 Hello and welcome to People's Dispatch. Protests and demonstrations have broken out across the United States following the murder of George Floyd on May 25th. George Floyd was killed by police officers with one of them actually placing his knee on his neck for nearly nine minutes. In the aftermath, these protests have demanded justice, they have demanded systemic change, they have demanded an end to police racism. To talk more about this, we have with us Claudia de la Cruz of the Popular Education Project and the People's Forum in New York. Thank you so much Claudia for talking to us. And thank you so much Prasad and the people's dispatch for inviting me. So to begin with, one of the key things many people are mentioning on the streets as well as people who have been raising these issues movements for a long time is the fact that this is definitely not just one isolated incident. This is not a case of couple of, I think you yourself have mentioned, this is not a case of a couple of rotten apples in a police force in one city in the country. This is really a systemic issue. They have been a number of such murders, such executions in the past and the trend nonetheless keeps continuing. And there have been number of movements also. People in power have expressed words of sympathy, they have made calls of vague slogans for change but nothing has happened. So could you talk a bit about the systemic factors and how they play into this especially when it comes to law enforcement? I mean I think it's important to understand and you bring up the point of it being systemic. I mean historically when we think about surveillance, when we think about policing and militarization, we're thinking about what's at the core and at the roots of the development of the United States of America. To think about it as an individual case is a complete loss, not only for our movements, but in general for our people. It creates a disadvantage in us understanding how evil, how brutal, how demonic this system can be to protect capital and protect property and protect the elite. Historically we've seen the murder of black and brown bodies of poor people including poor whites throughout the years and state sanctioned violence. It's important to understand that this is as American as apple pie. It continues to happen. I think the difference now is that it is something that's being documented and it's something that is being put out for the world to see. And this particular case of George Floyd brought up a lot of indignation because he's not the first one to have been killed in the middle of a pandemic. He's one of many folks who have been killed, some of which we know and some of which we don't know. Not only by police but also by vigilantes that have been in many ways supported by the state that have been given a slap in the wrist and very, very soft measures if anything have been taken to pacify the people and the people are fed up. Even the judgment of how people choose to express and rebel themselves and the narrative. When you have the president of the United States talk about black and brown and poor people as thugs and calls the mayor of Minnesota a loose lefty on Twitter and says I'm going to send the National Guard to take care of this in the right way. You see that why supremacist, classist way of approaching people's pain and people's mourning there's more concern for the burning of buildings and the killing of people. And so it's clear that the people of the United States, the people that are in the streets, that are making the streets burn right now are fed up and that they understand that it's not a matter of the nine minutes that it took for that cop for Shavin to put his knee on George Floyd's neck. It's beyond that. It's beyond those nine minutes is the 400 years plus of this type of state sanctioned violence. So one of the key questions that has come out like you pointed out is that there have been protest movements coming out. There have been many instances of protests in the past as well. The most important instance being after the killings at Ferguson. So one of the key questions many people are looking especially from across the world is how do these protests develop? What are the kind of demands that are being put forward? And it's still the very early days, especially yesterday saw the protests really spreading to many, many cities across the country. So right now, could you tell us a bit about what are some of the key aspects that are being raised? I mean, I think for the most part and when you see the news clips when you engage with the people on the ground, when you talk to people in the different cities and people coming out, the most pressing peace and demand is criminal response to criminal actions. Like third degree murder is not enough for someone who killed someone in cold blood for the world to see. It was a public lynching. So people are the first demand is that if the criminal justice system does not take it upon themselves to, you know, hold police officers to the same standard as regular citizens, this will continue to happen. And historically it's proven, you know, it hasn't worked for them to talk about community and police relationships when these cops continue to brutalize and murder our people and they do not receive the same type of, you know, treatment than someone who would kill a white person or will kill a cop, right? It's not the same. The value of life is not the same. So that's the first demand. I think there are a lot of people also in the more leftist movements that are calling for the abolition of prisons and the abolition of policing, right? That are calling for community policing in different ways in which people are able to, you know, be protected. And so, you know, unfortunately, because it also needs to be said, there's a level of disorganization from grassroots movements and the left in the United States, there's a lot of fractions is very fragmented. And therefore, it's very difficult to say that there is a very clear political demand that is unifying, and that folks are all at once kind of coming with this list of demands. I think it's a good start, you know, and I think what we need to learn from previous rebellions from previous revolts is how do we precision ourselves in relationship, in support, in uplifting, in strengthening, you know, the cry of our people in a way that makes sense and advances, you know, the political agenda that says we're here to defend life. We're here to defend, you know, community. We're here from an anti-capitalist perspective, from an anti-imperialist perspective. That's work, you know, that folks that have some sort of level of organization that are part of organizations from the left and folks that have much more of a class consciousness, you know, that's the work that we need to be invested in. And unfortunately, I say that, but I also say that there's a lot of fragmentation, and there's a lot of differences in terms of how do we conceive moving forward, you know, we're in a different place than we were in Ferguson and Baltimore in 2014. People have gone through Obama, we survived Obama, you know, we've survived Ferguson, we've survived Baltimore, we've gone through four years of Trump, the increased aggression of the United States internationally and the extractivism, the, you know, the increasing militarization of police, the assault on the immigrant populations, we've gone through all of that. And now we're in the midst of a global pandemic, you know, so we're in a different space, the people of the United States in a different space, so much so that there were over 15 cities that were burning last night and people have taken on, you know, to push back on the narrative of riots, you know, and saying that these are revolts, and these are revolts from the very historical point of view and understanding that the revolt is the voice and language of those who are oppressed, you know, and that they have the right to do that and that their, their righteous anger is what will move this country. And so I think it's a great, a great opportunity in many ways for us to be able to advance our struggles if we have the courage to walk side by side and be in that struggle and take this opportunity to build the working class organizations that will ultimately move us to another political and social reality. Right. And I guess a key challenge also would be the fact that there's an election year, there is a risk and the temptation of it being framed entirely around Trump and while obviously statements have been extremely violent, they've been abusive. Nonetheless, this is not really a Republican versus Democrat issue at all. You're totally right. It's not a partisan. It's not a partisan thing. Both Democrats and Republicans have been in the White House and have been complicit and how about lifted, if anything, the idea, the narrative that, you know, oh, these police officers feared for their life, you know, as a justification to be able to continue to kill our people. And so it is definitely not a partisan, it's not a partisan position. It's the position of the ruling class is the position of those that are there to protect and promote the ideologies and the practices of a ruling class that has been been empowered in a dictatorship in this country for too long. And, you know, I think it's important to remember and I, you know, have talked to folks with folks about this. Obama was empowered when Mike Brown was killed. And he was a black president who supposedly came from community organizing, you know, with immigrant parents, like all these different ideas of what could potentially make a president that is for the people was shattered for a lot of young people in this country, you know, by a man who held the power to be able to bring these murders to justice and didn't. He was complicit in that. And so I think it's important to remember that and to remember, you know, that in this election year, and even as we talk about, you know, the anti-Trump movement, anti-Trump movement in the United States is not homogeneous. Like it's not, they're all not the same. You know, there are folks that are anti-Trump that are Democrats. There are folks that are anti-Trump that are very much, you know, for capitalism and for continuing to uphold the status quo. And we need to be clear of that. So our fight against police brutality, against, you know, white supremacy needs to be paired and rooted, very well grounded in an anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, anti-patriarchal, anti-white supremacy line. We need to be really, really clear, really, really careful that this is not a partisan issue. This is a rich initial class. Absolutely. Thank you so much, Claudia, for talking to us. That's all we have time for today. Keep watching People's Dispatch.