odinsblog:

animentality:

EYE remember. They sicced the police and the National Guard on us. For exercising our constitutionally protected right to assembly and protest.

And I also remember how, especially under cover of darkness, cops became particularly nasty and brutal.

We protested to say Black Lives Matter,

People protested to Occupy Wall Street, the police brutally attacked them.

Water protectors protested at Standing Rock, police and the National Guard pepper sprayed them.

The police are attacking and killing unarmed protesters right now today at Cop City in Atlanta. So please let’s knock off the “imagine if people in the US protested like that” nonsense. Sometimes it feels like we stay protesting, like since before I was even ever born.

In addition to all the innocent and unarmed Black people they routinely murder, the police also did things like shoot protesters directly in the head with tear gas canisters, at point blank range. I remember police wilding out on students who were protesting at UC Davis campus to protest tuition hikes. I remember the police tear-gassing a young girl named Sarah Grossman. The cops gassed her in the face and she died from it. And the media even tried covering for the police by parroting their version of events that she had asthma.

I could continue…

But I do not begrudge the French protesters. Like, not at all. They are right to protest Macron’s callous neoliberal ass, and I hope they get what’s theirs. I hope they win. We are on the same side.

#Solidarity #PowerToThePeople ✊🏿

But yeah, let’s not divide and conquer by pitting “our” protests against “their” protests. Let’s not memory hole lived reality and dishonor all the protests that really truly did occur, and are still ongoing even as we speak.