Protests challenge killer cops
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dred and seventy one and counting were killed by U.S. cops this past year, an all-time high in recent decades, according to figures posted in the British Guardian newspaper. The majority murdered were Black, Latino, and Native American. The Mal colm X Grassroots Movement puts the average yearly figure of murdered Blacks at 313, one every 28 hours.
In only a handful of these murders was a cop con victed or even charged. “Self defense” was the timehonored defense of the police. They were said to have feared for their lives when “confronted” by Black peo ple who were almost always unarmed.
In the few instances when charges were brought against these killers, compliant racist judges and con sciously hapless prosecutors conspired to convince carefully selected juries, usually stricken of Black • Equal pay for equal work. • Affirmative action with quotas members, to find the killer cops innocent. This is the same scenario that is unfolding in Baltimore today, as Freddie Grey’s murderers are acquitted one by one. The unspoken conclusion in all these “legal” proceed ings is that the Blacks got what they deserved.
This is the rule, not the exception, in racist Ameri ca. In many respects, it is not much different than in the days when lynching Blacks was unofficially sanc tioned, or when vigilante slave catchers were legally assigned the role of cops to capture, kidnap, and re turn the slave master’s “property.” As in the epoch when tens of millions were sacrificed on the slave plantations, the ruling one percent today subordi nates anything human to their lust for profits. Their greed is epitomized by the virtually slave-labor, pris on-industrial complex.
Oscar Grant, Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, Eric Gar ner, Freddie Gray, Walter Scott, Kajieme Powell, Mi chael Brown, and now Baton Rouge’s Alton Sterling and Minnesota’s Philando Castile—caught on video for the whole world to see—have been added to this list of capitalism’s near-daily executed victims.
These horrors have stirred a new generation into action, marching down the streets to the applause of millions. They march to mark the victims of police vi olence and to demand a new society. Increasing num bers of people—especially the youth—doubt that the present capitalist minority-controlled order can ever be reformed. The previously forbidden word, social ism, is on the lips of millions.
Today, protesters march in the hundreds and thou sands, at times courageously facing lines of police in battle gear. Tomorrow, as the protesters gain in ex perience and political clarity, they will be the critical organizers of millions in massive actions that are ca pable engaging the broad working class and of closing down the nation’s factories and cities. The movement that they lead will challenge the capitalist system at its roots, and will embark on the construction of a new social order free from the inherent horrors of mi nority ruling-class domination.
The Socialist Action 2016 Campaign joins the pro testers in the streets in demanding: Jail killer cops! Police out of the Black community! No to racial profil ing! End stop and frisk! Black lives matter! n
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Tony Savino / Socialist Action ... Campaign platform