The West River Democratic Socialists are a growing collective of local socialists committed to bettering the lives of all working people here in Oceti Sakowin territory.
We have collectively written this statement in full solidarity with the revolutionary working class in Minneapolis and in all cities uprising in response to the active and continual violence against Black relatives, most recently the murders of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and Tony McDade. With no hesitation, we support all methods of Black struggle against police and state violence.
We understand policing as an inherently anti-Black and anti-Indigenous institution that protects the interests of business and property, and never working people. We invite remembrance that the American Indian Movement began in Minneapolis, inspired by the Black Panther Party, in response to police terror committed against Indigenous relatives.
Derek Chauvin, the officer who murdered George Floyd, was also involved in the murder of Indigenous relative Wayne Reyes and the shooting of Indigenous relative Leroy Martinez in 2006 and 2011.
Current potential vice presidential candidate Amy Klobuchar was the district attorney of Hennepin County in 2006, when Wayne Reyes was murdered, and refused to take an active role in the prosecution of the 6 officers involved, including Derek Chauvin. Current presidential candidate Joe Biden authored the 1994 crime bill which has directly resulted in heightened incarceration and police violence. These are just two examples of the Democratic Party actively supporting and sustaining mass incarceration and police violence.
Locally, the settler state of South Dakota has the highest incarceration rate, per capita, of any other state. The Rapid City Police Department polices and incarcerates Lakota and Indigenous people at vastly disproportionate rates. Indigenous people make up approximately 9% of the state’s population and are nearly 50% of those arrested and booked into jails. Furthermore, Indigenous people are incarcerated at a rate of 10 times more than white settlers. Across the board, this particularly punitive system targets Black and Indigenous people, and puts all people in the state at risk.
It is in regard to each of these taken relatives, and all other victims of police brutality and imprisonment, that we join our comrades in the demand for abolition. We understand abolition as imagining our lives without and beyond police, prisons, and capitalism; we are committed to actively building healthy and genuinely safe communities in their absence.
Connected to our commitment to abolition, we would like to express sharp critique of the language that was used by coordinators of the memorial walk for George Floyd that took place in Rapid City on Saturday, May 30th. In the event description, community members were told that “…this is not a riot nor a protest against our local law enforcement and any misconduct will not be tolerated.” We recognize this language as delegitimizing and criminalizing Black resistance and rebellion and we firmly reject it. We urge community to also join us in rejecting the encouragement to protect and prioritize police over people. Additionally, a coordinator referred to Minneapolis comrades in struggle as “animals [since deleted];” this is violently anti-Black. The same coordinator threatened to remove protesters, whom they deemed inappropriate, by asking them to leave or “taking more serious measures [also, deleted].” The murder of George Floyd was an act of police terrorism. To threaten attendees with “more serious action” implies involving the very system which led to his murder and putting our community members in danger of arrest or worse. This language was completely inappropriate because it promotes policing and prisons. We are grateful to all community members who attended with firmly abolitionist sentiments and messaging. Symbolic solidarity efforts become empty if we are not simultaneously confronting systemic violence and divesting from partnership with the police. Cops don’t keep us safe. We keep us safe.
It is only through unwavering solidarity and commitment that we will create the coalitions we need in order to radically transform our lives. We invite you to join us in our learning and organizing.
Solidarity,
West River Democratic Socialists
Očhéthi šakówiŋ Territory
