'What Do We Do Now?'
The uprisings have spread to practically every major American city. What's next?
RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA — Raleigh isn’t a radical city, at least not in the way nearby Durham or Greensboro or even Asheville are. But a switch has flipped on in this place, like most others around the country, in the wake of the killings of George Floyd in Minneapolis and Breonna Taylor in Louisville and Tony McDade in Tallahassee.
It’s partially because Raleigh, like every other city in this country, has its own unfinished business with the police. The wounds go back decades. They were never attended to, just left to scab over until they reopen when another senseless death at the hands of the police occurs.
Akiel Denkins was 24 years old when he was shot and killed by Raleigh police officer D.C. Twiddy in February 2016. I had just been hired the Triangle-area alt-weekly Indy Week and was at the scene about an hour later, and spent the next week talking to his neighbors, activists, the cops, and whoever else I could to try to make some semblance of why he was dead. Twiddy said he saw Denkins reaching for a handgun; practically everyone I talked to told me Twiddy shot Denkins in the back.
Over the past several days, I’ve seen more than one sign in Raleigh honoring Akiel Denkins. As I write this, Raleigh just finished its fourth night of protest with hundreds of people proudly defying the mayor’s 8 p.m. curfew to peacefully march through downtown. Earlier, a protest organized by a local activist group, the Raleigh Police Accountability Community Taskforce (PACT) — Denkins’ mother, Rolanda Byrd, now serves as the group’s executive director — drew what looked to be at least a thousand people, if not more.
Some of this feels familiar, but the difference from past protest movements in Raleigh — those following Denkins’ death, over the anti-trans bill HB 2, the Moral Marches I’ve attended over the past few years — is palpable. It raises the question: What is happening, and why now? And what’s next?
Akiel Denkins is not the only person who’s been shot and/or killed by a Raleigh police officer over the past several years. In March, protests erupted in Raleigh after 26-year old Javier Torres was shot and wounded by a Raleigh police officer, with demonstrators going to police chief Cassandra Deck-Brown’s house. In April 2019, 30-year-old Soheil Mojarrad, a mentally ill man, was shot and killed by a Raleigh officer whose body camera wasn’t turned on.
Going back several years, I couldn’t find any instances of Raleigh police officers being charged for assaulting or shooting someone, and only one instance of a Wake County sheriff’s deputy being charged with assault (along with two state highway troopers.) The PACT has been a frequent presence at city council meetings over the past five years, pushing for more transparency and accountability from the police department. The only real response from the city has been to create a police advisory board, one that can only recommend departmental changes because it has no investigatory power under state law.
So it’s clear why Raleigh is furious. But why now, as opposed to when the police killed Soheil Mojarrad, or when Keith Scott was killed in Charlotte?
To start, the intensity of these protests is not something I’ve seen here before. Before Tuesday was over, activists were making plans for the next night of action. Hundreds have hit the streets every night since Saturday. After two nights of cops firing teargas at protesters, followed by rounds of property damage to some downtown businesses and a couple of malls in other parts of the city, the National Guard was called in and the mayor instituted a curfew.
But the obvious answer is that we have reached a boiling point. Shit is rolling downhill very fast. More than 40 million people have filed unemployment claims in the past two and a half months. COVID-19 cases are still rising as many states have reopened, forcing mostly working-class people back into unsafe workplace conditions. Trust in government was at historic lows well before all of this happened; one can only imagine how bad the floor might be now.
Donald Trump is playing a major role in this as well. Trump’s response to the uprisings, which has been to accuse popular protests of being home to terrorists and demand harsh military and police crackdowns, is the opposite of what a public that’s turned remarkably sympathetic toward the protests is demanding right now. Similar protests happened under Barack Obama, with a similarly militarized response; the difference now is that the president is actively taking glee in cracking down on free speech, and maybe that — along with the complicity from Democratic mayors — is all some people needed to see that the government does not give a fuck about you.
That does not mean these protests adhere to any kind of strict ideology. There’s been a sizable left-wing presence at the protests I’ve been to, but the protests themselves haven’t taken on a fixed political identity by any means. On Tuesday, outside of the city’s municipal building, several Raleigh police officers knelt down, a gesture that’s been common throughout the country. Some protesters cheered; many more began chanting, “We want more.”
Later, in front of the governor’s mansion, one woman trying to make the point that good people should assume positions of power encouraged people to apply to become Raleigh police officers. She was followed by a man who stressed the roots of white supremacy in America. The only ideological belief explicitly shared among the group seemed to be that the cops should not be allowed to kill people with impunity.
This presents a challenge for the next stage of the growing movement, especially for people on the left who want to nudge these uprisings into a direction that explicitly indicts racism and capitalism as cancers on America that need to be excised. All anyone can say with any degree of confidence is that all of this is decidedly not boosting the protesters’ faith in the American government, but where they go from here when the fatigue sets in — whether there is a major and sustained push for policing reform, or something more — is anyone’s guess.
At around 8:30 p.m. during Tuesday’s protests — a half-hour after the curfew had begun and 15 minutes before the police began announcing that they would arrest people who didn’t disperse — a young person who seemed to be leading the group held a megaphone, looking around for what was next.
“I’m not even the leader of this. I just came up here,” they admitted. “So what do we do now?”
Photo: Paul Blest
Sometime I just want to tell white liberals and the ignorant black ones to shut the fuck up. I have heard from the mouths of these white liberals and the deluded blacks that these protest should have a direction aimed at specific outcomes, that demands should be brought to the fore. Demands such as blab bla bla and more blab bla bla. My reaction to this is a stifled scream. My verbal response is where the fuck have you been for the past forever. The demands you allude to have been voiced so many times the echo is louder than the original shout. The demands you speak of are the same demands WEB Dubois was making one hundred years ago. A Phillip Randolph made them, Malcolm X made them, Martin Luther King made them, The Black Panthers, the NAACP, Black Lives Matter, who the fuck hasn’t made them. These liberals speak of making systemic changes by making specific legislative demands of politicians. OK, sounds good, except for the fact these demands are already known and have been known for many generations. This is not new! The demands are broad of course; unless you’d like to suggest twenty something year olds marching in the street should submit detailed legislation to law makers. That IS the job of law makers. It’s why they were voted in and put into positions where they can promote and affect changes to this racist system. How many times have communities of color demanded police reform? Independent prosecutors, transparency, more community control, changes to regulations regarding the use of force, a halt to racial profiling, on and on and on. How many demands for an equitable education system for the benefit of public education have been made? How many demands for fair and affordable housing have been and are being made constantly. Again, all you liberals talking about these protest having a goal, where the fuck have you been. Anyone serving in a law making capacity is well aware of our demands, this is not the problem, it has never been the problem. Anyone with a brain can recognize injustice; whether you chose to ignore or rationalize it is a whole other issue. If you know what injustice is it stands to reason you would know what justice is. How to begin to go about creating a just society is a question that has been answered to no effect. Protest do not impede progress, protest are the catalyst. Protesters have answered the question of what are your demands thousands of times. The problem is not in a lack of clear goals the problem is no lawmakers seem to want to make any moves toward the goals, hence the protest. I am amazed at liberals who don’t get it. Who ask stupid questions like what are the plans for when the protest ends. Why are you asking protesters that question when you should be asking lawmakers that very question. What are they going to do to keep this form of protest from becoming unnecessary?
It should be obvious what protesters will do. We will wait and see what those with the power to affect change are going to do. We did our job now it’s time for those with the political power to do their job which is meet the needs of the people. To say demands need to be articulated or these protest will be ineffectual, a waste of time, is bullshit because the demands have been made. Anyone who doesn’t know what at least some of those demands are hasn’t either hasn’t been paying attention or is looking for a way to take the heat off of those in public office. Do not try to put the responsibility on the outcome of these protest on the folks in the streets screaming for justice at the top of their lungs. The outcome is in the hands of the political leaders. Our political leaders are aware of the many injustices. I’m certain they all have at the very least a minimal awareness of some solutions. The problem is they just don’t care and so you have hundreds of thousands on the street reminding them of the consequences of apathy and inaction. That is the point of the protest. Show the leaders the unwanted consequences for their failure to address these demands they have continually ignored. The people don’t need to constantly repeat the same demands over and over each time some ugly, inhumane act lights a fuse. I’m sick of hearing liberals talking as if the demonstrations have no effect if they aren’t directed toward policy changes as if the demonstrations actually are not directed toward policy changes. Why the hell do you think people are out on the streets. Sure we are angry and want the world to know it, but more than that we are fed the fuck up and want, hold on to your hats, to change policy. It is the twenty-first century and some liberals are acting like this is all brand new. Should we be forming committees to address congress and local leaders directly with a set of demands? What’s the point of that? Ask anyone on the street what needs to be done and you will get an answer. The demands are well known. Enough already! They need to start addressing them. We can debate the order of priorities but every demand has to be acknowledged and the work on their side needs to begin. This game of “Tell Me What You Want Because I Don’t Have A Clue” that some liberals seem to want people who are fed up to participate in is not going to play out well. The people who run our capitalist political system, the folks who wet the beaks and pay the two political parties to protect their interest, often referred to as the donor class, their demands are always met. Do they have to tell their political handmaidens their every need? They often get things, like tax breaks without as much as a wink, their needs are established, accepted, and met in the way a maid knows how their employer wants their house kept, in the way a personnel assistant knows their employers priorities. You will not be on their payroll long if you can’t adjust to their needs. Why is it that these same politicians appear to lack any and all direction when it comes to the people they theoretically are elected to serve? How is it they have to be told over and over and over again what the people want and need? It’s rather strange that when campaigning these politicians are told constantly what the people want. They rehearse conveying their deep understanding to the voters to show how in touch they are with the needs of the communities and country they serve. These con men and women pretend to forget their well rehearsed profiles. They do not forget. There’s no lack of knowledge, they just don’t care enough to do what they know should and can be done. So please you white well meaning liberals and you confused deluded out of touch black liberals, stop the bullshit discussions about what protesters need to do. They are doing what needs to be done. They are putting a collective foot up the ass of all those who continue to pretend this is something new and solutions need to be articulated in clear and direct language. That rock flying down the street toward the blue uniformed organization of sociopathic behavior is clear and direct language telling everyone in charge fix this shit. So liberals save your assessments and suggestions for the political professional whose only aspirational goal is a six figure salary as a slim trail lobbyist. Let’s discuss political accountability instead of protesters. We lit the fire for them to feel the heat and immediacy of this moment, not us. Focus your lenses on the lawmakers, ask them what they intend to do. No don’t ask, demand, like the protesters, loud and clear, act like you know what you're doing and fix this shit!
The NAACP has an idea: https://twitter.com/VivaLaNneoma/status/1267999874374565893/photo/3