This past Friday, September 11 2020, our collective grief and trauma were again ignited in connection to the horrific police killing of George Floyd.
During a hearing, the defense attorneys for former MPD police officers Derek Chauvin, Thomas Lane, Tou Thao and J. Alexander Kueng attempted to introduce evidence in order to subvert the narrative of their guilt and instead incriminate George Floyd for his own murder.
The defense team is blaming Floyd’s death on a drug overdose, joining with an established history of character assassination, victim-blaming and posthumous criminalization of those murdered by police.
The insult of this defence is twofold, in that it both absolves the guilt of the murderous police officers involved while devaluing the lives of people who use drugs.
The claim that George Floyd’s death was due to drug overdose, rather than the knee on his neck, is an attempt to justify violence on black and brown bodies. This tactic is tragically predictable and familiar. Appealing to society’s stigma towards drug use and specifically drug use by Black, Indigenous or People of Color works to shift the blame from the system to the individual, absolving the system of any guilt. This same defense was used in the 2017 police killing of Philando Castile, by the same defense attorney, Earl Gray: that due to an alleged smell of marijuana in the vehicle and the presence of a legally registered gun, officer Jeronimo Yanez was justified in his killing of Philando.
The weight of a white cop on George Floyd’s neck stands as a symbol of the racist and colonialist policies, institutions and histories on the collective neck of all Black, Indigenous, and people of color. The racist systems that led to the murder of George Floyd are fully exposed in this attempt to justify the killing and defend the officers’ actions.
The legacy of the U.S. War on Drugs manifests clearly here and we know that people of color, particularly Indigenous and Black communities have long borne the brunt of this War. Right now in Minneapolis, Black people are dying at twice the rate of White people due to preventable overdoses, while Indigenous people are dying at seven times that of White people – the largest racial disparity in the country. Communities of color are incarcerated for drug related offenses at severely disproportionate rates compared to white communities. Currently 80% of people in federal prisons for drug offenses are Black or Latino.
The policies and laws created by the War on Drugs are used as a primary tool for police to target and justify their violence toward communities of color. It has always existed as a mechanism for exploiting communities of color and poor and working people to destroy community power. This has devastating consequences and creates most of the harms we associate with drugs by means of stigmatization and misinformation. These harms experienced by people who use drugs would not exist in an equal and fair system and are only symptoms of the racialized regime of “illicit” drug prohibition.
People who use drugs matter. Whatever the substance or one’s reasons for use, using drugs does not determine someone’s worthiness of the same care and compassion as someone who is not using. The demonization of drug use and the selective targeting of certain cultures of use foster violence and harm towards everyone, communities of color especially. These policies contribute to health disparities and create an environment in which safety, autonomy, and health disappear beneath the weight of stigmatization, criminalization, and incarceration.
For these reasons Southside reiterates our support for abolishing the police as part of the effort to rectify these injustices, but abolition without a focus on the War on Drugs will leave much of the oppressive systems intact. That is why we believe in a multipronged approach that works. We advocate for the decriminalization of drugs, access to regulated supply and increased funding for community-driven services for people who use drugs, people who are living outside and their communities. We value evidence-based interventions such as safe consumption sites, low-barrier medication-assisted treatment options, accessible housing, as well as other initiatives to which diverted police funding can be directed.
We have incredible Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities in Minneapolis who continue to show strength and solidarity since Derek Chauvin, Tou Thao, Thomas Lane and J. Alexander Kueng killed George Floyd. We know with absolute certainty that we in Minneapolis have the power to create change. As many have said, ‘George Floyd has given us power.’ Let us wield that power together as united communities to abolish the police, decriminalize our response to substance use and ultimately create a safer and more inclusive Minneapolis. We deserve a system that works for all of us.
In solidarity with our Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities and all of you who work to resist these racist systems. We see you. We care about you. We need you.
Love,
Southside
Further Reading
- We Know How George Floyd Died. It Wasn’t From Drugs. – The NYTimes
- Judge disqualifies some prosecutors for ‘sloppy’ work in George Floyd case – Star Tribune
- George Floyd’s family disputes drug allegations – ABC News
- What We Lose When Police Blame Victims For Their Own Deaths – HuffPo
- Killed by police, then vilified: how America’s prosecutors blame victims – The Guardian
- How the War on Drugs Enables Police Brutality Against Black People – Vice