Monday: "Hands Up Walk Out" Actions Coast to Coast and Worldwide
December 1, 2014 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
Hands up! Walk Out! NO business as usual while police murder Black people, and while the killer of Michael Brown walks free! The case is NOT closed. It is NOT time to “move on to a nationwide discussion”—much less one at the fucking White House! NO! It is TIME TO STRUGGLE and that’s what happened today as students walked out of high school and college campuses around the U.S. Filling the streets, confronting the powers-that-be, and making a powerful statement that Black lives matter.
Mainstream news couldn’t ignore it. Protesters marched on Times Square, with national local media tagging along and broadcasting the event live on CNN, while students chanted “NYPD-KKK, How Many Kids Did You Kill Today?”, along with “Black Lives Matter” and “Indict, Convict, Send the Killer Cops to Jail, the Whole Damn System Is Guilty As Hell.”
In many cities, students marched on the police stations and there was bitter, angry testimony from people who had lost loved ones to police murder. In Iowa City, about 75 people marched to a police station and to City Hall, despite the 18-degree weather. In Los Angeles, people gathered in front of the LAPD Newton Division and blocked traffic at the intersection of 65th Street and Broadway, where the police shot and killed Ezell Ford earlier this year.
Die-ins shut down traffic from Harvard Square in Boston to the Department of (IN)Justice in D.C.
The New York Times reported that at UCLA, a student activist said “We’re out here not just because they called for a protest, but because we all have a responsibility to put a stop sign in what can only be described as American genocide by these institutions.” How often does THAT reality break into mainstream media?
Students marched out of the classrooms at the evangelical Christian Wheaton College in Illinois carrying signs “No Justice No Peace.” They were led by a sign asking: “Where is the Church?”
Students challenged everyone to take a stand, and confront injustice. In Chicago, a Palestinian-American college student drew links between the murder and suppression of her people by the Israeli Defense Forces and the police in this country. A member of Veterans for Peace spoke of the violence committed by the US military around the world and drew parallels between the dehumanization of “the other” from the battlefield to people of color in this country. A young white woman forcefully challenged passersby, “You can’t stand aside from this, and you are complicit if you do.”
Marches were attacked and protesters arrested—and those arrested must be defended as part of expanding the movement. The powers-that-be terrorize and murder Black and Latino people. They attack protests. Pigs even threatened players on the St. Louis Rams who entered their Sunday game with a “hands up” gesture. And then these powers-that-be lecture people to “avoid violence!” At Harvard 300 students held up a banner saying, “Your peace is violence.” And everywhere: No justice, no peace!
Workers around the country walked out and joined protests—from the National Domestic Workers Alliance of Atlanta; post office employees in Beacon, New York; and members of the Gathering, a United Methodist Church in Clayton, Missouri, were among those who walked out of their jobs.
And students at ground zero in the battle against police murder walked out of school in Ferguson, MO. The whole world is watching! There were solidarity actions around the world—including in England and Japan.
And in the midst of the courageous outpourings of protest, people grappled with the big questions—what’s wrong with this setup, and how to change it. In NYC, Revolution Books kept its doors open late and student protesters dropped in to watch the Dialogue between Cornel West and Bob Avakian: REVOLUTION AND RELIGION, and then discussed and debated what they saw, and what they had done that day into the night after going toe-to-toe with the police all day.
This is just a small taste of what happened today. Stay tuned to revcom.us!
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