I’m writing, I imagine, for the same reasons many are hitting the streets protesting nationwide. I’m nobody special. I’m just a working-class stiff like the majority of us. I’m a high school dropout, a United States Air Force veteran, and now a community organizer with the Tampa DSA, also known as the Democratic Socialists of America. I’m no pundit, CEO, or powerful politician, but I think I can speak for millions or at least echo their sentiments when I ask: when will enough be enough? George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Travon Martin, Amadou Diallo, Tamir Rice, Philando Castile, and this reaches all the way back to Emmett Till himself. And here in the state of Florida, we have our own examples with the shootings of Markeis McGlockton and
Levonia Riggins.
We’re in the year 2020, so somebody please explain to me how police brutality and vigilante injustice is still tolerated? Maybe if we ask enough questions, we’ll reach that conclusion together. Let’s begin by asking ourselves if it’s legitimate to hold the perspective that the long arm of the law should indeed be the primary line of defense between civil society and chaotic barbarism. We should also ask ourselves why is it that our law enforcement officers seem to be in a perpetual state of fight or flight. Why do they feel so threatened by poor minority communities and why is it that the use of force is disproportionately used against said communities?
Is it really surprising when our nation is merely decades removed from the state-sponsored apartheid imposed on black and brown communities? Why is it that we’ve grown desensitized to this injustice? How has this become the unfortunate reality of poor and minority communities, much like the one in West Tampa where I grew up? How is it justified that communities of color are constantly harassed for petty crimes and misdemeanors when the largely white ruling class of the financial sector can lead us to economic ruin while simultaneously robbing our treasury blind? All the while, they have the shameless audacity to lie to us by telling us that basic human necessities such as universal healthcare and free college are too pie-in-the-sky to happen.
Allow me, reader, to go on one more series of questions. As Derek Chauvin drove his knee into the neck of George Floyd because of an alleged crime as petty as a forged check in an economic depression and suffocated him to death we have to ask ourselves: why was an officer with a long history of abuse of authority and violence against minorities and poor people allowed to continue serving as a law enforcement officer? Why did the three other officers present allow it to happen? Was it the racist, nationalist rhetoric and ideology displayed by those who live by the slogan: “Make America Great Again?” Or was it the comfortable and complacent inaction and apathy of the so-called neoliberals of the Democratic Party in the state of Minnesota?
As we thoroughly examine these questions collectively, look within ourselves and our society at large, I hope that we begin taking our first steps toward a tangible progress as opposed to a rhetorical progress. And, as a Democratic Socialist, I believe that the answers lie in confronting a system head-on that absolves the wealthy ruling class of any and all culpability of the economic and physical violence perpetuated against poor and minority communities. That’s why we support labor movements such as the National Nurses United, the Fight for 15, and progressive candidates. This isn’t about justice for a few, justice for some, but it’s about justice for ALL.
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So many words can be said, but I’ll conclude this letter with three of them for George Floyd: “Rest in Power”. And one word for the rest of us: “Solidarity.”
