Last May in Minneapolis, the African American George Floyd was killed by a police officer while he was kneeling on Floyd’s neck for several minutes during an arrest. What followed was a wave of protests against police violence across the country, most of which came together under the catchphrase “Black Lives Matter” (BLM).
However, the name of the movement itself is older. Alicia Garza tells in her book “The Power of Action” how she used it for the first time in July 2013 when she was following the verdict in a bar in the case of the killed black youth Trayvon Martin – skin tones were always capitalized.
The man who shot him was acquitted at the time. Then she tweeted the hashtag “blacklivesmatter”. The BLM movement was born together with Patrisse Cullors and Opal Tometti.
At the beginning of her almost 400-page book, the 39-year-old looks back at the time she was born into – the Reagan era. This is where she locates the causes of the persistent systemic problems. A fundamental redistribution from the middle class to the richest, according to Garza, affected the black population disproportionately.
High unemployment and a tough anti-drug war ensued: “Reagan provided white working-class men with an answer to why their wages fell after a period of prosperity and economic growth: because the government squandered money on programs that benefit women and people of Color supported. “
Under Reagan there was a polarization along the dividing lines between skin color, gender and class – even though there had already been movements for civil rights and black power. Her early years were thus characterized by a conservative consensus to the detriment of the black population.
Growing up in San Francisco, organizing movement was a part of her life. And she felt an urge to share her knowledge “that things are not the way they should be” with others. Therefore, she was “just as interested in human connections and relationship building as she was in achieving a political goal.”
[Alicia Garza: Die Kraft des Handelns. Wie wir Bewegungen für das 21. Jahrhundert bilden. Aus dem amerik. Englisch von Katrin Harlass u.a. Tropen, Stuttgart 2020. 395 S., 20 €.]
She impressively describes how she found a home in the grassroots movement “People Organized to Win Employment Rights” (POWER), which campaigned for the improvement of the living conditions of the black community in Bay View Hunters Point in San Francisco.
The residents of the district should be evicted through expensive renovations. Garza collected enough votes with POWER for a referendum by knocking on doors throughout the neighborhood.
Protest cannot only take place on social media
Garza distinguishes between “united fronts”, which are small but have a high degree of political consensus, and larger “popular fronts” that help people “face the world as it is”.
Black Lives Matter does not want to deny the value of other minorities. However, blacks in the United States are “exposed to attacks in a very unique and systematic way.”
Garza sees the black liberation as liberation for everyone. It is important to her that movements do not only take place in social media. It’s nice to have a million followers on Twitter, but you have to ask yourself: for whom and what for? BLM only became effective when people were practically committed to the movement.
The power rests with the whites
The insightful value of Garza’s book lies clearly in the representation of the effect that movements can have on the change in circumstances. However, her digression on a woman who is upset about BLM seems strange.
She says she would like to see everyone as human – regardless of skin color. Since the USA is already shaped by white identity politics, despite historical guilt towards indigenous people and blacks, Garza’s focus on the non-white population follows an empowering thinking.
There are good arguments to argue that power lies with the whites. The fact that the USA is already driven by white identity politics is at least debatable.
Garza is also critical of the role of men. She herself, a queer woman, rightly speaks out in favor of greater participation by women and queer people. An example for her is the activist DeRay Mckesson, who, in her opinion, has often wrongly spoken for the movement.
Black women also have to play a role in leadership roles in black grassroots movements, too often they have been pushed into the background in the past. Fortunately, this is no longer the case these days, as can be seen from the celebrities of Garza and their colleagues.
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