As this statement is being written, thousands of Americans are taking to the streets to protest the unjust and unlawful murder of George Floyd by the Minneapolis Police Department, along with the countless other acts of racist violence perpetrated against Black Americans, both by police and private citizens. As members of our nation’s largest and most prominent democratic socialist organization, it is imperative that we respond directly to racial injustice. Many of our members were on the streets this weekend to express their rage and bear witness to the violence and brutality inflicted on protestors. We listened to mealy-mouthed reassurances from elected officials all over Los Angeles, including Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and members of LA City Council, and watched with horror as curfews were imposed, transit riders were left stranded, and the National Guard was called in. These same leaders have stubbornly refused to defund the LAPD, one of the nation’s deadliest police forces, and our District Attorney Jackie Lacey has continually refused to prosecute killer cops, in one case overriding a direct request to prosecute from the chief of police himself!
Our members are angry, frustrated, and confused. Many of them have been on the frontlines of these struggles for years and long for change. We don’t have all the answers, but this is some of what we know.
We fully support and echo the demands of Black Lives Matter – Los Angeles:
- Defund police.
- Prosecute killer cops.
- Unseat District Attorney Jackie Lacey in the November election.
- We will actively engage in outreach to Black Lives Matter-Los Angeles and other Black-led organizations in Los Angeles that may organize protests in the coming days in order to offer support in whatever form required.
We demand the following:
- The Los Angeles City and County authorities should immediately lift the unjust curfews being imposed on citizens as a pretense for police repression and violence.
- Mayor Garcetti must immediately reopen all closed COVID-19 testing centers.
These authorities should also ask the National Guard to stand down and allow community activists and their allies to rebuild from the damage caused by police escalation. This could be a possible first step towards a community policing model, as opposed to the militarized, neocolonial model currently in place.
- The city council must take action against Mayor Eric Garcetti’s perverse and austere city budget that includes millions of dollars in cuts to all city services except the police department, which currently accounts for 54% of the city’s discretionary budget that is due TODAY.
- The council should adopt the recommendations of Black Lives Matter-Los Angeles, Street Watch-Los Angeles, and other activist groups in the People’s Budget LA coalition to divert resources from the police towards healthcare, housing, education, and other public services that are desperately needed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Simply acknowledging the existence of these alternatives will represent a meaningful step towards ending police violence and repairing the deep losses suffered by our communities at the hands of police.
- AFL-CIO and other public sector unions should end their affiliation with the International Union of Police Associations, which exists primarily to protect killer police. We need a labor movement that advances the interests of the vast majority of working people, not those of law enforcement sworn to maintain the status quo.
Moving forward, these are some ways to support this growing movement from home and in the streets:
- Demand the Los Angeles City Council defund the LAPD budget, which currently takes up over half of the city's budget!
- Contact Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and demand he call off the National Guard and push for charges for all four officers who were involved. Phone: 612-673-2100 Twitter: @MayorFrey, @Jacob_Frey
- Contact Minnesota Attorney General Mike Freeman and demand he charge all four officers with murder. Phone: 612-348-5550 Email: [email protected]
- Attend marshall training and help the leadership of DSA-LA to provide legal support at as many organized protests as we can manage and of which we are made aware. We had a presence at both the Pan Pacific Park and Mariachi Plaza protests on Saturday, May 30, and attempted to provide our members with as many of these services as was possible in a very short timeframe. In the future we will hope to do better. Marshall Training by our Mutual Aid Committee is happening TONIGHT at 7pm.
- Attend Cop Watch training hosted by Street Watch-LA, a subgroup of DSA-LA that works in coalition with LACAN, Stop LAPD Spying, and other community groups to end police violence and harassment of the unhoused. This training will be focused specifically on policing the police during protest conditions.
- Support George Floyd protests nationwide (this is a living document that is constantly being updated).
- Read the DSA-LA Guidelines for Safe Protesting.
- If you do go out to protest, consider self-quarantining for two weeks after your contribution to the movement is finished. These actions are important but they also put our Black, Brown and movement communities at great risk at a time when LA County infection rates are spiking. Also consider getting a COVID test five days after exposure.
- Critical incident stress can be caused by events at protests and mass mobilizations. Your mental health is as important as your physical safety and well-being. We’ve compiled some mental health docs, phone, and text support resources here. Note: there is risk that hotlines call 911 to attend to someone who is suicidal and police may respond so it is really important that we monitor ourselves or our comrades for early warning signs that we are not doing well emotionally.
Tragically, police brutality is not new to Los Angeles, especially to historically marginalized members of our community.
The police raids and beatings in gay bars like the Black Cat in Silverlake in 1967 lead to some of LA's earliest known demonstrations in support of LGBTQ civil rights. This month marks the 50th anniversary of the first Pride Parade in Los Angeles. Over generations, queer people, especially Trans Black, Indigenous, People of Color, have been targeted for death by both our healthcare system and the prison industrial complex.
The Watts rebellion in 1965 that led to 34 deaths started with an overzealous traffic stop. The L.A. uprising in 1992, in which 62 people were killed, stemmed from the acquittal of four police officers, by a mostly white jury, who were caught on video mercilessly beating a Black motorist, Rodney King. According to the L.A. Times at least 329 people have been killed by police in Los Angeles since 2013. Professor Melina Abdullah, a founder of Blacks Lives Matter-Los Angeles, has estimated the number to be 601 people.
The time has come for all Americans to think and act critically in response to this horrific and brutal system. We hope that our members will stand in solidarity in whatever capacity they can as the situation rapidly and sometimes unpredictably evolves.
