Monday, December 15, 2014
6:30 PM
News & Letters Library, 228 S. Wabash, Room 230, Chicago

Protests erupted in cities across the U.S. and around the world following the Nov. 25 decision of a St. Louis County grand jury not to indict police officer Darren Wilson for the cold-blooded murder of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, on Aug. 9. Thousands marched under the slogan “Black Lives Matter!”

Ferguson solidarity marchers walking on FDR Highway, New York City, Nov. 25, 2014. Photo by Resa Sunshine, https://www.flickr.com/photos/nomadnewyork/15261839893

These mass demonstrations grew, after the Dec. 3 decision of a Staten Island, New York City, grand jury not to indict NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo for the killing of Eric Garner—choked to death for the “crime” of selling loose cigarettes. This despite Garner’s murder being captured on video, the NYPD policy prohibiting choke holds, and the coroner’s ruling of death by homicide. The slogans “Hands Up! Don’t Shoot!” and “We Can’t Breathe!” throw the crimes of the police and the racist system right back in their faces, thousands of times over…

Both these jury decisions were steeped in the current state of U.S. racism. In both cases, the fix was in—“prosecutors” had no intention of holding murderous cops responsible…

This current state-supported racism isn’t just a reversion to the oppressive past. It is one section of the ruling class sending the message that it is fully in tune with the virulent neo-fascist movement that has arisen and consolidated itself over the last decades, and in particular since the economic crisis of 2008 was accompanied by the election of President Barack Obama….

(To see the entire Marxist-Humanist statement go to http://sr3.supportedns.com/~rayaduna/newsandletters/ferguson-staten-island-u-s-logic-racism-genocide/)

Speakers: Suzanne Rose, eyewitness report;
and Bob McGuire, writer for News & Letters

Phone: 312-431-8242; email: arise@newsandletters.org