Millions of Americans and people worldwide are revolted by the cold-blooded murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police and organizing and speaking out in a myriad of ways. Preceding Floyd’s murder, 26-year-old Breonna Taylor was shot to death in her Louisville apartment, after three police officers entered, while serving a “no-knock warrant.” In late February, 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery was shot and killed by two vigilantes while he was jogging in South Georgia. Since 2015, police in the U.S. have not gone more than two days without fatally shooting someone.
George Floyd’s death is added to the over 132,000 (increasing every day) who have died from the coronavirus in the U.S., the majority coming from the most impoverished urban, suburban, and rural communities. The Powderhorn community, where George Floyd died, is suffering disproportionately from Covid-19. As of May 29, 34 percent of people infected with the virus in Minneapolis are Black, even though they make up only 18 percent of the city’s population.
The people who rule America are desperate for us to fight police terror separate from those conditions that call into question their rule. They are desperate to stop the political and ideological awakening of the American people. They must deepen the destitution and, at the same time, prevent and contain social upheavals. This can only be done with a fascist police state.
Police brutality today is an expression of the power to shut off your water, evict you from or foreclose on your home, slash essential services, destroy food rather than distribute it, and turn you away from emergency rooms and send you home to die. With more and more jobs performed without human labor, greater sections of the population are out of work with no means to survive in this system.
The ruling class is united in maintaining its power. The unity of the working class expressed against police brutality, under today’s conditions of mounting unemployment, homelessness, hunger, and declining health, can advance our class’s unity for the necessities of life.
The aim of the League of Revolutionaries for a New America is class unity across color, nationality, or gender lines. We must reassert the time-honored slogan of “all for each and each for all.” Within those addressing the underlying problems revealed by the pandemic and outcries against police brutality is an evolving class unity. Something new is within our grasp. Join us as we join with you in fighting for a New America. RC
July/August 2020 Vol30.Ed4
This article originated in Rally, Comrades!
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