George Floyd protests
 

Please consider donating to the Minnesota Freedom Fund (who will post bail payments for arrested protestors), or to one of the other organizations they link to on their website: https://minnesotafreedomfund.org/

If you are in the US, please also consider looking up whether there are any protests in your area that you could join. There is one in Lafayette on Sunday evening. I will be going.

Aaron's suggestion of where to send money is a good one. Local initiatives are also worth looking up, as the cops are generally being extremely aggressive. I would also strongly suggest going to any demonstrations in a contingent (either one of an established left group, or organize one with friends)--both discipline and numbers can make the difference if one is attacked or if a situation turns dicy.

I'm done shouting "Something must be done" at protests, over and over again, while nothing gets done in between them.

I'm also done being characterized as part of a violent mob, when a handful of people at a peaceful protest decide to turn destructive. Broken glass and burning trash cans look more sensational on TV than a crowd of thousands of nerdy concerned citizens behaving themselves as they march in solidarity with victims of violence. I'm a control freak and don't like the idea that my presence might be endorsing messages and behavior that I disagree with.

Personally, I'll be skipping any marches and focusing my energy on specific positive actions.

In the last couple of days, I've seen YouTube footage of police behaviour during disturbances and protests that has really sickened and upset me. That such violent tactics are being used in response to protests that are themselves a response to police violence is terrifying and depressingly inevitable. It seems like a war. Of course this has happened before, but if Trump is reelected it will get much much worse. His goading response is surely unprecedented for a US president: "When the looting starts, the shooting starts". I doubt he's historically literate enough to know he was quoting a racist civil-rights era police chief, it was probably just something he heard that he thought would make him sound like Dirty Harry, but it's beyond obscene. His victory and continued presence would inevitably exacerbate violence in America and I think he's quite happy about that. He has to go.
Thanks for the link, Aaron. I'll check it out tomorrow and see what I can do.

"He has to go."
But the million dollar question is will he go?

And a return to the status quo?
Hardly the solution.

Nemo

I didn't say anything about a return to the status quo. But working on alternatives to the status quo would be easier without a sociopath in charge.

This twitter thread contains a list of evidence-backed reforms that one might hope will reduce police violence. Of course, it would be far better (both for the American populace at large and for the pitiably confused individuals who take on such an ethically degrading job) to simply abolish the police, but I'm trying to dream realistically.

Julie, the protests have already accomplished rather a lot, though of course not nearly enough. They have resulted in the arrest of Chauvin, something said to be impossible before the protests started. (They have not, alas, resulted in the arrest of his accomplices.) They have led various Minnesota institutions (e.g., schools) to sever or weaken their ties with the Minnesota police. (They have not, alas, led to the complete removal of all police from all institutions of learning.) And, because of the brutally evil activity of the police "upholding the law" (i.e., assaulting non-violent protestors and reporters from even major news outlets), they've helped—I think, though here I only have a gut sense and not real evidence—to increase acceptance of the true and vitally important belief that all cops are bastards.

One cannot, of course, count on Joe Biden to do anything whatever to address the racism rotting this country. At the same time he is perhaps less likely to stand in the way of local efforts to do so (or should I say, local concessions made to end the protests, but all anti-racist gains in this country have always been concessions). I genuinely don't know.

The Lafayette protest was peaceful and powerful. Saw two protestors try to start things; both were restrained by other protestors. Very few racists besides two chickenshits on motorcycles, who caused no real harm but made a lot of noise.

We knelt outside the police station; the heavily armed cops on the roof knelt with us, but still got chewed out by protestors afterwards, as they well deserved.

Apparently, police attacked protestors after I left.