Protest Updates: Kansas City, Missouri
Removing racist statues, burning colonialism and radical solidarity
The last few weeks have seen less people at the Black Lives Matter protests, and also an escalation to the protest tactics by organizers. Unfortunately there has also been an escalation by the people angry about the protests, and cars are being used as weapons across the US. I have seen two instances here in Kansas City where a car ran into protesters and I thought I had just watched a person die. Luckily, no one has been critically injured, but a few have had to go to the hospital. That is not true for everyone — a protester was killed by a driver in Seattle just the other night.
On the 4th of July I attended a protest where a car ran directly and intentionally into protesters and hit them, and then drove away and called the cops blaming in the protesters. Activists found his facebook page, and (BIG SURPRISE) he is a trump supporter. Video of the scene below:
https://www.facebook.com/stacy.shaw.1217/videos/1418458338365033
Apart from the car incident, the 4th of July protest was a success, and felt really powerful. We marched to Westport, which is now a bar district in Kansas City but was once the location of the slave trade in Kansas City, Missouri. The bars were open, and the police stood and watched as protesters took the intersection in the middle of the bar district (a radical departure from a month ago when they teargassed protesters for merely standing in a park).
Some activists risked arrest by chaining themselves to Kelly’s bar, which advertises itself as the “oldest building in Kansas City, MO”, but doesn’t acknowledge that that same building that is now a bar once held enslaved people in it’s basement to be sold. In a powerful action, organizers built and brought a covered wagon, and invited descendants of enslaved people to come and put a red handprint on the covered wagon. After that, they lit the covered wagon on fire. It was super powerful.
Other protests lately have been equally powerful. Last week we went to one that happened to include an action in regards to a racist statue of Andrew Jackson in front of the county courthouse.
Later that night, we were taught other ways of radical solidarity…
Obviously the protests are working, and things are changing a bit in our nation. But we need more people out in the streets. If you are interested, I’d love to talk with you more about it! Reach out. Also, there are other ways to be involved if you are not comfortable being in public with COVID-19, which is still a very real thing.
Don’t forget to #BuyBlackKansasCity !
And are you still reading? White supremacy will take longer than our lifetimes to topple, get to work now and for the rest of your life!
Also, DON’T CALL THE POLICE ON BLACK PEOPLE!
I hope this domestic strife right now leads the US as a country to question international politics as well, and the US place within it. We are literally the “bad guy” in the movie. And that sentence might be used against me in court someday, but that just backs up my point about the fascist sexist xenophobic racist country that we live in.
One out of four cases of COVID19 are in the US, and this has been going on for half a year already. I read an article that said the world would be safer if Americans wore masks, and right under it was an article stating that the US was attempting to buy up all the stocks of potential COVID19 treatment drugs.
It’s got to change. Do your part, and keep doing it. ESPECIALLY if you are a white person.
