Seattle Anti-Imperialist Committee

Nearly everyone has now seen the video¹ or read about the testimony of eyewitnesses at the coroner’s inquest². They show that on August 30, in broad daylight, SPD officer Birk brutally murdered Native American woodcarver John T. Williams. Approaching Williams at some distance from behind, Birk unleashed a fusillade of five bullets four seconds after issuing the first of three rapid “orders” for Williams to put down the legal pocket knife he’d been using on a piece of wood. John was hit and killed by four of the bullets as he began to turn around with his knife folded shut.

Then, according to their own inquest testimony, with John Williams sprawled on the sidewalk, Birk stood around with other cops as they arrived,“ secured a perimeter,” and so on. Only after enough cops had arrived to “safely” handcuff(!) the then-dead “suspect,” did anyone check his vital signs and attempt to give first aid.

But Birk is not in jail awaiting trial, and he continues to collect his check from the police department. And the cops who arrived on the scene pride themselves on how they followed departmental procedures. None of this would have happened if John Williams had been a white businessman peeling an apple with a pocket knife. But John was Native American, poor, and often homeless. And to the cops—and the “good society” standing behind them—such a person is someone to fear, to “keep in line,” and to brutalize or murder if they “disobey orders.”³

Months of protests demand justice

Too often it is only the victims of police brutality and a few relatives and friends who know what happened. But this time was different. John Williams was widely known, with many friends. There were several witnesses who wanted to tell their stories. The murder came on the heels of several widely-known local instances of racist police brutality, including SPD officers kicking and beating a completely innocent Latino man while hurling racist slurs at him, and a cop punching a young Black woman in the face for jaywalking. And it came on the heels of large mass protests and rioting in Oakland after one of the BART-cop murderers of 25-year-old African American Oscar Grant was given a light tap on the wrist by the courts.

The result is that for nearly five months John Williams’ family members, friends, workers at social service agencies where he was a client, members of the Native American community, longtime fighters against police brutality, and many others have come together repeatedly to organize street rallies, marches, and other activities demanding justice.

The student walkout against police brutality

The Wednesday, January 26 student walkout was an encouraging development in this movement. It showed the democratic spirit of the youth. It was also a reflection of the fact that the youth have a special interest in the fight against racial and class oppression by the police. In the national minority and immigrant communities under disproportionate police attack, it is the youth who are especially singled out. And, of course, working-class white youth are also victims of police brutality and murders. In fact, the day after John Williams was murdered in Seattle, 23-year-old David Young was shot and killed by the Federal Way police.

But David Young’s mother didn’t take this laying down. She immediately began organizing to demand justice not only for her son, but for all sons murdered by the police. Further, she joined in the Justice for John Williams protests, where she gave speeches targeting the system responsible for these outrages. And look at this system:

A racist incarceration nation

With only 5% of the world population, America has more than 25% of the world’s prisoners: the highest rate of incarceration in the world. Since 1980, the prison population has exploded from about 300,000 to more than 2 million while crime rates have fluctuated and actually gone down. A huge number of these men and women are victims of the “war on drugs,” which was intensified under Democrat Bill Clinton. And while people of all colors use and sell illegal drugs at similar rates, statistics show that in some states African Americans comprise 80%-90% of all drug offenders actually sent to prison. Overall, Black males are nearly seven times more likely to be incarcerated than whites, and Latino males are 2.4 times more likely.

Among other things, mass incarceration is the way that the American capitalists are dealing with the chronic unemployment caused by their system, a racist system in which African American unemployment is about double that of whites.

The police: attack dogs of  capitalism

The capitalists are driven to practice racism in order to increase profits by super-exploiting national minorities. And they spread racist ideas among white workers in order to justify this, and to undermine united resistance by the workers and poor of all races and nationalities. Moreover, during the past several decades the capitalist ruling class, through both the Republicans and Democrats, has gone on a vicious offensive of taking back previously-won democratic rights, affirmative action, wages and conditions, and social entitlements of all kinds. But fearing mass rebellions against their cold and fascistic policies, they’ve expanded, militarized, and better organized the police and other law enforcement agencies to unprecedented levels. This they have money for.

Building the political movement to fight back

The fight against police brutality and murders isn’t just a fight against the “law and order” Republican Party.  Liberal Democratic mayors and city councils have long controlled Seattle and many other cities, but police brutality has gone on unabated. And at the federal level, Obama not only continues the police-state measures of the Bush and previous administrations, but he’s deepening them. Hence: FBI raids on the homes of anti-war and solidarity activists in the Midwest; Obama giving himself the “right” to assassinate anyone on Earth; increased internet spying and control; placing alleged whistle-blowers like Private Bradley Manning in solitary confinement; deportation of record numbers of impoverished immigrants; and more.

Along with a growing police state, Obama also offers the youth a future of a rotting, increasingly re-segregated, and cut back public school system, while supporting privatization of education through charter schools which create a two tier system stratified by social class and race.

He offers them unemployment: In the midst of depression, the Democrats hand $trillions to the Wall Street financial parasites, and then plead poverty when it comes to budgets and relief programs.

He gives us imperialist wars: The Obama program has been to escalate the brutal war in Afghanistan, step up drone attacks on Pakistan, attack Yemen, give more weapons to the racist Israeli state, and pass record war budgets –  $750 billion just year.

And he offers environmental catastrophe: While the polar ice melts and raises the seas, while huge dust bowls develop in Africa, while weather patterns are radically changing before our eyes, the Obama administration does essentially nothing to prevent further global warming or deal with other environmental issues.

This is no future for the youth or anyone else. To have a better one is going to require organizing against the politics and policies of the Republicans and Democrats on all fronts of the class struggle. The struggle against police brutality is a necessary component of this. Let us unite to further intensify it.

1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1VKo6-m27c

2 http://www.seattlepi.com/local/433639_inquest.html, and many other P.I., Times, Weekly, and Stranger articles

3 http://www.thestranger.com/seattle.what-some-seattle-cops-think-the-problem-is/Content?oid=6266406

Seattle Anti-Imperialist Committee, January 25, 2011 (Updated on February 4, 2011)

Demand that Ian Birk be charged with murder!
October 22 Coalition rally at 2:00pm, Sat, Feb 12, at Westlake (4th & Pine)