Author: Fight Back

Jacksonville, FL – CNN wants to make out the killing of 17-year-old Jordan Davis and the first-degree murder trial of his killer, Michael Dunn, to be an irrational dispute over loud music. How else do you explain the headline, “Loud music’ murder trial begins” from Feb. 5? CNN is hardly alone, as reporters and pundits try to downplay comparisons to the George Zimmerman trial and make the Dunn trial about anything except racism.

But racism and the system of national oppression in the U.S. South sits at the heart of the murder of Jordan Davis, just as it does the murder of Trayvon Martin and the state persecution of Marissa Alexander. Although police brutality and vigilante violence against African Americans occurs across the country – for example the shooting of 16-year-old Kimani Gray by police in Brooklyn last year – Florida and other states across the Deep South continue to be ground zero in the struggle against racist discrimination.

Consider Dunn, a white thug who fired eight shots at a vehicle full of high school students in Jacksonville, Florida, killing Davis and injuring three others. Dunn said he felt threatened by the loud music coming from Davis’ vehicle and fabricated a story for the police that he had seen one of the passengers pointing a gun at him. His claims were all lies. Police found no weapons, guns or otherwise, in Davis’ vehicle, which never left the Gate gas station where the shooting took place. Dunn, on the other hand, drove to a bed and breakfast suite in Saint Augustine with his girlfriend and casually ordered a pizza, just hours after slaying the African American youth.

Unlike Zimmerman, Dunn was arrested after calling the police a day later. From prison, Dunn wrote letters to family members exposing the racist attitudes that led to Davis’ murder. In one letter, he said of African Americans, “The more time I am exposed to these people, the more prejudiced against them I become.” Other letters from Dunn ranged from absurd claims that he was the victim of racial discrimination to an open call for genocide, in which he said to his girlfriend, “This may sound a bit radical, but if more people would arm themselves and kill these f—ing idiots when they’re threatening you, eventually they may take the hint and change their behavior.”

Dunn should be charged with hate crimes in addition to first-degree murder and three counts of attempted murder. However, state attorney Angela Corey, who is prosecuting Dunn despite her botched prosecution of Zimmerman last year, and the other representatives of the criminal injustice system want to downplay the real trial taking place in the minds of oppressed nationalities around the U.S. – the trial of the injustice system itself.

Opening statements in Dunn’s trial began on Feb. 6 and a verdict is expected by Feb. 14. Even if Dunn is found guilty, though, the system that creates and empowers racist vigilantes like Dunn and Zimmerman to brutally gun down African Americans will continue victimizing more people.

It’s no surprise that the historic home of slavery, the plantation system, lynchings, the Ku Klux Klan and Jim Crow segregation remains the epicenter of violence against African Americans, like Davis, in 2014. More than 150 years after the Emancipation Proclamation legally ended slavery and 50 years since the Civil Rights Act’s passage, African Americans continue to suffer from racist killings, police brutality, higher unemployment rates, job discrimination, less access to quality health care and underfunded public schools, among other things. In the South though, these inequalities are greater and sharper than the rest of the country.

North Florida, including Jacksonville, sits on the edges of the Black Belt, which is the agricultural region historically farmed by Black slave labor and sharecroppers. Within the Black Belt exists a distinct nation made up of African Americans, formed on the basis of a common history, territory, economic life and culture. This nation, forged out of chattel slavery and the betrayal of radical reconstruction by the federal government, is oppressed by the imperialist ruling class of the U.S. for its labor, resources, and land. Racism and white supremacy are two particular forms that the national oppression of African Americans take within the U.S., which are enforced through state and local laws, mass incarceration, police brutality and vigilante violence.

The Black Belt South has been home to the key battles of the modern African American freedom struggle. From the Birmingham, Alabama Bus Boycott, to the Greensboro, North Carolina sit-in at the Woolworths’ lunch counter, to the Mississippi Freedom Summer, the Black Belt South saw many battles by African Americans against Jim Crow segregation and for equality. These battles are part of the larger struggle for self-determination by an oppressed nation. This right to self-determination includes the right to a separate nation.

As part of the Black Belt, Jacksonville’s African American community experiences the national oppression felt across the U.S. South. In the 1950s and 1960s, civil rights activists fought to desegregate lunch counters and restaurants in the city in the face of tremendous repression. The most infamous example of racist backlash happened on August 27, 1960 – called “Ax Handle Saturday” – when a group of about 200 Klansmen and white racists attacked civil rights activists in downtown Jacksonville’s Hemming Plaza with ax handles.

Just a year earlier, the racist United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) pressured the city’s school board to change the name of Valhalla High School to Nathan Bedford Forrest High School, named after the infamous slave trader and first grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. The UDC’s publicity stunt was in response to the 1954 Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education, which desegregated all-white schools throughout the country. Last year, activists in the Jacksonville Progressive Coalition led a successful campaign to change the name of Forrest High School, despite much protest from wealthy racist whites in the city.

The murders of Trayvon Martin and Jordan Davis, along with the incarceration of Marissa Alexander, speak to the continued presence of laws in the Black Belt that specifically oppress the African American nation. Florida’s state government, much like other state governments around the U.S. South, is controlled by the Republican Party, which generally represents the far-right sector of the capitalist class. This sector profits from exploiting agricultural workers and other workers in labor-intensive industries, meaning they materially profit from the brutal racism and national oppression of African Americans. Laws like Stand Your Ground, while nominally defending the right of self-defense, are applied in Florida to empower white racist vigilantes like Dunn and Zimmerman, while denying the same rights to African American women like Alexander who defend themselves from domestic abuse. The hypocrisy isn’t simply misguided lawyers and judges. Instead, it is a fundamental part of oppressing African Americans in the Black Belt on the basis of nationality.

Like modern Afghanistan or Iraq under U.S. occupation, the U.S. imperialist ruling class writes laws and enforces its policies on the African American nation for the purpose of making itself richer. National oppression and racism benefit the imperialists, who favor busting unions, cutting food stamps and keeping wages low. These attacks affect the entire working class, but the brunt of their offensive in the South is directed at African Americans. In Jacksonville, for instance, over 66,000 black workers are in poverty (27% of the black population), which is both higher than the state average for black workers in Florida and more than 1.5 times the total number of white workers in poverty in Jacksonville alone.

The imperialist class uses the murders of Jordan Davis and Trayvon Martin to enforce terror in the Black Belt, whether the terror is committed by police or vigilantes. White southern landowners used the Ku Klux Klan similarly during Reconstruction, when African Americans gained unprecedented rights after the Civil War to own land, vote, hold political office and organize.

The struggle for justice for Jordan Davis is part of a larger freedom struggle for African Americans against racism and national oppression. Florida’s system of laws that are designed to oppress black workers and youth, like mandatory minimum sentencing and harsh drug laws, are not unrelated to the wealthy elite in the US. Instead, they are an essential part of American capitalism designed to keep an entire nation within the borders of the U.S. in poverty and fearful of violence and prisons.

When activists around the country take to the streets to demand justice for Jordan Davis, Trayvon Martin and Marissa Alexander, they are striking a blow to this system of racism and national oppression. The protests, marches, rallies and building occupations strike at the heart of imperialism by exposing the racist system for what it is and empowering the masses of African Americans to defend their communities and struggle for self-determination. Demanding a guilty verdict for Dunn is a crucial battle in this larger struggle.

Raleigh, NC – An estimated 80,000 to 100,000 people mobilized early in the morning of Feb.8 for the annual Historic Thousands on Jones Street in Raleigh, organized by the NAACP. This march was in conjunction with the start of the Moral Marches for 2014, intended to continue the momentum from last year’s Moral Monday movement, in which thousands of protesters demonstrated at the doorstep of the state capitol. Over 900 people were arrested during acts of civil disobedience during the 2013 protests, refusing to give up their right to assembly.

Buses came from over 18 cities all across North Carolina. “Following the powerful Mountain Moral Monday last summer, seats quickly sold on five busses from Asheville alone. It is clear that the fight back against extreme attacks on workers, women, immigrants, teachers and students from our state legislature is getting off to a strong start in 2014,” said Sarah Buchner, of Asheville.

Despite the gusting wind and freezing temperatures, Civil Rights veteran 92-year-old Rosanell Eaton led the crowd in chants of “Fed up, fired up!” to kick start a spirited march through downtown Raleigh.

Organizers of the march made five demands:

1. Secure pro-labor, anti-poverty policies that insure economic sustainability.
2. Provide well-funded, quality public education for all.
3. Promote health care for all, including affordable access, the expansion of Medicaid, women’s health and environmental justice in every community.
4. Address the continuing disparities in the criminal justice system on the basis of race and class.
5. Defend and expand voting rights, women’s rights, immigrants’ rights, LGBT rights and the fundamental principle of equality under the law for all people

Erin Byrd, a member of Black Workers for Justice spoke to the crowd, “We march for women. We march for every single woman who has lost unemployment benefits and still pushes their children forward. We march for every women who sends their child out into the world praying that they get home safely and aren’t gunned down because they’re playing their music too loud, or because they’re wearing a hoodie, or because they’ve got skittles in their pocket. We march for every woman who knows stand your ground laws don’t make your child any safer. Women are the 54%, that’s why we have to march and why we have to mobilize and why we’ve got to vote.”

One of the largest contingents in the march was the fast food workers, who have a campaign to raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour. Organizers came from North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia wearing red “Raise up” hats and carrying banners that said “Raise up for $15”, “We are worth more” and “Organize the South”.

The turnout and spirit of the event indicates that 2014 will be a year of increased struggle in North Carolina.

Jacksonville, FL – Protesters from the Jacksonville Progressive Coalition stood outside of a local Staples retail store, Feb. 8, demanding that the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) stop using non-union labor at Staples. In order to cut costs, the Postal Service recently opened up mail centers at participating Staples stores around the nation as part of a test program. Instead of employing union postal workers with good pay and benefits, these new centers are staffed by underpaid, non-union retail workers.

“Union membership has been declining since the Reagan administration,” said Marina Djordjevic, lead organizer of the event. “If people do not voice immediate opposition, union busting will persist.”

Due to a 2006 decision by Congress, the U.S. Post Service was forced to make unprecedented yearly payments of almost $6 billion in healthcare costs for future retirees. That is, the U.S. Postal Service is prefunding retirement benefits and turning its surplus into a deficit.

U.S. Postal Service administration handled this artificial crisis predictably, by cutting over 200,000 postal jobs, closing down mail distribution centers and local post offices, and now contracting work out to non-union employers like Staples. The American Postal Workers Union (APWU) is demanding that these new Staples mail centers be staffed with union postal workers and not minimum-wage retail workers.

“This is part of a move to shift work in this country to low paid part-time employees,” said Fernando Figueroa, member of the Jacksonville Progressive Coalition. “Either the mail centers employ postal workers or we have to organize all Staples employees into a union of their own. The unions need to build towards a strike or their jobs are going to be privatized.”

Protesters waved signs that read “Save our service” and “Stop Staples union busting.” Drivers passing by on Beach Boulevard, one of the busiest streets in Jacksonville, honked their horns and gave thumbs up to show their support for union jobs.

If the pilot program goes well, the non-union mail centers are threatening to spread to the thousands of other Staples stores around the country. This is a major step towards privatizing the U.S. Postal Service.

Los Angeles, CA – After years of community mobilization and pressure put on state politicians, California Governor Jerry Brown signed AB60, into law in October of 2013. AB60 will allow undocumented immigrants to get drivers licenses, but not until January 1, 2015. That means that for the rest of 2014, California police will continue to seize the cars of undocumented drivers. These cars are impounded, many for 30 days, forcing the undocumented to pay hundreds and even thousands of dollars to get their cars back.

Last November, a large number of immigrant rights organizations and community groups called for a moratorium on impounds. These groups included the National Lawyers Guild, ACLU of southern California, Asian Americans Advancing Justice LA, the Boyle Heights Neighborhood Council, Community Service Organization (CSO), Southern California Immigration Coalition (SCIC), Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights Los Angeles (CHIRLA), Presente.org, Service, Immigrant Rights and Education Network (SIREN) and others.

Chicanos, Mexicanos and Central American communities in California have fought for drivers licenses for the undocumented for more than ten years (see the 2004 Fight Back! article for early news on this struggle). This movement has mobilized the masses of working people in these communities through protests, rallies and meetings. At the same time a broad united front including Chicano politicians, religious groups, lawyers and nonprofit organizations has been built to further the pressure on politicians in the state capitol at Sacramento.

Like many other struggles for equality, the victory in the campaign to allow undocumented immigrants to qualify for drivers licenses was a partial one, with an almost 15-month delay in implementation. In the same way, the growing struggle for tuition equity to allow undocumented college students to pay in-state fees at state colleges and universities is only a first step, which needs to be followed by the fight for state financial aid.

Ultimately, what is needed is a broad legalization of the undocumented, not the more restrictive plans loaded down with more militarization of the border and workplace repression being promoted by the Democrats in the Senate, or even worse, the Republicans in the House of Representatives. But with legislative action stalled, and even if some reform passes this year, millions of undocumented will be left behind; making local and state struggles against deportations, against the ‘Secure Communities’ and for driver’s licenses and tuition equity important.

It would be a mistake for activists to downplay or ignore these struggles for partial reforms that can better the lives of the undocumented. Through their own involvement in the struggle, people can come to see how the system of capitalism — where the economy is based on profit, which in the U.S. is based on a history of economic exploitation, political disenfranchisement and social discrimination that non-whites face — is at the root of the injustices that they face. This history is part and parcel of the historic national oppression that the Chicano Nation in the U.S. Southwest, including most of California.

It would also be a mistake to only focus on the united front and on the struggle in the legislature to pass these bills. Part of the purpose of the so-called democracy in this country, which is really only democracy for the rich, is to draw in activists fighting for change, imbed them in the system and cut them off from the working masses that are the true engine of change.

The editors of Fight Back! News want to congratulate the Chicano, Mexican and Central American communities who have been the backbone of the fight for drivers licenses for the undocumented. We also pledge our support for continuing the struggle for a moratorium on car impounds, for the movement for legalization of the undocumented and ultimately for self-determination of the Chicano Nation, up to and including secession, and for full equality for the Chicano, Mexicano and Central American peoples in the U.S.!

Jacksonville, FL – About 15 protesters assembled outside of the Duval County Courthouse, Feb. 6, as jurors heard opening statements in the first degree murder trial of Michael Dunn, the racist killer of 17-year-old African American youth Jordan Davis. Members of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), the Jacksonville Progressive Coalition and the New Jim Crow Movement held signs and spoke to people at the courthouse to demand “Justice for Jordan Davis.”

Protests began on Feb. 4 outside the courthouse as activists vowed to stop a repeat of the not-guilty verdict in last year’s George Zimmerman trial, in which the killer of Trayvon Martin was acquitted on all charges.

“I came out to rally for justice for Jordan Davis,” said Biko Misabiko, a Jacksonville activist who protested the Zimmerman verdict in Sanford, Florida last year. “[I came out] to end the injustices of the legal system to the minority – not to allow this to be another mistrial case like what happened to Trayvon Martin. We will stand and demand justice for all.”

Dunn, a 45-year-old white racist, fired eight rounds from a handgun at a Gate gas station in Jacksonville in November 2012, killing Davis and injuring three passengers in the car with Davis. When asked by police, Dunn claimed that he felt threatened by Davis and fabricated a story about the four youths threatening him with a weapon. No weapons, guns or otherwise, were found in Davis’ car. Dunn immediately left the scene of the crime to drive to Saint Augustine with his girlfriend, where they checked in to a hotel and ordered pizza just hours after slaying the African American teen. Dunn is charged with first degree murder and three additional counts of attempted murder.

Protesters held signs that read, “Stand up, fight back for Jordan Davis” and “Jail the killer.” Others held signs criticizing State Attorney Angela Corey, whose office is prosecuting Dunn. Although protesters are demanding a guilty verdict, many worry that her botched prosecution of Zimmerman, which allowed him to walk free, may repeat itself in the Dunn trial. Corey has also drawn criticism for disproportionately targeting African Americans for prosecution, including Marissa Alexander.

Despite attempts by Judge Russell Healey and the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office to restrict protesters and media access to the trial, people continued demonstrating on the front lawn of the courthouse.

Four members of the New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense also rallied separately.

At a short press conference, rally organizers announced plans to continue building the movement for justice for Jordan Davis. The SCLC will continue having a presence outside the courthouse and other organizations will work towards mobilizing the Jacksonville community for larger events.

Legal analysts and courthouse staff believe that the trial will last fewer than two weeks, with a verdict delivered around Feb.14.