Category: Dialogue

Anonymous submission to Conflict Minnesota

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#JamesAndPlymouth, then #Justice4Jamar, have joined the numerous hashtags that spread across the globe in response to yet another police shooting. James & Plymouth references the intersection by which Jamar Clark was shot in the head by the police, which occurred while he was handcuffed according to witnesses.

The shooting took place on Plymouth Ave in North Minneapolis, a predominantly black neighborhood of the city. In 1967, Plymouth Ave was the scene of a so-called race riot, where black insurgents battled police for multiple nights as they looted and burned stores. In 2002, another police shooting set off a riot in North Minneapolis when residents attacked police and burned media vehicles at the scene. Earlier this year it was designated as a federal “promise zone” which is aimed at spurring economic development, one of eleven in the country. Also on this list is St. Louis County.

November 15th

After a press conference from the NAACP, people gathered at the intersection of James & Plymouth for a march. Several activists were speaking in front of the crowd and media. Before long, people held hands and stood blocking the street on both ends of the block. This was declared to be a “no cop zone,” although only symbolically. After some chanting, we started marching west toward the nearby MPD precinct. Once there, again speakers addressed the crowd. At one point, a brick was hurled at the building.

As the sun set, people discussed what to do next. Some were very adamant about marching to some event nearby where the Mayor and Police Chief would be. Others intended to stay at the precinct, supposedly to pressure the officers inside to do something. Both occurred, some marched to the Mayor while the rest set up a makeshift camp in the vestibule of the precinct. Late into the night, a side entrance to the building was also blocked while people threw bottles at police and sabotaged their vehicles.

Throughout these actions, organizers make fairly constant reference to their actions as being done by “the community.” However, even putting aside the myth of the community, there is an important distinction between the people who live in the neighborhood where these actions have taken place and the people participating in many of the actions. Using the language of “the community” erases this distinction. Many people who ostensibly lived in the area were unhappy with the arrival of the activists groups on their block. On the first day alone, residents interrupted the rally several times, telling off the activists who show up for the cameras. This dynamic continued in the next days.

November 16th

To the surprise of many, those camped in the precinct’s vestibule were not arrested or evicted by the police. In fact, the occupation grew, with tents and a fire pit sprouting up throughout the day. It began to take on a familiar “Occupy” atmosphere.

In the evening, people once again marched, this time to the freeway. 94W was blocked for over an hour, as police facilitated drivers stuck in traffic onto the closest exit. One driver plowed through the crowd, which resulted in a short brawl between angry protesters and the police trying to protect the vehicle. Eventually the police gave a final warning to those blocking the freeway and those not comfortable with offering themselves up for arrest left. A spontaneous march then took place, back to the occupied precinct.

Even given the impromptu and unorganized nature of the late march, Black Lives Matter marshals remained in control. Directing traffic, regulating how many lanes we were allowed to take up; ensuring everyone’s safety, as they might put it. These protest marshals have been a constant feature of actions put on by Black Lives Matter and other affiliated organizations, and most of the time can be recognized by their yellow vests. As the Conflict MN blog has pointed out already, these marshals act as an extension of the police, even if they don’t quite realize it.

MPD to me marshaling: you're doing a fine job. Keep control of these people" FUCK THAT #JamesAndPlymouth #Justice4Jamar

— Sam Doten(ator)🌹 (@zeDotenator) November 15, 2015

So in this way, these activist groups are policing the neighborhood in a way that the uniformed cops were unable to do. By initiating all calls for action, they can also contain the actions. Without them, the police would have to deal with the unpredictable activity of those angered by the shooting, and have nothing but brute force to handle it.

Late into the night, Jamar Clark was taken off of life-support, and announced dead.

November 17th

Anticipating potential anger over the announcement of Jamar’s death, Black Lives Matter called for “healing spaces” at the precinct on Tuesday night

November 18th

Early in the afternoon,a SWAT team raided the occupation of the MPD precinct’s vestibule. For the next several hours, the occupiers and their supporters rallied in front of the station that was now blocked off by police. The scandal, according to many activists, was that this raid took place while the Mayor was meeting with the so-called “leaders” of the protest. The problem here is twofold: we must not negotiate in any way with those in power, and we must not put anyone in a leadership position to do so. There should be no interest in meeting with the Mayor, nor should the absence of select individuals be debilitating to an action.

People began to surround the building and blockade all entrances the precinct. As the night progressed, police attempted to regain ground by making sudden charges only to retreat just as quickly. These maneuvers often included mace and marker rounds, and prompted objects to be thrown from the crowd, although just as many felt obligated to deride their fellow demonstrators with chants of “peaceful protest.” Large tarps were fixed to the fences at the side entrances in order to block the view of the police as well as impede their less lethal weapons.

It’s notable that the building has not always housed the MPD precinct. This would explain it’s vulnerabilities, the relative ease with which the station was occupied and blockaded. One side of the precinct did not even have a single surveillance camera, which was made up for by a mobile camera tower erected earlier during the occupation. This camera was eventually toppled and used to barricade the closest entrance.

This seemed to provoke more marker rounds being fired at the crowd, which was met in turn with more bottles and rocks. Pleas for peace went ignored as bricks were broken up and hurled over the fence at the cops. A dumpster from the alley was dragged out but too wet from the rain to ignite. The street fighting continued over an hour, as people threw bricks while ducking behind cars to dodge the rounds fired by the police. As the crowd thinned out, multiple molotov cocktails were launched at the cops.

Very quickly, many activists laid the blame on “white anarchists” for the violence, something the police picked up on the next day. This denies the fact that many people who fought the police were black, and whose political affiliations could not easily be determined. Most militants appeared to be from the neighborhood, unlike the activists telling them what is or isn’t acceptable forms of resistance.

November 19th

The occupation of the precinct’s lawn continued to grow, with a couple hundred gathering in response to Black Lives Matter’s call for a mass occupation in the evening. People gathered around fire-pits, handed out donated pizzas, as well as warm clothing. As tempting as it would be to call it an autonomous space, the reality was that even with the boys in blue idling behind the barricades, it was still densely policed by activists and the abundance of cameras. Several elected officials were invited and spoke to the crowd, hoping to soothe any rebellious tensions.

They were not entirely successful, as the precinct was decorated by multiple graffiti writers. The police responded by shooting more marker rounds into the occupation. Two men were later arrested, accused of being the vandals (more info to come on legal support.)

As the activist groups struggle to regain control of the movement, it’s clear that their legitimacy has been irreparably damaged in the eyes of those interested in fighting against the systems of oppression. Nothing is over.

Anonymous Submission to Conflict Minnesota

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“[T]he time of passive resistance has ended, that nonviolence was a useless strategy and could never overturn a white majority regime bent on retaining its power at any cost” – Nelson Mandala

“Y’all are some singers. Y’all are just like them, you’re all cops.” – A man at Sunday’s demonstration at the 4th Precinct.

As the cloud of mace lifted, the same calls for “peaceful protest!”—converted later into a chant—were heard above the thronging panicked crowd. Indignant rants of fury against violence would follow. But what does this righteous rage against “undeserved violence” and “unaccountable police work” presuppose? That there is deserved violence and accountable police work. What does this accountable, correct use of violence look like for a police force tasked with protecting the given distribution of power in a country like the United States, a country founded on the violence of dispossession and slavery; a country kept alive by vicious colonial expansion abroad and precise mechanisms of internalized normality at home? We got to see both sides of this power operation last night when the essential violence of the cops was met with the injunction to be peaceful by many of the protesters.

But who defines what “violence” is? And who decided that being “peaceful” was not only the best strategy, but the only possible one? In short, the cops did, but the cops conceived as a mechanism. The police are really nothing other than a mechanism for neutralizing threats to the state’s monopoly on violence, a monopoly that includes the authority to define it. Hence the activists’ repeated claims that they can police their neighborhoods. They’re right, and in this sense, the angry man at Sunday’s demonstration was entirely correct. The consequences of this “community policing” became immediately obvious when they physically excluded his body and voice by forming a circle and singing over him.

Let us not forget COINTELPRO’s expressed aims in the 60’s: “Prevent violence on the part of black nationalist groups. This is of primary importance.” And what was their fear concerning a so-called “black messiah?” That he “abandon his ‘obedience’ to ‘white, liberal doctrines’ (nonviolence).” Thus, when protesters, and especially the activists, declare their own righteous peaceful purity, they do so only by excluding the hooded ones near the back who chose to throw water bottles, stones, bricks, and trash cans at the police macing us. Is it really surprising that, after the cops clearly retreated while being pelted with stones, the activists still present the self-congratulatory and yet self-victimizing image of the pacifist protester? When activists make calls to “prosecute the police” and to “have black cops in our neighborhoods,” they are merely expressing rage at the most flamboyant aspects of a fluid power dynamic that systematically colonizes abroad and at home. They just want to pretty it up. As a 16 year old yelled at the black cop who came to replace a white cop: “fuck you too, you can go home as well.”

When activists declare that the stone throwing was merely a reaction to the violence of the police and assure the media that it was quickly quelled, they rob the event of it’s plurality and exclude those “who don’t get it,” who “were raised differently,” or who “strongly reacted.” It doesn’t matter what race the person is saying it is, this is colonial logic that de facto excludes any form of resistance that doesn’t appeal to the police, the state, and the media. It implicitly, through its own violent exclusion of the resistance of others, supports the world as it is. It is reactionary. ”In its simplest form this nonviolence signifies to the intellectual and economic elite of the colonized country that the bourgeoisie has the same interests as they.” (Frantz Fanon) And when they declare that this violence will only provoke the police into attacking us (or even imply that those hit with marking bullets brought it upon themselves) this legitimizes the violence of the police, while delegitimizing the violence of the kids throwing bottles. Thus, again, activists show themselves to be doing the work of the police.

What is forgotten every time a well-meaning activist calls for peace in the face of rock throwing at a demonstration is that they are deciding, again, that they are the ones who get to define what violence is and where it begins. For them, disrupting a highway is not violence, but throwing a bottle is violence; blocking police inside their station (physically stopping bodies’ ability to move) is nonviolent, whereas slashing tires is violent; and, of course, physically and verbally excluding those who have a different idea of what violence is, in the most spectacular reversal yet, not violence, but telling a cop you’ll “beat his ass right now” is violent. Later, the activists play hero because of their own “bravery in the face of arrest or police violence” while again imploring those who also took risks by throwing stones (but perhaps didn’t want to throw their bodies into an ineffective gesture), to “stop their violence.” Again, the enlightened elite –the religious leaders, activists, and intellectuals- both black and white, know what’s best for people who just don’t understand what needs to happen. They don’t get it that their real solution won’t come from self-determined revolt, but from [Insert here: Appeals to the media/Peaceful demonstration/Socialism/Anarchism/Pan-Africanism/martyrdom].

This is not a call for unrestrained and random violence. This is not a call from a hardened militant. This is a call to respect the diversity of tactics, and the self-determinate violence that already exists on the streets, to the shame of the professional activists. This is a call for plurality and coordination in a decisive time.

– Someone standing in the back

Anonymous submission to Conflict Minnesota

Twice this summer, the Metro Transit Police Department has come under fire (figuratively) for so-called excessive force. The latest incident involves a black teenager with autism being given multiple seizures by cops. On the morning of Sunday the 20th, dozens gathered to protest this act of police brutality by shutting down the light rail. The shut down—timed to interrupt people traveling to the opening game of the Vikings—is the latest in a series of seemingly militant actions to emerge from the Twin Cities-area Black Lives Matter movement. Yet, like the rest, ended up being more media spectacle than substantive action.

The march route, from Lexington Parkway to the St. Paul Police Western District building and back, had been pre-disclosed to the police in order to ensure, supposedly, people’s safety. This is quite similar to another action earlier this month aimed at disrupting the Minnesota State Fair:

City officials said at a news conference Friday that an “open line” of communication is in place between police and protest organizers and that they shared an expectation that the demonstration would unfold safely, leaving no reason for the public to stay away” (Corporate news)

It certainly begs the question why no one should stay away if the purpose is to disrupt the fair, but we know better than that. The purpose is to draw attention to their issues, and their organizations. Under the veil of militant disruption, often said to be “hitting them where it hurts,” these groups obtain their desired media coverage without any actual hindrance to the system’s functioning. As the corporate media summarizes:

Metro Transit replaced the shut down light rail lines with buses between [the affected] stations. Staff from Metro Transit were on hand to direct customers.
“It is very similar to what would take place during a mechanical failure that might cause a delay, a car stuck on our tracks or some other disruption,” said Metro Transit spokesperson Howie Padilla.

Organizers also attempted to prevent conflict between the crowd and a handful of white supremacists—politely called Three Percenters—that seemed very upset about missing the Vikings game. While one of their flags did end up disappearing, the tactics of the organizers succeeded in disempowering people from being able to concisely handle them. These tactics included the verbal berating of those who moved to confront them, and in some cases using their bodies to physically protect the white supremacists when people got too close. This is likely not because they cared for the well-being of racists, but because an escalating situation means that they lose control of it. The more peaceful and passive people are, the more the organizers maintain control, and by extension, so do the police.

This model; a model of demands, media coverage, raising consciousness, and making them listen to us, is presented as our only option. It has practically monopolized the entire local terrain of struggle. The following text is from a flyer distributed along the march (adapted from It’s Going Down) that so succinctly clarifies the flaws in this model of protest:

Anonymous submission to Conflict Minnesota

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“Minneapolis could easily burn like Baltimore.”

Or so says a community organizer within the Black Lives Matter movement. And a number of so-called community leaders would agree. But this acknowledgement is followed up by solutions to make sure that it doesn’t. The list of demands, whether body cameras or better jobs, the protest marshals placed between the cops and ourselves, all tools to prevent things from getting out of control. Quite often they don’t even attempt to hide the fact that they are de-escalators. And here is where the community leaders find themselves shoulder-to-shoulder with the police—both working just as adamantly as the other to eliminate unrest.

Indeed, many participants of the recent “Emergency Shutdown” action in St. Paul actually felt keen on shaking an officer’s hand as he walked freely through through the timid crowd. And despite the call to shut down the streets, a number of so-called allies actually took to picking back up construction equipment that had been knocked over to stop traffic. Minor stoppages occurred along the Green Line, but the event remained entirely contained by the organizers and their designated de-escalators. Instead of blockage used to physically interrupt the material functioning of white supremacy, it is used to draw attention to the cause. Not so different from last month’s solidarity march for Sandra Bland, invoking her mother’s call for “war”, but failing to go beyond an empty media spectacle.

The riot, on the other hand, becomes the last-resort threat in order to force concessions. But liberation from the systems that oppress us cannot be found within the realm of politics. There are no laws that can grant us liberation, no politicians that can promise it us, no amount of reforms that could possibly address the basic operation of the forces that control our lives. Instead, they are used to restore peace, by which they mean order. Therefore, every maneuver on the field of politics can be understood as an attempt to delay our liberation.

Instead of attempting to dissect why certain people try to manage dissent, we find it much more fruitful to sketch a way out. As mentioned earlier, blockage has emerged as an instinctual response to police violence. To block the flows of the city is to interrupt the physical processes through which forces of domination manifest. The riot allows for these blockades to multiply: blocking roads and trains with dumpsters and debris instead of leaving our bodies vulnerable, blocking police operations with projectiles, while also providing the opportunity to directly attack the structures of our enemies and temporarily claim territory as autonomous. We must also learn how to expand beyond the riot as well, pushing the limits until there is no going back.

Minneapolis can indeed burn just like Baltimore, and everywhere else too. It takes confidence, effort, and intention. We certainly aren’t devoid of reasons to revolt, two people have been shot by police in the Twin Cities in the past month. Police shootings are the culmination of so many other, more subtle forms of oppression, and it’s unfortunate that at the current moment we seem to be unable to act before tragedy strikes. Yet, it won’t matter when we act if we cannot escape the impotent symbolism that activism has accustomed us to.