We started October 22 because police were killing hundreds of people every year. Cops killed unarmed people, they killed people and claimed they thought the cell phones, wallets, or cigarette lighters the people they killed had in their hands were guns. And almost none of these murdering pigs ever got punished for their crimes.
The victims of this white supremacist terror were mostly young, and disproportionately Black or Brown. And it didn’t matter whether the mayors presiding over this assault of genocidal proportions were democrats or republicans this nationwide epidemic of murder by police continued unabated.
Over the years October 22 provided a platform for families whose lives have been devastated by brutal, murdering cops to speak the truth about what was being done to them. AND October 22 rallied diverse groups of people to come out in support of them and have their backs.
But we gotta be for real: the nationwide epidemic of police murder still continues down today. Cops continue to kill hundreds of people every year and still almost never get punished.
Does this mean that protest makes no difference? Not at all. It [was and still] is necessary to stand up and fight back because without this resistance this system would beat us so far down that we could never rise up and do anything about all the shit they bring down on us.
But resistance by itself will not end the horror of police terror, mass incarceration and the other forms of repression this system enforces on Black and Brown people. That’s all because this repression is built into the fabric of the capitalist/imperialist system we live under. As the revolutionary leader Bob Avakian has said: The role of the police is not to protect and serve the people. It’s to protect and serve the system that rules over the people. This isn’t something you can end by voting for democrats or trying to get elected officials to defund the police.
This racial oppression can be ended, but not under this system. It can be ended by getting rid of this system through an actual revolution one that mobilizes millions of people to rise up and meet and defeat the institutions of violent suppression of this system; one that goes on to build a totally different and far better system in place of this fucked up one. This kind of revolution is not only needed; it’s possible. We have the leadership for it in Bob Avakian, a leader who has developed a strategy for making revolution here in the belly of the imperialist beast and a vision of the kind of world revolution can bring into being.
And now is a rare time when revolution has become more possible. The beautiful uprising in response to the murder of George Floyd points to the possibility of rallying millions of people to take to the streets in opposition to the system’s horrors. And today, the fierce infighting going on among the ruling class and the intense divisions throughout society, this system is becoming more vulnerable.
There’s more to say about this, but my time is short. So let me end by urging you to learn more about this revolution which you can do by watching the Revolution Nothing Less Show on YouTube every week and going to the web site RevCom.us. And if you really want to end police terror, and all the other horrors of this system, get with this revolution.
