On Saturday, Dec. 13, over 60,000 people took to the streets of New York City to protest the police murders of Mike Brown, Eric Garner, Akai Gurley and all other victims of racist police violence. Another demonstration of 10,000 marched at the same time in Washington, D.C., drawing demonstrators from across the country. Below are tweets from the PSLweb Twitter account, followed by the text from a leaflet distributed by PSL members and supporters to marchers in both protests.
Women on the front lines!#mujeres #wewantfreedom #wewontstop #millionsmarchnyc pic.twitter.com/NDf4vutkDw
— PSL – Socialism (@pslweb) December 13, 2014
The energy out here is incredible!#blacklivesmatter #ericgarner #mikebrown #shutitdown #MillionsMarchNYC pic.twitter.com/P0aFAzc9pU
— PSL – Socialism (@pslweb) December 13, 2014
Eric garner, michael brown – shut the whole system down! #blacklivesmatter #MillionsMarchNYC #ICantBreathe pic.twitter.com/2ntVEj1tZh
— PSL – Socialism (@pslweb) December 13, 2014
Racism is the disease. Revolution is the cure!
All across the country, the people are rising up! We have had enough with police terror, racism, poverty, gentrification and low wages.
Letting killer cops Darren Wilson and Daniel Pantaleo walk free was the final straw that broke the camel’s back. Then the NYPD killed again in Brooklyn, shooting Akai Kareem Gurley, a 28-year-old unarmed Black man, as he left his girlfriend’s apartment in public housing.
Millions of people are now saying that it goes deeper than these incidents. It’s “the system.” But what is that system? It is capitalism and imperialism — a system built on the most vicious forms of violence, slavery and exploitation, which has always targeted Black, Latino and poor people of all nationalities.
Time to organize!
Local, state and federal government forces have been called into the streets to put down the people’s justified uprising. They have been preparing and training for weeks with military tactics. They are hoping this movement fades out of fear or exhaustion.
What we need now is to fight back with increasing levels of organization and coordination. Every day and night that we continue fighting, we are learning and growing stronger.
It’s time to start organizing our communities, schools and workplaces. It’s time to join together, and learn from the history of people’s struggles worldwide and in the United States. Working-class and oppressed people have utilized a variety of organized tactics to build power: from exercising the right of self-defense to student walk-outs and workplace strikes.
We have the numbers and the power in the streets, but only if we organize!
Republican and Democratic politicians are calling for calm and peace. Fighting back in the streets, they say, accomplishes nothing. They say the people have to “work within the system” to bring about change.
This is the system that has completely failed to deliver justice. This is the same system that let cops and racists claim “self-defense” whenever they shoot unarmed Black, Latino and poor people.
But when the people try to stand up and defend themselves, they are called “criminal.”
In reality, this system is criminal. The cops are the biggest gang there is. The banks and corporations are the real looters. We don’t need to work with this system — we need a revolutionary movement for a whole new system!
That system is socialism: a social and economic system where poor and working people have power, and society is reorganized to meet their needs. Join us!
