May 25, 2020, George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, died in Minneapolis, Minnesota after white police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on his neck for almost nine minutes while Floyd was handcuffed and lying face down on the street.
There are many issues that George Floyd’s death brings to the surface: Why is violence against minorities still happening? How is it that systemic racism accepted and practiced in the USA and other parts of the worlds? Why do blacks have to repeatedly explain their situation in the US to whites?
These are all important questions, however what inspires and moves me the most about the situation is the size of the movement against racism and inhumanity. We often underestimate the power of marketing and media. The sentiment of compassion, justice and humanity is widespread among the people through social media, news media. The powers that be can no longer ignore that the people are tired of being mistreated. As long as the message of … continues to be widespread, the seeds of humanity are planted in everyone’s brain, respecting your fellow human being, treating them as you would like to be treaded becomes the norm. People will start to act lovely and respectfully without even noticing it!
Four days after the murder of George Floyd, the people took to the streets in protest in Minneapolis. The police precinct where the four officers used to be employed was set on fire, other business were looted and vandalised and there were no first responders or law enforcement anywhere. This situation excited me because it stuck out to me as different, as the beginning of a change in society. A deeply necessary change: the people are in charge, they are being heard with no entity around to suppress them! I leaped out of bed and joined my husband on the couch to watch the revolution on TV. I was ready to participate.
Then, my Lebanese mind started racing, questioning: where are the first responders? Are they gone to leave space for stronger reinforcements? Will the US government call in the military? Are the people (protesters) ready to face the military? Do they even know that it could be a possibility? Who are these protesters?
The media says Antifa is the group responsible for the protests, in Minneapolis and worldwide.
Who is Antifa?
Wikipedia website tells us:
“The English word Antifa is a loanword from German, taken as a shortened form of the word antifaschistisch (“anti-fascist”) and the name of Antifaschistische Aktion which inspired the wider Antifa movement in Germany.
When Italian dictator Benito Mussolini consolidated power under his National Fascist Party in the mid-1920s, an oppositional anti-fascist movement surfaced both in Italy and countries such as the United States. Many anti-fascist leaders in the United States were anarchist, socialist and syndicalist émigrés from Italy with experience in labor organizing and militancy.[51] Ideologically, Antifa in the United States sees itself as the successor to anti-Nazi activists of the 1930s.
Antifa is not a unified organization but rather a movement without a hierarchical leadership structure, comprising multiple autonomous groups and individuals.[22][41][45] The movement is loosely affiliated[20] as it has no chain of command, with Antifa groups instead sharing “resources and information about far-right activity across regional and national borders through loosely knit networks and informal relationships of trust and solidarity“.[46]
Activists typically organize protests via social media and through websites.[47] Some activists have built peer-to-peer networks, or use encrypted-texting services like Signal.[48] Chauncey Devega of Salon described Antifa as an organizing strategy, not a group of people.[49]
The Antifa movement has grown since the 2016 United States presidential election. As of August 2017, approximately 200 groups existed, of varying sizes and levels of activity.[50]
According to Beinart, Antifa activists “try to publicly identify white supremacists and get them fired from their jobs and evicted from their apartments” and also “disrupt white-supremacist rallies, including by force”.[60] A Washington Post book review reports: “Antifa tactics include ‘no platforming,’ i.e. denying their targets the opportunity to speak out in public; obstructing their events and defacing their propaganda; and, when Antifa activists deem it necessary, deploying violence to deter them”.
Former Antifa organizer Scott Crow told an interviewer:
The idea in Antifa is that we go where they (right-wingers) go. That hate speech is not free speech. That if you are endangering people with what you say and the actions that are behind them, then you do not have the right to do that. And so we go to cause conflict, to shut them down where they are, because we don’t believe that Nazis or fascists of any stripe should have a mouthpiece.[12]
Historian and Dissent magazine editor Michael Kazin wrote: “Non-leftists often see the left as a disruptive, lawless force. Violence tends to confirm that view”.[145] The historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat argued that “[t]hrowing a milkshake is not equivalent to killing someone, but because the people in power are allied with the right, any provocation, any dissent against right-wing violence, backfires”, with the effect that “[m]ilitancy on the left” can “become a justification for those in power and allies on the right to crack down” on the left.[17]
In August 2017, a petition was lodged with the White House petitioning system We the People calling upon President Donald Trump to formally classify “AntiFa” as terrorist. The White House responded in 2018 that federal law does not have a mechanism for formally designating domestic terrorist organizations.[116][117][118] “
Will the US government call in the military?
Today we know that Trump has called in the National Guard and wants to deploy the active-duty Military on his own people. The US President is acting as the terrorist in this situation.
He wants to invoke the Insurrection Act to deploy active-duty military forces to respond to protests or rioting. The act provides the “major exception” to the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which limits the use of military personnel under federal command for law enforcement purposes within the United States.[1]
Invoking the powers under the Act, 10 U.S.C. § 254 requires the President to firstly publish a proclamation ordering the insurgents to disperse.
Are the protesters insurgents?
If the protesters are organised by Antifa, then I highly doubt they are a threat to the country. Most protests have been peaceful. Some damage has been done to property, but NO damage has been inflicted on another human being. The people are not armed, they aren’t wearing bullet proof vests, and they have no protective gear on (except for protection against COVID). This shows that the protester have no intention of becoming violent or harming humans.
On the other hand, the police and the National Guard are in full riot gear. Covered from head to toe, if you try to punch them in the gut, you would break your hand. This shows their intent to use force and violence. We have seen the police use violence against the protesters. We have seen their indifference towards the people of their communities.
Examples of intimidation tactics used by police against the people.
Are the people (protesters) ready to face the military?
Law enforcements job is to protect their communities, to protect every member of their communities, even criminals and those who break the law.
The ammunition the protesters have is persistence and solidarity. The fact that Antifa is not a unified organization but rather a movement without a hierarchical leadership structure, comprising multiple autonomous groups and individuals is its strength. The protesters are from all walks of life, all races, and all ages. The people have united! Antifa groups share “resources and information across regional and national borders through loosely knit networks and informal relationships of trust and solidarity.
If we can continue to build networks and relationships of trust and solidarity, then we have as the human race have won the battle against racism, sexism, ageism, capitalism and other isms.
Throwing a milkshake is not equivalent to killing someone, and because the people in power are allied with the right, any provocation, against right-wing violence, backfires justifying militancy on the left as a justification for those in power and allies on the right to crack down on the left.
Keep throwing your milkshakes!
Julie Lakis Urbaniste 