NACLA stands in solidarity with the historic uprising against anti-Black police violence taking to the streets across the country in the wake of the disturbing police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis—the latest in a long history of racist police violence in the United States.
We support and uplift the important conversations taking place around the need to defund, demilitarize, and dismantle the police state, pursue justice for victims, and prevent future violence. We also support calls for prioritizing public spending on affordable housing, education, health and mental health care, and other services that support the safety and well-being of marginalized communities.
The excessive use of force to crack down on these protests underlines the urgent need to condemn police brutality, dismantle white supremacy, and demand radical change. And as many have pointed out, the fact that Black and Brown communities have disproportionately suffered illness and death amid the pandemic further lays bare the institutional and environmental racism killing Black and Brown people at unprecedented rates. These crises are linked.
As we witness an unleashing of the brute force of the U.S. police state—a reality that is all too familiar to Black, Indigenous, and people of color that is now on display for all—we also recall the role of the United States in developing police states outside its borders, particularly in Latin America. We must continue to make the connections between police violence, racism, empire, and counterinsurgency at home and abroad.
We are sharing a few free, online resources that help explain the current situation, the need for reckoning, and key steps in forging a just future that affirms Black lives matter.
Police “Reforms” You Should Always Oppose by Mariame Kaba for Truthout
Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor on how racism and racial terrorism fueled nationwide anger (video)
The Case for Abolition by Ruth Wilson Gilmore and James Kilgore for The Marshall Project
The Only Solution Is to Defund the Police by Alex Vitale for The Nation
A Decade Of Watching Black People Die on NPR’s Code Switch (podcast)
We Should Be Afraid, But Not of Protesters by Melvin Rogers for The Boston Review
No More Cop Unions by Kim Kelly for The New Republic
For many more resources, see: A reading List on Policing Rebellion and the Criminalization of Blackness by Radical History Review
