number one, oscar grant wasn't from minneapolis. also, people successfully caught them off guard by sticking to word-of-mouth promotion until almost the evening of the demo itself. there were no cops there when it left the transit station and the first cops to show up didn't know what to do. plus, being on lake street on a warm friday night was a win. if they wanted to fuck with the demo, they would've had to fuck with and meet resistance from many others on the street, too. all in all, it seems to me like a good recipe for a successful action that can be easily replicated when shit goes down, for example the next time someone gets killed by cops in minneapolis - and you know that's gonna happen again before long.
or you could do something
or you could do something other than the tired old march around in circles...or in minneapolis' case up and down lake street.
get creative people.
oh and yelling, "let them go,
oh and yelling, "let them go, let them go" is not resisting a police attack on a march. not that you said that is what would happen if the police attacked the march but because that is what WOULD happen at that march, down lake street, in minneapolis, on a warm summer evening.
please demonstrate the
please demonstrate the correct way to struggle, not with your words but with actions. That way we will all know what we should be doing.
The thing I want to know is
The thing I want to know is people get so up in arms about this when the police officer got charged with a crime and is going to prison yes for only 4-6 years but still his life is ruined. Yet there are a hundred instances of other murders that people get little or no time for and no one starts a protest for those deaths. I don't remember a protest when Kirsten Driscoll who was drunk driving on her way home from her daughters graduation party and ran into a bus stop killing Chris Iverson who was just waiting for a bus. "innocent victim" There were no protests when this happened how come? Isn't this an injustice to the Iverson family?
Her sentence was 1 year in the workhouse, no jail time when state guidelines call for 4 years in prison. Where is the outrage to that, it must be that she is a white wealthy woman and she was just drinking alcohol and when you drink what you do after that is not your fault. Right?
Feel free to promote, flier
Feel free to promote, flier for, and protest any police killing you would like. Unfortuantely there seems to be more murder than there is energy to confront it. Oscar Grant was, in some ways, a perfect storm of repressive violence. It's not just about the one case, it's about building movement to put a stop to police (murder).
Aren't you...
...kind of missing the point of the comment above, in that (as I read it) people only express outrage over so-called "excusable" murders when police (or other forces of "repression") are involved, but don't give a shit when drunk random people are at fault, and there's - as is the case with drunk-driving murders - a less-than-zero percent chance it could have been in "self defense".
Um, no.
Because condemning drunk drivers is socially accepted in our society. Everyone from grade school guidance counsellors to Mothers Against Drunk Driving to the multimillion dollar highway patrol "Stop Drinking and Driving" campaign are working to curb drunk drivers. Even the alcohol companies encourage "Responsible drinking." Second, there is no evidence to show that drunk drivers are more inclined to racially profile their victims.
On the otherhand, holding police accountable to their actions is socially taboo. Police wield enormous amounts of power in our society, and they rarely, if ever, face prison time for abusing or murdering people -- especially if the victims are people of color or queer people. Where are the groups for these sorts of misconduct? They're absent, and when people actually organize to resist this injustice -- they're discredited by people (like you) who seem to think that the police's (metaphorical or not) shit doesn't stink.
Poseurs
Black people are being killed every week in North Minneapolis and all you jerks care about is when some white cop pulls the trigger. Another martyr for your cause.
You bunch of racist creeps.
As a white dude who tries not
As a white dude who tries not to be a racist creep, this is a question that's worth thinking about. I think that there's probably a lot of work that could be done about violence in north MPLS. It's probably also important to realize that that violence is also the result of a series of structural factors that are directly tied to police violence like the Oscar Grant case. But, I don't live in N. Minneapolis, and I don't have any experience doing anything there. In my limited experience with (mostly white) people who organize in the twin cities, it seems to me that a lot of us are still in a process (probably a perpetual process, actually) of learning how to be allies and work with communities that are mostly not white in ways that aren't damaging.
I certainly think that a march like this one in which mostly white activists marched through north Minneapolis and decried inter-community violence and told people to "stop killing eachother" would be worse than useless. Of course, that isn't the only thing that could be done, and maybe conversations need to be opened up about how to take actions that are proactive, rather than reactive, like this march. A movement that can take care of itself and offer viable alternative visions that are lived out in daily life is a lot healthier than one that simply exists whenever some new atrocity comes up. That might be a movement that works on building healthier communities in North Minneapolis (or South Minneapolis, or wherever) but I think that lots of white activists are not ready or willing to initiate that kind of work, because we're still trying to figure out how to do even basic stuff in ways that don't replicate our own privileges.
That said, I think that the Oscar Grant murder connected with activists in Minneapolis and elsewhere because it conveyed such a strong message about what cops really symbolize. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing at all. Although I'm not familiar with it, the drunk-driving case mentioned in a previous post sounds like a similar racialized miscarriage of justice, but it doesn't make for as inflammatory a set of internet postings as a murder that is recorded on several people's cell phones. It would be great if we had the capacity to oppose every unjust ruling that came down from the courts in the same way that people came out about Oscar Grant's case, but I imagine that if that was the true, there might not be courts anymore anyway. Until then, people will probably keep organizing around the things that are the most visible. There's not so much we could do about that, so maybe the tactic to take is to make the smaller everyday injustices more visible. But, that's just my two cents.
given that at least 300+
given that at least 300+ years of struggle on this continent teaches us pretty clearly how the rulers use racial lines to antagonize and divide us, i'm going to choose not to let that continue in my and hopefully my friends and comrades work. i will continue to struggle anyway.
here is one way to put it that I find useful sometimes: http://www.prayerfoundation.org/mother_teresa_do_it_anyway.htm (yes this anarchist just linked to a religious website...)
another way to put it would be: don't hate the player, hate the game.
(An important point--this
(An important point--this march was majority-white but it was not only white. I don't want to erase the activists of color who were there--or who, for example, wrote this story and took these pictures.)
I don't think that's what's going on, although I completely agree that white activists don't do good enough anti-racist or anti-police-brutality work.
I think it goes something like this:
White activists consciously want to end police brutality, regardless of who pulls the trigger--it's not a failure of caring or a love for the system as it is. But laziness, fear and ignorance stand in the way--laziness, because white activists find it easiest to do what we've always done, ie march together with people we know.
Fear--not fear of going to North Minneapolis, but social fear, fear of not knowing what to do, fear of being called out for racism, etc--it's easier (laziness again) to do the same old thing. Fear of having to change. Fear of showing up at a meeting and just making things worse because white people often do make things worse--I think sometimes we march because we feel like at least we won't fuck that up.
And ignorance with laziness again--where to go, who to talk to, what work to do? You know how white people grow up extremely ignorant.
I think these things do add up to racism, though not a "don't care" racism. I don't think it's even a "don't care enough" racism; I think it's an inertial, structural racism. It seems to me like a failure of effort and imagination rather than a failure of analysis or wishes. It's also frustrating because it seems like it should be solvable, and yet white people do not solve it.
Honestly, that march was cheered up and down by passers-by, almost exclusively people of color. I don't think holding that march was some kind of epic white-people fail, or some kind of sign of deeply entrenched racism. (The deeply entrenched racism exists, yes.) What I want to know is whether white activists can recognize the opportunity to do something else, to go from marching in the street to other stuff (and still marching in the street as needed, of course.)
I don't know. There's certainly been enough white-activist fail just in the time that I've been doing activism...we sure do squander opportunities just about every time.
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if you hate us so much, why
if you hate us so much, why are you stocking us on the website we use to organize and communicate?
seems kinda creepy ;)
Any time that an innocent
Any time that an innocent person is killed, that is a great wrong.
But there is a special problem when an agent of the state is doing the killing, because the power that the state has against individuals is vastly greater than the power of the individuals involved. It is also vastly greater than any individuals who might oppose it and that is why concerted action is required.
I see a couple of things to
I see a couple of things to learn from this.
I think the two criticisms of the march expressed on here (a mostly-white turn-out and that the march was predictable and ineffective) both stem from the same problem. No one seemed to know what kind of actions and tactics might be used and organizers were trying to use the element of surprise against the police and hence didn't publicize the march beyond "trusted" radical and punk social networks until the last minute when they realized others hadn't been as careful as they wanted folks to be about who was told and how. Security culture is absolutely necessary for some actions but really it wasn't for this and it ended up resulting in a predominantly white crowd.
1) If you're going to do an unpermitted march, go public right away and make an effort to get the word out beyond predominantly white activist and punk social networks.
2) Diversity of tactics - we can scratch our heads for the rest of our lives trying to figure out what the "best" tactic or organizing model is for any given situation. there isn't one. there's time and space for people to organize public actions and for those who choose to do riskier stuff within trusted social networks, affinity groups, or crews and in those cases security culture is a must.
some other thoughts on the march:
while we didn't do anything militant, the attitude and chants and music were much more invigorating and empowering than most marches. We weren't asking for reforms from any powers that be. We were expressing rage, passion, solidarity. We talked the talk more than we walked the walk most definitely but folks so rarely talk this kind of talk in marches at all.
I was personally surprised that we had a diversity of ages. I expected primarily young-ish anarcho punks.
We seemed to manage to communicate and make decisions on the fly fairly well. We didn't stay tight enough by the end though, and some folks were falling behind.
I guess the one thing I don't
I guess the one thing I don't understand here besides the bash the police slant is at what point did police officers stop being human beings? I think the one known fact is that human beings make mistakes sometimes everyday and sometimes even more then once a day. Unless you have seen a robot cop I haven't that means since police officers are human beings they make mistakes as well.
Being a human being Mehserle made a mistake the day that he shot and killed Grant. His mistake cost Grant his life, but his mistake also cost Mehserle his job, his freedom, and his family because he will be going to prison for the mistake that he made and prison is the punishment for his mistake. Mehserle was doing a stressful job and made a mistake and everyone in the country is being a monday morning quarterback and destroying this man for that mistake.
I hope eveyone of you take a look in the mirror and see that no one is perfect and we all make mistakes this former officer has to live with the fact that he killed Grant for the rest of his life. Now if one of you out there has never made a mistake in life then I will give you the first stone to throw but if you have like I know we all have take a minute and think about things before you go and burn this human being at the stake.
One final comment to all of you who have said that we need to stand with cop killers. What a bunch of hypocrites you stand here and preach peace, love, and justice and yet when a police officer kills someone you burn them at the stake but when a police officer gets murdered on the job you stand up and cheer for the person who did it. Where has the world gone wrong.
They stop being human beings...
...the moment they put on their uniforms. That's the point of the uniform - to symbolize that they are not acting as individuals, but as representatives of the State. It is this myth of objectivity and impartial enforcement of a society's laws that is supposed to absolve them of full responsibility for their actions and allow atrocities like the murder of Oscar Grant (and Fong Lee and Amadou Diallo and Alexis Grigoropoulos and...) to be called "accidents."
Oscar Grant's murderer was not a man named Johannes, who has feelings and dreams and likes to eat and fuck like any other human being. Oscar Grant was murdered by Officer Mehserle, uniformed representative and petty thug for the State.
We are anti-police not because we believe they are all horrible, racist monsters who enjoy killing and brutalizing. We are anti-police because the system of policing itself is horrible, brutal, and racist. It is the institution, not the individuals. One of the many tragedies of law enforcement is the way it transforms the enforcers, robbing them of their humanity. We want liberation for all human beings, even those who may have forgotten what it means to be human.
The simple act of taking off a badge can have a magical, transformative effect. It can turn a pig into a man.
Working Class Enforcers of the Ruling Class Agenda
Police are working class, working class who enforce the ruling class agenda. Security guards on steroids. And, yes, they are there to protect the most sanctified of all things in this republic: property. Above all else, property. However, a lot of you protesters are not working class, you may think you are part of the 'income less' class, but Police have unions. Police punch the clock, and police get killed protecting the ruling class and their property all over our lovely twin cities. And yes, they are there to keep protestors from doing anything that would mess with the ruling class bottom line, especially destroying property.
In a serious revolutionary situation, it will be necessary to have allies in the armed forces and within the police forces of all municipal areas. It will be necessary to win hearts and minds and part of that is breaking the police away from their loyalty to their bosses and into a working class consciousness, to get them to side with the people. It has happened many places, in Venezuala, when they tried to oust Chavez in a coup, it was essential that the special forces were with the people.
So, perhaps it would be worth it to think about ways to focus less on denouncing the 'pig' and more on making him/her realize that they are being treated like pigs by their bosses at city hall, and that they have more of an interest in working with a real movement for radical social transformation, that they are potentially part of the COLLECTIVE solution. If you build an 'anti--police' movement, you only strengthen the neo-nazi and far right tendencies within the ranks of the police. You may claim that it's about police brutality, but when many of the signs and slogans are focused on the 'pigs' it seems like you are trying to provoke some kind of confrontation that 1) you will loose 2) appeal to some black nationalist sentiment that may or may not be reflected in the people walking on the street around you but will certainly aggravate the situation.
And to those of you who were glad that it was not well built, 'secretly announced', meaning 'priviledged ears only', well then you become a predominately european-immigrant population chanting 'down with the pig' in the middle of a largely p.o.c. neighborhood that will be severely punished if the cops choose to conduct a military training operation. I have witnessed this before, when a large, mostly white anti-racist action in ohio ended and the police went crazy on young african americans who were just passing by...doesn't win you many hearts and minds, just really pisses people off...really.
what time is it
How many people on Lake Street you think need a bunch of white kids telling us that "Kops Kill"?
Now you answer that one and you may be on to something.
Doesn't tell me what you are marching about, except kops, and just knowing that makes me move fast the other way cause if I get arrested it's for real.
Putting an end to incriminating video
The ACLU is defending a man who is accused of video-taping a police officer drawing a gun at a traffic stop.
http://www.aclu-md.org/aPress/Press2010/Graber_Factsheet.pdf
Why is this illegal? Digby says it is part of a nation-wide trend to criminalize the act of video recording police officers:
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2010/07/some-police-agencies-are-seeking-to.html
And they're using privacy laws to do it. Protesters at the Convergence center do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy but police officers interacting with the public on the public streets cannot be video taped without their permission.