 For more videos on people's struggles, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. Hello, you're watching People's Dispatch May 25, 2021 marks one year since the very brutal murder of George Floyd in the city of Minneapolis. Now, this is nothing new in America. We know there have been innumerable instances of black people being murdered by law enforcement, by police officers. In the case of George Floyd, the footage of this incident went around the world. We saw the brutal disdain with which Derek Shaw in the police officer had his knee on George Floyd's neck. We heard George Floyd's dying words that I can't breathe. And this sparked waves of protest not only in the United States, but in solidarity across the world. There were protests in Palestine, there were protests in Europe, in Latin America, in every part of the world. So, one year down the line, we've joined by Eugene Cooley to talk about what has changed, what has not changed. How has the movement that broke out last year, what kind of impact has it had on American society? Thank you so much Eugene for joining us. Well, thank you so much for having me. Happy to be here. Eugene, my first question would be maybe to sort of, how would you see the situation in the United States one year later? We talked about, of course, the protests. There's been a lot of mobilization, a lot of demands. So, one year down the line, especially in connection to some of the demands that were raised, especially in connection to justice for black people, how do you see the situation right now? You know, I think that's a great question. I think the best way to see the situation is, I think culturally and socially, there has been a tremendous change. And it's obvious that the events of last year, the uprisings that took place, you know, have changed the shape of politics in the United States and continue to be a major factor in how politicians are responding to the issue of racism in this country. But that being said, there's been almost total intransigence from the point of view of a policy level around the actual issue of police murders and police violence, which I think speaks more than anything else to how fundamental police violence really is inside of, for the needs of American capitalism, that even when you have a huge sort of rhetorical and verbal recognition that quote unquote, something has to happen, nothing happens. And so if you look at sort of the exactly where we are, the best maybe example of this is the Justice, the George Floyd Justin Policing Act, which was the congressional Democrats response to what happened last year in the uprisings after George Floyd's death. And that bill in and of itself was widely panned by almost all the activists and organizers who have been working because it was so minimal. And almost all of the things that it was proposing, banning chokeholds, banning no knock warrants, had been implemented in many places and people had still been killed under the implementations. So there was almost nothing within it that was any different than had been done in the past at the federal and local level and failed to solve the problem. There was one issue, which was to change a little bit of the legal responsibilities for police officers in terms of financial civil culpability. But because of that, even this very milk toast, watered down sort of rhetorical bill that doesn't really do anything is now dead in the Senate and will never pass. And in fact, the Democrats have given a deadline of this week, actually, to whether they could find a compromise, it looked like it's not going to happen. So they're actually about to just completely let it go. And it's been more or less on the same on the state and local level, although not exactly. We've seen some relatively important things. If you look just outside of Minneapolis, where George Floyd was killed, for instance, in Brooklyn Center, many of Minnesota, where there have also been several killings this year, last year, several other years, there have been some changes by the city council there, for instance, to reduce the role of police in dealing with mental health crises, which is a major issue in terms of how the police end up killing many people in the United States. So we're seeing some small wins here and there, but we're seeing a combination really now of a big pushback. And I'll close here. Right now, a big pushback because the number of murders in the United States rose all across the country in most major metropolitan areas. And so now there's an attempt all across the line by politicians to say, well, maybe we went too far last year, and maybe we should slow this down and give more money to the police. So we're in sort of a precarious time where many, many more people recognize the issue of Black Lives Matter. Many more people agree with that. The most notable fact in many ways of the election in 2020 are one of the most notable facts. In Georgia, 53% of people told CNN in an exit poll that they supported Black Lives Matter, but Joe Biden only got 49% of the vote and third parties didn't get all of that. So even some Trump voters were saying Black Lives Matter and Black Lives Matter was more popular in Georgia than either major political party. So we've seen huge change, we've seen sports, we've seen entertainment in that sense, a recognition of the problem, more people willing to protest, more people embracing the challenge that racism is something that has to be addressed in America. But the actual powers that be the elites are very intransigent in terms of really wanting to change something because changing policing is much deeper than just a few policies here and there. And that's something they don't want to touch. Absolutely. You in this context also wanted to go into the demand to defend the police, which was one of the most important slogans and demands made last year. We saw how right now, like you said, there's a pushback even among the Democrats where sections, for instance, were blaming the demand for the reverse of certain suffered by certain Democrats, which is really an absurd statement. But have you seen any concrete instances of, say, the community and administrators working together to actually bring laws at a local level, which might actually reflect the true essence of these demands? We've seen some. So I mentioned Brooklyn Center, Minnesota. There also is Minneapolis itself, of course, the epicenter of all of this. And there's a lot of controversy over it, but there are two what are known as charter amendments that are being put forward to change the local constitution, if you will, to try to move in the direction of defunding the police in the sense of reducing the scope of what the police do, disarming some elements of them or large numbers of them, and moving a lot more resources into social programs designed to sort of get in front of the issue when the police just show up afterwards. So there's a lot of controversy over the different bills and the different proposals, but it is notable that that is a big discussion in Minneapolis. It's going to go before the voters. People are going to vote on something, it seems, in elections that will probably happen later this year to determine how they will make potentially some very significant changes, but there, again, is a big pushback from the mayor. So it's unclear how it's all going to play out, but that is on the ballot there. So it has the possibility of bypassing some things as well. And one of the proposals, like I said, is a pretty comprehensive proposal to make some changes to the police department that would be in the vein of defund the police, if not everything. I think you look at sort of the reverse. Los Angeles just increased the budget to the police last week and is saying that, well, the real thing we need is more money for the police so that they can do better things, better training or whatever it may be. But we have seen, I would say in a few areas, some improvements in terms of police accountability. In Chicago, even though there's an attempt to water it down, there's a big fight happening in the city council, really over what the proposals are going to be to establish more community-led accountability over policing, the ability to hold people responsible to investigate these crimes and take that out of the hands of simply the police themselves or these appointed boards, which is more or less what they have now there in Chicago. It looks like something will pass. It's just a question of how watered down will be. And again, the mayor, they're pushing back. But that's another city where I think there's at least some hope that there could be some changes, even if there's small changes, based on what we have seen from really the power of the people. In New York City, which is the biggest city, there was like a fake defund the police, where the city council, they tried to claim they cut a billion dollars from the budget for this year, 2021, from the police. They really just moved it around in a lot of different ways. But I think one thing that is notable, even though all the people who've been out in the streets were denouncing this rightfully so, the fact that they even felt they needed to pretend that they were doing something to speak to the issue of defund the police, I think does show that we're seeing, again, maybe more rhetorical momentum than in terms of actual policy change. But we are seeing more durable campaigns start to take root in a lot of cities in Washington DC, in Baltimore, and other places to devote more resources to non-police means of addressing public safety. And we're getting little wins here and there, increased funding for existing programs. But the overall transformative change piece is what we're lacking, even though I do think there is a lot of vitality on the ground in a lot of places and in a lot of cities that are moving some things, getting some small wins and setting the stage for the conversation to really continue, because I don't think it's going away as an issue, even though, of course, it isn't as prominent in terms of millions of people on the street every day. Absolutely. And even in this context, I also wanted to ask you about the judicial process that has followed many of these brutal incidents. We know that Derek Shawin was, of course, convicted, although activists and organizations had raised many questions about how the process took place. But also so many other cases, Elijah McLean hasn't received justice so far. The case of Brianna Taylor, for instance, in so many other instances, we still see the legal process either not moving at all, or in fact, like in the case of Elijah McLean, those who are fighting for justice actually being targeted. So how do we see, especially the past one year, the kind of judicial response that has taken place? You know, I think that is the key issue is that the judicial response is the issue that no one really wants to address. And it comes at two levels, really. I mean, the main issue is what is the threshold by which these people are considered justified to kill people. And right now, the legal threshold in the United States is very low. It basically boils down to this. Did they think there is a chance that someone could potentially kill somebody or do seriously bodily harm to them? So anything that even is remotely in that. But it's not just that in the abstract. It's, would a reasonable police officer in that exact moment agree? So it takes everything down to a split second decision and says, if you can come up with some story that says in a split second, you couldn't know whether or not this was going to be really dangerous or whether it was going to be fine and you just had to kill them, then you are essentially not culpable. And so since obviously there are a million different threads to every sort of piece, it means that it's a very high bar to convict a police officer because it's very difficult to prove that they either did it intentionally or that they acted recklessly because of the courts. But that can change. You could pass a law that could detail this is the standard and it's a higher standard. Now then a police officer who is arrested could challenge that in court and say, well, based on these legal precedents, I'm actually not guilty. But that's what a lot of people would like to see in the United States because they want that issue to be argued. They want it to be put in play that the standards of use of force should be higher than they are now and that there should be a higher justification. And it could in fact be enshrined in law. But there are also other pieces to this, which is, I would say, most legal experts in the United States believe that prosecutors oftentimes do have a good case, but choose not to go forward because, of course, the police make the prosecutors cases. It's a symbiotic relationship. They don't want to do it. And that is something that I think has also been a big issue here. And we saw it in the Derek Chauvin trial. And we've seen it. We saw it with Amber Geiger as well in Dallas, who was convicted of killing Bartham John. That was she walked into his apartment and just gunned him down. And so it shows that in a lot of these cases, it's also political. And that really the desire of the district attorney's office and the prosecutor's offices to look tough on crime, to be for law and order, to be cheek by jowl with the police department rather than hold them to any level of accountability at any statutory level is something that they're not interested in doing. So there is a still legal struggle that is happening in a discussion about how to either make a federal amendment or at a lower level. And in California, they tried to do this last year, but the bill was gutted how to just pass a law raising a standard that would make a lot of these police killings that we see basically legal and try to take it back to the courts and try to establish a new standard. But then there also is the political element of it that as we see, when people burn down a police station, they all of a sudden can convict a cop. So there's certainly a relationship there. But I think the legal issue is going to be interesting. And I think there's a number of cases coming up, including Andrew Brown in North Carolina, that are going to raise a lot of the most potent issues around what the real standard should be to murder someone for no reason. Absolutely. And usually finally, one of the most important developments of last year was also this very powerful movement which took over the streets, which raised a variety of demands, of course, talking at a very structural level and posing very difficult questions to those in power. You've spoken at some of these events and you also talked about them. So one year down the line, how do you see how these events have sort of progressed, established themselves? I mean, there was a very definite attempt by the Democratic establishment to co-opt some of these, but nonetheless, many of these radical strands have continued their growing strength. So maybe could you talk a bit about that as well? Yes, I think so. I think it's probably the Democrats must be frustrated. I don't think they have been able to co-opt it to the level they thought. I mean, the fact that their major police reform bill wasn't picked up by any organization that is credible on the ground in terms of the issues of police violence and community transformation, I thought was a very telling reality. I think that there are other Congress people that are responding more to the popular organizations who themselves are promoting their own bills and their own moves. Some of them are good, some of them are whatever, but it just speaks to the fact that there is a feeling, I think, amongst a lot of people that the movement is not just going to come to you, but you have to go to it to some degree, even if you want to exploit it for electoral gain. And I think also what we've seen is some of the forces that are the sort of closest to the Democratic establishment, but have some level of movement credibility have themselves not really established hegemony over it. I mean, we have so many millions of people come out. There's dozens of organizations that people have formed. There's informal networks. And so even those who I think would prefer to channel things into a more electoral frame can't just keep it in that lane because there are so many other voices that are out there that are calling for people to continue to be in the streets, continue to do political education. The rise and the spread of independent media and social media has also raised the ability for sort of the radical critique of the role of policing as an integral tool of capitalism to become a much bigger poll. And now, I mean, even the biggest intellectual magazines, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, are forced to write articles that are talking about the history of radical black politics, the contemporary versions of that, police abolition, challenging capitalism, people who are building socialism. I mean, they're sort of forced to address this and in their own ways, good, bad, or indifferent, but it does show that the movement is variegated to such a degree and has become such a major force in society that so many millions want to see change when it concerns racism in this country that it has created the space where even though there is a lot of co-option and a lot of somewhat successful attempts by people to make their electoral careers off of allegedly being for black lives, there's also a new vital current of radical, even revolutionary people that is growing and getting a hearing in a way that's not superficial, where people want to know what people are thinking and what they're saying. And a lot of people are embracing themselves positions they maybe wouldn't have held a few years before because they've been challenged to do so in a real way by the actual sort of street politics of the movement, despite the sort of high politics of the movement being in a very kind of stagnant phase because very little is happening at Congress and the people who are most willing to be co-opted in a way know that they'll lose credibility if they go with the congressional strategy. So there's gridlock at the electoral level in that sense. Absolutely. Thank you so much, Eugene, for talking to us. No, of course, thank you so much for having me. That's all your time for today. Keep watching People's Dispatch.