SAN FRANCISCO (CN) — Demonstrations against police brutality continued across California on Wednesday, with one of the largest ones organized by teenagers tired of systemic racism and abuse.
The killing of George Floyd at the hands of Derek Chauvin, a Minneapolis police officer who kneeled on his neck for nearly nine minutes as Floyd begged for his life, set off a week of protests throughout the country. Chauvin was initially charged with third-degree murder, which was elevated to second-degree murder on Wednesday. Three other police officers who did not intervene to stop Chauvin were charged with aiding and abetting murder.
In San Francisco on Wednesday, thousands of young people of all races flooded the streets in the Mission District to protest police brutality, racism and white supremacy. They also came to give a giant middle finger to the establishment.
The demonstration started on the steps of Mission High School, where young organizers addressed the impassioned throng, carrying pictures of Floyd and Black Lives Matter signs. They were led by 17-year-old Simone Jacques.
“We’re just youth who grew up in the city. We’re just people who care and love each other,” she said. “We are here to fight, abolishing police and to dismantle the systems dependent on our oppression.”
She continued to cheers from the crowd. “Today we are here for George Floyd, Tony McDade, Breonna Taylor, and many more black men and women killed. We are here to honor their lives as sacred, because the United States never has. We’re also here for our loved ones and our future children.
“So today, we say ‘Fuck the police, fuck ICE, and fuck Donald Trump,’ because we will no longer tolerate our persecution and our murders. We are here as children of our generation to disrupt their peace. This is community taking care of community and we are living proof that we do not need police.”
Another organizer, 19-year-old Sabrina McFarland, read a heartbreaking poem to the crowd. “I awake to a country that reeks of black death. There’s never enough time for me to even catch my breath before the next hashtag surfaces, and I start to feel my PTSD surfacing again. I was about 10 when the police killed my cousin. The San Pablo Police Department said he had a weapon, and the only weapon they could identify was his skin. I done heard too many stories like his. I’m sick of it, and it’s really simple actually, not quite complex. Tell the police to keep their knees off our necks.”
Michael Houston, who recently graduated from high school, said he had just heard that a 13-year-old black boy had been killed by police in his hometown of Brooklyn, New York, the night before.
"We may not have all the facts, but one fact remains clear: What condition would lead to a 13-year-old boy being murdered by the police? The same exact condition that led to George Floyd,” he said.
Calling out San Francisco’s wealth and privilege, he urged white people who work in tech to advocate for more diversity in hiring. “It is up to you to use your privilege and go into your companies and demand to see more black people in those companies,” he said.
Houston said he didn’t care if some corporations had lost money from the looting in San Francisco the previous weekend, after decades of violence against black businesses at the hands of white rioters, such as the complete devastation of Tulsa, Oklahoma’s prosperous Greenwood District known as the “Black Wall Street,” in 1921.
“So I don’t give a fuck about Target, about Walgreens, or CVS,” Houston said. “In the same breath, to those anarchists who are there to spread pure chaos, understand something: We will hold you accountable. You don’t have to worry about the police. You gotta worry about us. You will not disrupt our revolution.”
Follow @MariaDinzeo
