Ibrahim Yassin, Cardiff Socialist Students
The brutal extrajudicial killing of George Floyd on 25 May 2020 sent shockwaves around the world, with demonstrations of hundreds of millions of people globally against systemic racism and inequality inherent at the heart of the system of capitalism. It was a heartening glimpse of a mass international movement of working class youth united in common cause – the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement.
Despite this mass demonstration of working-class anger, the leaders of BLM completely failed to direct the anger and outpouring of energy towards any specific concrete demand, such as democratic control of the police or the demilitarisation of state police forces in the US. In two years, the movement has achieved virtually no systemic change. Since George Floyd was murdered, high-profile killings of unarmed black people have continued at a virtually unchanged pace.
In 2020 at least 19 unarmed black people including George Floyd were killed by US law enforcement. In 2021, it was 17. In 2022 so far, this figure stands at eight as of 28 July. Possibly the most egregious of these was the killing of Jayland Walker on 26 June – where, during a routine traffic stop, Jayland was shot at more than 90 times, sustaining 60 gunshot wounds.
Of course, the UK is not innocent in this regard either, with two Black young men – Mouayed Bashir and Mohamud Hassan – dying in South Wales Police custody in 2021, and the recent notable case of Child Q, a black schoolgirl who in 2020 was strip searched by Metropolitan police with no other adults present and while menstruating, after being wrongly accused of carrying cannabis at her East London school. And just last week, an unarmed black man, Chris Kaba, was shot dead by police in South London.
Despite the relentless press of these harrowing events, there have been no demonstrations of the scale and energy seen in 2020. This isn’t a reflection however of the lack of willingness for a fight against racism and capitalism. The leadership of the Black Lives Matter movement failed to establish and develop democratic organisational structures, which would have been able to harness the energy of the huge marches which took place in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, and provide a space to democratically debate out a programme of demands the movement could mobilise around, as well as a strategy for how to win them.
The resultant lack of direction, strategy and concrete demands by the movement allowed the energy of the movement to dissipate into the ether, instead of being organised and directed at the ruling class to win improvements to the lives of BAME workers and youth. The initial BLM protests will have been the first marches for many who attended them, searching for a strategy to build the movement.
Needed were democratic organisational structures, which would have been able to harness the energy of the huge marches which took place in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, and provide a space to democratically debate out a programme of demands the movement could mobilise around, as well as a strategy for how to win them.
Socialist Students puts forward the demand that the police should be subject to democratic control and oversight by workers and the communities they claim to serve, including by the trade union movement. This would give workers and young people the power to set policing policy, as well as the powers of hiring or firing members of the service.
Unfortunately the problem goes deeper than policing. While poor and falling wages affect huge swathes of the working class, black people are often overrepresented in demographic markers of poverty, such as housing status, low pay, unemployment levels, and chronic underinvestment in their local areas. Fundamentally, these day-to-day class issues facing BAME workers and youth have remained unresolved.
How can concrete victories on these issues facing BAME workers and youth be achieved going forward? The summer has seen the development of a strike wave which has involved workers from across various sectors fighting for better pay and conditions. These strikes have been met with widespread support from workers and young people, leading to a domino effect where workers see others striking and winning, and decide to struggle for their own rights, pay and conditions.
It’s within the workplaces that workers from all manner of different backgrounds come together and interact on a day-to-day basis. The trade union movement therefore has a central role to play in the fight against racism – uniting workers regardless of race, religion, gender or sexuality in a common struggle for decent wages, jobs, homes and services for all, and cutting across the divide-and-rule tactics of the bourgeoisie.
But the struggle against racism cannot only be conducted on the industrial plane, but needs a political arm as well. In the heyday of Corbynism, many people of colour (in particular youth) turned to the Labour Party as a potential political vehicle to fight for Corbyn’s programme.
Following the defeat of Corbynism within Labour, Keir Starmer has made clear his thoughts when he described the demonstrations as a “moment, not a movement”. That’s why Socialist Students stands for the building of a new party for workers and young people. Such a party could act as a political voice for the majority – against inflation austerity, and for renationalisation of the energy companies, water, the railways, and major banks and monopolies to provide the majority with a decent future, and to bring the disaffected and discriminated members of society back into the fold by articulating the concerns of ethnic minorities and their communities.
Such a party could also act as a forum for discussion on how a mass movement against racism in the workplaces, in the places of education and within wider society could be built. Socialist Students says that the struggle to eradicate racism has to be linked to a struggle against the capitalist system which breeds racist division.
That’s why the struggle for a socialist society – with the democratic planning of wealth and resources to provide decent lives and futures for all people, regardless of their background – is necessary to most effectively unite workers and young people in a struggle against racism. Two years on from the death of George Floyd, and the reality for Black and ethnic minorities in the UK and across the world has not materially changed. We must unite in political struggle across the working class in order to more effectively fight for a fairer, better, socialist future.
Socialist Students 