From Beverly Hills to Brooklyn, America is burning.
The gruesome police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis has understandably reignited the fear, anger and concern about centuries of systemic racism — not just in the U.S. but also here at home in Canada, where racism has been embedded in society all the way back to the first European contact with Indigenous Peoples.
This incident was horrific and barbaric, to say the least. If you haven’t seen the video footage, let me describe it.
The police officer who murdered Mr. Floyd had already handcuffed him and thrown him to the pavement, face first. Luckily, someone nearby recorded it all, and the video makes it crystal clear that Mr. Floyd was not resisting arrest at any time, either before being handcuffed and being thrown to the pavement, or after.
Then the police officer, totally without reason, kneels on Mr. Floyd’s neck with his full weight. To make matters even worse, two of the other three officers present kneel on Mr. Floyd’s back. This continues for nearly nine minutes. Mr. Floyd can be heard on the video, crying out repeatedly, “I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. ” Eventually the police officers get off of Mr. Floyd, but by this time he is dead.
Rebellions in reaction to this disturbing event have taken place in scores of America cities — the largest nationwide demonstrations since the 1960s. And they’ve been supported by protestors around the world.
Almost all of the protests in the U.S. have been nonviolent. Only in a handful of cases has violence taken place after the antiracism demonstrators have dispersed. And yet protests have been met by police violence and over-reaction in far too many instances. To date, more than 9,000 protestors have been arrested by U.S. police forces, and many participants have suffered in other ways, too.
On the one-week anniversary of Mr. Floyd’s murder, I watched Amy Goodman’s and Juan González’s Democracy Now! news hour with horror. Footage featured peaceful protestors in the U.S. being teargassed, pepper-sprayed and beaten with batons. They’ve also been driven into by police vehicles.
A New York senator at a peaceful protest was arrested on-camera. You can see him repeatedly asking why he is being arrested. The police officer is non-verbal in his response and, instead, pepper-sprays the senator’s eyes, handcuffs him and throws him violently to the ground. All of this in spite of the fact that the senator wore a T-shirt with large lettering clearly indicating his name and the fact he’s a senator.
Dozens of journalists working for media across America have been treated with equal disdain. At no time should journalists be fired on by police for exercising their constitutional rights to speak, assemble and report, but they’ve been arrested on-camera, and shot with rubber bullets and pepper balls. A freelance journalist and photographer has been blinded in one eye by a police rubber bullet.
Amy Goodman herself was the victim of police aggression in St. Paul, near Minneapolis, in 2008. She and her news team were arrested for just doing their jobs covering the Republican national convention. Democracy Now! subsequently won its lawsuit over the unnecessary police crackdown.
This Monday outside the White House, Donald Trump (described as a “gangster in the White House” by one of our generation’s finest thinkers, Noam Chomsky) and his team took despicable advantage of their positions of power.
Attorney General Bill Barr called in the National Guard and other enforcers to disperse protestors with war-like tactics, including teargas and munitions, just minutes before a 7 p.m. Washington D.C. curfew. He was responding to Trump’s dictator-like demands and cleared a path so the president could walk to St. John’s Episcopal Church for a photo opportunity — a photo opp even the Episcopal bishop condemned.
In it, Trump holds up the Bible in what one pundit described as holding up a piece of merchandise on a shopping channel. He certainly did not pray, or offer condolences to those who are grieving.
They could have chosen to wait half an hour until the crowd peacefully dispersed. But no, they declared it a “battle space” and called in the American military. Later, military helicopters were ordered to carry out a “show of force” mission (a standard military tactic used in combat zones), and fly so low over peaceful protestors in Washington D.C.’s Chinatown area that the chopper backwash blew up debris, snapping off tree limbs and signs that subsequently hit people, and covering the crowd in a terrifying wash of noise.
It was an act former U.S. military leaders condemned. It even caused former Republican president, George W. Bush, to praise peaceful protestors and call for empathy for people seeking justice for Mr. Floyd’s death.
This is a fast-changing story. Where it will all lead is anybody’s guess.
Every year since 2013, police in America have killed more than 1,000 people. This week on CBC’s Country Checkup, Cat Brooks from the Oakland-based Anti-Police Terror Project reported that “a police officer in the United States of America kills at least one Black person every single day.” It’s quite possible that the current extreme police violence will lead to even more protests, and who knows where that will go if the police mandate to serve and protect continues to exclude people of colour and those exercising their democratic right to protest. Police are supposed to protect free speech, not squelch it.
Some pundits are predicting civil war, what with Trump’s vitriol and lies goading everyone — police; the National Guard and other enforcers; protestors he variously calls terrorists, lowlifes and losers; and just everyday, ordinary people — on to more hatred, more division, more violence.
I’ve taken part in dozens and dozens of protests and demonstrations over the years. I personally organised protests to change policies and set up our HandyDART custom transit service. We had walks for peace in the ’70s and ’80s in favour of nuclear disarmament. Hundreds of thousands of people took part.
In 1983, 80,000 of us marched in Vancouver (there were more across B.C.) in support of Operation Solidarity protesting against the then-Social Credit provincial government’s attempts to bring in dozens and dozens of bills to trample on basic human rights and labour rights. After the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2004, a huge rally and protest with 25,000 people at Sunset Beach featured the aforementioned Noam Chomsky himself. There were all the Occupy Vancouver protests at the Vancouver Art Gallery, and just last fall, I was happy to be one of 100,000 protestors marching from City Hall to voice our concerns about the climate crisis.
All of these were legitimate causes. So are the protests this week.
Protests and demonstrations are a vital part of a healthy, functioning democracy. These protests should be and, in many cases, are facilitated by police, who block off streets and traffic, and keep people safe. This underscores even more reasons for frustration and anger bubbling up over this latest racially-based police violence.
But the anger and protests are about much more than the murder of Mr. Floyd. They’re about the long-standing racism — blatant and hidden — in societies far and wide, including right here in Canada, where I’m sad to say that the centuries-old doctrines and habits of racism are still alive and well.
If any good is to come of it, it will be that each of us becomes more conscious of our own racial biases, and confront it in ourselves and whenever we witness it in others.
Racism has been a toxic tool of colonial powers for centuries in their attempts to subjugate people of all colours. Let’s not stand idly by.
I was glad to hear Vancouver lawyer and long-time human rights activist, barbara findlay, speaking on Stephen Quinn’s Early Edition show on CBC Radio One Monday morning. She and I worked together for a brief time at the Legal Services Society in 1983.
Over the years, barbara has been very effective working on social justice causes, creating the Alliance of Women Against Racism Etc. (AWARE), which holds workshops to educate people about Canada’s history of racism, white supremacy and colonialism. She joined two other thoughtful commentators and social justice activists, Mo Dhaliwal and Natasha Jung.
Racism takes many forms. Even Mr. Daliwahl, from the South Asian community, acknowledges he likely has racism embedded somewhere inside himself, given how he was brought up and educated.
What can each of us do to step up and confront racism?
Based on the advice of those three activists, here’s a good place to start: Self-examination; examination of the environment and community we grew up in; having the honesty and courage to be empathetic and face uncomfortable, even painful truths; and being eager to break down our own biases and stereotypes.
Silence is complicity. Listen to people of colour. And get used to being wrong or uncomfortable. Don’t be afraid of making mistakes.
Black lives matter.
ANTIRACISM RESOURCES:
- In BC, you can report hate crimes by dialing 911 or contacting Hate Crime BC (phone 1-855-462-5733 toll free).
- In Vancouver, PIVOT Legal Society does excellent work advocating for social justice for all and improving police accountability. You can contact them at 604-255-9700, or at operations [at] pivotlegal [dot] org .
- The City of Vancouver operates the CitizenU anti-bullying, antiracism program, and the Urban Indigenous People’s Advisory Committee. City programs may be currently disrupted due to the pandemic.
- Metro Vancouver Indigenous Services Society is located at 2732 Hastings Street, suite 100. They can be reached by calling 604-255-2394.
FURTHER READING:
- Ways You Can Help is an up-to-date list of solidarity resources at https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/
- Unlearning Oppression (barbara findlay)
-
As the George Floyd protests continue, let’s be clear where the violence is coming from (Rebecca Solnit for The Guardian, June 1)
- Why Damaging Property Isn’t The Same As “Violence” (Current Affairs, June 1st)
Daily atmospheric CO2 [Courtesy of CO2.Earth]
Latest daily total (June 3, 2020): 417.37 ppm
One year ago (June 3, 2019): 414.4 ppm
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