Empathetic, Calm and Peaceful Genocide: Again on Neocolonialism and the Police
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot spoke today on the release of police footage from the execution of 13 year old Adam Toledo. Toledo was murdered by the police in Little Village, a Latino district of the city, early on the morning of March 29th after police responded to a report of “shots fired”. Naturally, they colluded to obfuscate and confuse the situation, and prepare for suppression of the inevitable demonstrations. The fact that they shot a fleeing, unarmed, innocent 13 year old child seems to have been lost in the whirlwind. Lori Lightfoot, true representative of the neocolonial flunky class, gave a pitiful and treacherous screed calling for “empathy, calm and peace”. Keep in mind that the murder of children is a crime most foul in nearly every decent person’s code of ethics and justice, meant to be met with swift punishment for the murderer. Instead, we have this neocolonial stooge calling for peace and empathy. With whom?
On Sunday, 20 year old father of one Daunte Wright was shot by police officer Kim Potter in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, a suburb of Minneapolis. Potter, a 26 year veteran of “law enforcement”, apparently can not differentiate between a taser and a firearm, despite one weighing substantially less than the other and being carried on opposite sides of the duty belt to supposedly prevent so-called accidents like this from happening. Potter and the police department claim that this was an “accidental discharge” and she meant to tase Wright, who was pulled over for a traffic stop. Potter has been arrested and charged with manslaughter. This adds to an explosive situation, as Minneapolis is currently undergoing the trial of the murderer of George Floyd, Derek Chauvin. The MPD seems to be throwing him under the bus in his trial as a concession to the militancy of the masses — they want to avoid a repeat of last year’s protracted uprising. The fact that they have been shooting tear gas and other military grade projectiles into crowds of demonstrators every night shows how little they’ve learned.
In short, the police are doing what they’re paid to do, brutalize and torment Black and Brown working class communities. What few concessions we are getting come exclusively from the fact that cities burned for long periods of time last year, and will undoubtedly burn again this summer due to continued murder and outrages. Lori Lightfoot unintentionally revealed the twisted and barbarous mockery of justice of the class that she represents in her press conference today. She called for class peace, peace for murderers, and ruling class order. Peaceful, marshaled protests where everyone lies down in the middle of the street like speed bumps, shouts tired slogans, and asserts weakly that “Black Lives Matter”, while the police laugh and collect overtime — this is what the ruling class likes. Tomorrow they will kill again, the day after the paid organizers and protest police who hand radicals over to the state will call another stupid, useless march. Only the masses organized under the leadership of class partisans and militants can break this trend. Isolate and expose neocolonial elements/collaborators, settler faux-militants, and opportunists. Root the movement in revolutionary ideology and practice. Here’s to another long, hot summer.
