(en) France, Alternative Libertaire AL #251 - United States,
"Black lives matter!" (fr, it, pt) [machine translation]
"It is no longer the time marches for peace. Nor that of "healing the wounds" of our
communities. It's time to stand up and fight. Baltimore Ferguson Minneapolis to Detroit,
New York, Seattle... We resist police violence that kills us. " 1st of May Anarchist
Alliance[1] is an account of race riots for AL. ---- In Baltimore, police chasing pack
Freddy Gray, 25, torn from his bike and broke his neck. He died after a week of coma. At
Inkster, Detroit region, six white cops Floyd Dent extirpate his car after it slowed down
instead of marking off a stop... They beat up this 57-year mechanic, balafrent his skull
fractured and her l ocular orbit. One of the cops hit him in the head sixteen times while
another maintained by strangulation.
Also in early May, an assault section kill Terrance Kellom, 20, wanted for theft at his
home before his father's eyes. The immigration officer executing Terrance ten bullets at
close range while he was already arrested, had been fired from the Detroit police for
domestic violence... This is Terrance's father, who had opened the door to the police...
The cops are in a murderous rage, unleashed on the country. They kill us with impunity.
The resistance grows across the country. At these preachers, mayors and presidents
apologists of the police, who treat those who resist as "thugs and criminals," we reply
that they are agents of the same police and therefore can not in any way participate in
our movements - as Democrats and NAACP2 seek to do so. This is the class war. And we must
choose sides. The police camp is that of the class enemy. Workers, the poor, people of
color, young people, we must rely on ourselves.
An anarchist analysis
Resist and fight are not enough. The capitalist system is using the police as front line
of his offensive to protect its wealth and privileges. We can not reform this system, nor
cure. Nor make peace with him. Because it kills us and destroys our communities.
Nature rioting since Ferguson has changed. It is now a global movement that challenges the
system. He found to be anchored in the concept of "Black lives matter" ( "black lives
count" ), affirmation of black resistance to decades of racism, murder and class
oppression. And if much of the anger is directed against the police is because it is the
face of the law itself of the system and its control.
For us anarchists, this new movement has our absolute solidarity. African Americans and
people of color assume these challenges, organize and resist in their own words, and many
of the working class begin to reach, youth, students, displaying a multiracial face and a
resolutely anti-racist strategy. While African Americans have every reason to be wary of
their "allies" white, they now welcome "all those who support us".
Beyond the struggles "colored"
The resistance that followed the murder of Michael Brown Ferguson was immediate, local,
community, furious. In New York with the death of Gardner, this is the country that is
kindled.
The breadth and depth of the movement surprised, like the Occupy movement and the national
resistance surprised in the Trayvon Martin case. This is proof that there is a resistance
in this country. Even poorly organized, it is rooted.
Another encouraging element, the range of tactics deployed since the concentration of
messages against the police and local governments, to share "No business as usual" (closed
shops), road blockades and bridges, actions in shopping centers and using social media to
organize and reach people. All this beautiful creativity and coordination, this is new.
And without exaggeration, it seems that the movement has exceeded the usual Democratic
leaders and NAACP, well worth to recover and frame the movement.
That said, all these movements have contradictions in the goals, strategy, tactics. But
the important thing is that the well-established leadership, democrat, liberal and
reformist was shaken. And the challenge comes from below, driven in part by young people
and women, and expressed in the streets and in ideas. All self-appointed leaders do not
solve despite the emergence of a black middle class mass of people of color remain
excluded from the democratic system. Not to mention the impossibility of access to
resources, education, employment.
The riots are the expression of anger against the growing marginalization, exclusion and
repression that accompanies them. As anarchists revolutionaries we see the potential of a
criticism, rejection and resistance to the system as a whole. It will be essential to help
the movement to identify, promote and defend an emancipatory organization. Simply put, our
present program returns to "Defend the resistance! " Most of the libertarian socialist
tendencies support the idea but we need hammering and push relentlessly.
New organizations such as Black Lives Matter must be followed carefully. And if some as
Workers World (ex-Trotskyist) and RCP ( Revolutionary Communist Party , Maoist), although
trying to recover movement, it remains firmly rooted in the local, with weak leadership.
Encouraging, but it also requires the anarchists to present credible revolutionary
alternatives and help the organization to integrate the movement countering the Democratic
Party as the vanguard.
In a landscape that has few organized expressions of anarchism - culture, trends, ideas
(but more that there is a generation) - the greatest libertarian influence remains,
unfortunately perhaps, the insurrectionist current, fragmented and protean. The
platformist groups and trade unionists are small in comparison and lack the coherence that
would enable them to intervene effectively in the social movements... For us focus on the
aftermath of Baltimore Ferguson: we must pursue the pedagogy of movement without leader of
an anti-authoritarian organization. And continue to make it clear that the police and the
government are our enemies.
Translated and adapted by about Cuervo (AL Paris-Sud)
2. Historical Organization of American black movements for civil rights.
[1] First of May Anarchist Alliance, founded in January 2011, is very active in the fight
for housing and against evictions, prison struggles in the libertarian syndicalism,
anti-fascism. Their website: m1aa.org
http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?Etats-Unis-Black-lives-matter
