Black Lives Matter of Greater Burlington delivered the following statement in front of a crowd of over a thousand people protesting the murder of George Floyd, and the countless other Black people killed by police. Dismiss! Disarm! Disband the police! The whole damn system is guilty as hell.
Here we are once again, gathered after injustice, after horrifying injustice. Once again, a new stream of bodies reaching back before Emmett Till, now lay before us!
Say their names! Repeat after me!
Ahmaud Aubrey – Ahmaud Aubrey. He was jogging in his neighborhood in Georgia on February 23 when he was killed in a shooting after being chased by Gregory and Travis McMichael, a father and son.
Breonna Taylor – Breonna Taylor. She was sleeping in her bed in Kentucky on March 13 when she was killed by being shot 8 times by plainclothes officer Brett Hankison.
George Floyd – George Floyd. He was buying groceries in Minnesota on May 25th when he was killed by officer Derek Chauvin putting his knee to Floyd’s neck for 8 minutes. There were 2 other officers involved.
Tony McDade – Tony McDade. He was outside of an apartment complex in Florida on May 27th when he was shot by a white police officer.
It should be clear by now, that the police is a violent institution, utterly resistant to reform. It should be easy for you to understand why you shouldn’t call the police on black people. If you’re standing here after all this, and you still don’t get that by calling the police on a black person for dumb, petty reasons, that you have signed on for that person to be murdered; we’re done talking to you.
The murder of black people by the police state and their white citizen handmaidens has been ongoing for actual centuries. We do not have the capacity for people who do not listen.
Which Side Are You On? Which Side Are You On?
To the white people who feel anxious and unsafe about coming to protests and riots – CHOOSE A SIDE!
This isn’t the first time that this has happened. Which side did you take during the Rodney uprising? Which side did you take during the Baltimore uprising? Were you nuiance trolling travon martin’s lynching? Which side are you on when Black and brown people have feared police violence and violence from racist white people for the history of this country?. Enough of this liberal “we like Black lives”, “that we agree with you in the goal you seek, but cannot agree with your methods of direct action”– no more fence sitting.
Which side are you on, for real?
If a white woman is having a really bad day and wants to call the police, she could, and another black life would be snuffed outYou could be a birdwatcher in Central Park and a woman could threaten to call the police and say “there’s an African American man threatening my life” because you asked her to leash her dog — as if the police is her personal assassination squad. Black people have to live with this, every damn day.
Which Side Are You On?
What happens in MN isn’t another person’s problem, it’s our problem because it could happen to any of us, and it has. We have dealt with police violence here recently, and it has gone unaddressed — We demanded the termination of Officers Cory Campbell, Jason Bellavance, and Joseph Corrow from the Burlington Police Department this month, last year. Those people are still working in this police department. They are still working. They still have jobs. As police, with a gun, and the authority to stop, and use any level of violence as they deem fit.
Which Side Are You On?
The reason why people are rioting and why we’re protesting is because our sense of Black love within families and within friendships in Black community can be taken at any moment.
That if you are a Black person in this country you walk around with the constant knowledge that your life could be snuffed out for no God Damn reason.
Every day is a constant reminder that our lives and the lives of those we care about most could be gone the next instant.
Which Side Are You On?
To the Black folks who are here, we may be living in different housing and different communities, but we have suffered through this together and we have suffered through this long enough.