Community Meeting on Police Brutality and the George Floyd Protests Pt. 5

In the past 2 months, cities in the U.S. and around the world have risen up in rebellion against white supremacist terror from the police following the despicable murder of George Floyd. Millions have taken to the streets despite strict shelter-in-place orders and they have been met with a violent response by the police. We have seen protesters beaten, tear gassed, tased, and even murdered as the state struggles to suppress this mass movement. But it is important to note that the protests are not solely a response to the murder of George Floyd. They represent a revolt against the general systematic slaughter of black people by police and against the white supremacist-capitalist state as a whole. The size and scale of these protests is remarkable and it is encouraging to witness the powerful energy that fuels them.

The problem is that we have been here before. In the past, mass protests against police terror and the white supremacist-capitalist state have occurred, but after initial outrage and police crack downs, the excitement and activity of the protests subsides. Those who are not consistently active in political work disappear while activists and political organizations fail to push the movement forward for the long haul. We need to come together as a community to discuss how we can build up a long-term sustained resistance to white supremacy, police brutality, and the capitalist system.

We cannot afford to tail spontaneous movement after spontaneous movement. We need to organize for the long-term, which means doing much more than showing up to protests every time a black person is murdered by police or voting every two years. The police harassing, terrorizing, and murdering working class people is the norm and politicians will not work to overthrow a system that keeps them paid. Reforms intended to quell police brutality are often not applied, ineffective, insufficient, or completely rolled back. If a long-term organized movement against white supremacist police terror is not sustained, then we will continue to see black people murdered in cold blood by the police.

Please come out to Willow Park in West Oakland on Tuesday, August 4th at 6pm as we continue to discuss how we can sustain this movement for the long-term. In our previous meetings we determined the need for more political education and concrete steps towards some type of action that we can collectively take. We have began and will continue an ongoing political study of the Black Panther Party where we are next going to hold a study of Huey Newton's essays that he wrote in prison. This study will be conducted via video conferencing on Tuesday, July 28th at 6pm (contact us for more info). We are also holding an action on August 1st to show solidarity with the West Oakland Community and to put forward a series of demands. We are demanding:

1. End police brutality on Black Latinx, LGBTQ+ & homeless communities
2. Proper sanitation for all homeless communities
3. Housing for all, there is room for everyone!
4. Cancel rent, back rent, and information on landlords should be publicly available to all renters
5. No re-opening of workplaces until there is comprehensive COVID-19 testing for all
6. Protect students, families, and teachers as the new school year approaches

In the Community Meeting taking place on Tuesday, August 4th which we are promoting in this post, we will talk about how the study and action went as well as discuss further next steps in continuing our political education and plans of action. More broadly, we will continue to talk about how to link the local struggle in Oakland to the larger nation-wide movement against white supremacist police terror. We'll discuss ways in which we can use the momentum from the protests to bring more people into political organizing and how we can advance the work we are currently doing to ensure that we are moving forward in our struggle to overthrow the white supremacist-capitalist system!

We will have food, drinks, and great conversation. We hope to see you there.

All Power to the People!

This event is put on in collaboration with The United Front Against Displacement

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Website: theufad.org & revolutionaryunitedfront.com