Two officers, murdered in cold blood, the assailant takes his own life and shot his ex-partner–as well. According to these sources, Ismaaiyl Brinsely, was seeking revenge for the deaths of Mike Brown and Eric Garner. His Instagram was loaded with violent, anti-cop rhetoric. It is a tragedy to see these two cops killed but more light needs to be shed on the murder of this man’s girlfriend, she was innocent–the police are not.
Let me clarify, these two police officers, may have been innocent–individually–but as a force, system and organization, they are far from it. Police historically have been utilized as slave catchers, strike breakers and “status quo” defenders. Since slavery was a system that built the United States, today, those who enforce its continuation are inherently protecting a system created for profit and racism. Passing down this lineage to today, the police protect contemporaneous white supremacy and ruling-class power. As revolutionaries, we have two lines we can follow, one that sees cops as an enemy to oppressed nations and the working class or as belonging to those classes in turn must be organized. It is the latter, donning a badge and the blue uniform, civilians go from people with working class tendencies–to becoming servants for oppression and protecting the Empire–from within.
A revolutionary stance on the pig-power structure has to call for complete abolition, not for reforms or accountability.
Before continuing, going back to the police that were murdered in New York, how should these murders be viewed? As tragic midst the pinnacle of a burgeoning movement, it is horrible these men lost their lives and we should grieve for them and their family but their lives are not more important than the hundreds of Black/Latin@ people murdered by the police every year. That is not negotiable. This individual violence is abhorrent and needs to be checked, but do not associate this with any movements against police violence.
Violence is erroneous–when done individually and unstrategically–but it is even more erroneous to believe that revolution is going to occur without a struggle, a people’s war. Nonviolence is a tactic, much like rallies, protests, speak-outs, etc, but they cannot be expected to bring an end to our current system. This requires seizing all means of production (a post for another day), that will effectively bring an end to the rule of the white-supremacist, sexist, homo/Trans*phobic capitalist class.
A revolution, accompanied by revolutionary warfare, is struggling against a system not individuals. There are people who are complicit, intertwined and protecting said system, but individually seeking them out is harmful to revolutionary movements. It prepares, the military, the police and all those invested in maintaining the posterity of the United States for war–that we are not ready for, yet. It takes time, building, education and training before we can holistically fight the system.
We lost two cops, it is not anymore sad than any one else who lost their lives to violence, they serve a system and died, we fight a system and die as well. It is the parallelism embedded in all movement for liberation. A call for violent revolution must be critically analyzed but understood that there is no mourning the loss of one of our soldiers by a system that cares so little for us, therefore–deserves no respect.
It is our duty to not let this movement die, we must radicalize more people, encourage militancy and begin preparation for the revolution because that is our only hope for a new system–for the people, it will take just as much love, compassion and empathy as it will building for the organized, militant revolutionary overhaul of this system.
For the coming war 