Solidarity Statement With #BlackLivesMatter
On May 25th, George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, repeated that he couldn’t breathe at least 16 times as a police officer’s knee suffocated him to death. There were many recent moments of police brutality like those of George Floyd that were captured on video; many countless others were never recorded. As an organization working to realize social justice in Korea and around the world, our focus is on social transformation. That’s why at this moment we must focus on the urgent movement of Black struggle for justice and for deep social transformation starting with #defundingthepolice and allocating these funds to community programs. Just as memory of Japanese colonial rule, occupation of the US military, war and division in Korea has been censored, blotted out, and erased, most of us, including Koreans, were educated to have at best a partial understanding of the history of Black Americans. For example, after the American Civil War, President Lincoln liberated slaves, and after 100 years, Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement gained civil rights for Black people, ending discrimination policies, laying the way for the first black president, Barack Obama to be elected in 2008.
However, the story of constant imprisonment, poverty, violence, and the killing of Black people is missing. Kimberly Jones, co-author of “I’m Not Dying With You Tonight”, explains the history of white supremacy using the board game called Monopoly. During the 400 years of America’s Monopoly game, Blacks were not only unable to participate in the game, but also had to play on behalf of white people. Eventually, they were able to participate in the game and played for 50 years, which is when groups of white people burned their towns as in Tulsa and Rosewood. Eventually, Jones expresses the frustration of a "deferred dream," asking "How do we win in this situation?"
This is the history of Black Americans. The end of slavery began a reconstruction period that promised reparations for slavery, but in 12 years the promise was betrayed. This is because the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), a white supremacist group, after the Northern Union Army withdrew, destroyed what Black people had built in this short time. In the following decades, discrimination policies and previous white vested interests in the South were reinstated. The civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s eliminated some legal discrimination policies, but the Black community was still discriminated against, kept poor, and subjected to police violence. Instead of funding programs that could uplift Black people and give them a chance, the federal, state, and local governments funded ever more police. Instead of addressing the root causes of poverty in Black communities, the government continued allocating more and more of its budget to prisons and police. It’s just recently that the resulting police brutality began to be captured in video. The current, critical movement of protests against white supremacy was only a matter of time.
Black people have always been at the forefront of building a United States for all people of color. The Black led Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 60s and the Black Power movements of the 70s won civil rights and dignity not only for Black people but for all people of color. The Black Lives Matter movement is challenging and eradicating deep-rooted white supremacy. The struggle to cut police budgets and increase budgets for teachers, education, and jobs is a transformative demand with the potential to change the lives of people inside the United States, and outside of it as well.
Thus, the International Strategy Center stands in solidarity with the #BlackLivesMatter Movement to cut police budgets that kill and incarcerate. The alternative is to fund jobs, community programs, teachers, hospitals that nourish, care, and empower people. #BlackLivesMatter #DefundThePolice
Special thanks to Mel Watkins for edits and insights, to EJ Sankofa for connecting us, and to Black Lives Matter South Korea for holding it down and fighting for that better world we all deserve.