Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire
  • omnibus

Protesting for Jayland Walker
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
06 Jul 2022
Protesting for Jayland Walker
Jayland Walker (Photo: courtesy of Walker family)

The number of bullets used to kill Jayland Walker have sparked an outcry, but police kill one Black person every day in this country. If systemic change is not the demand all protest is for naught.

Jayland Walker was killed by police in Akron, Ohio when he was shot more than 60 times. The nature of his death, and the brutality of his killing, made headlines. But lest anyone forget, the police kill an average of three people every day in this country and one of those victims will be Black.

We do forget while the police snuff out more than 1,000 lives every year. We awake from the slumber of semi-denial when a case comes to public attention that is especially egregious. It can be George Floyd begging for his life or Jayland Walker being executed by a mob. There are times when we can’t look away.

Police killings do not occur in a vacuum. They are a key part of the state’s plan to keep Black people under physical control. Of course there should be community control of the police, but that can’t happen unless there is a truly democratic state, one that gives the people control over every aspect of their lives. Obviously police should be prosecuted when they kill, but those instances will always be few and far between. The system can be counted on to act as it was intended. 

When Black people declare that they will get justice on their own, they too are killed, as happened to Micah Johnson in Texas and Gavin Long in Louisiana in 2016, the year that Philando Castille and Alton Sterling died at the hands of police in highly publicized cases. Long and Johnson chose to act when no one else would but their choice is not one which makes sense in a country with a history of brutal reaction.

We also know that philanthropy from ruling class forces doesn’t work either. The Black Lives Matter organization imploded amid financial scandals, self-dealing, and cooptation. Raising money from foundations leads to well paid gigs and goodies for the already well connected while the body count remains unchanged.

It is time to look at our own past in this country and to other countries in order to determine strategies of action. While the era of the civil rights movement, the liberation movement, is fetishized, its lessons are rarely heeded.

A mass movement did bring about change. The people who struggled had no political friends, which was actually a good thing. They were under no illusions that politicians would advocate on their behalf. Yet they made demands anyway, knowing that people in power did not want to hear from them. Now we have “activism” that involves bad actors from the Black political class, which was created in response to the liberation movement, and which does the job that a buffer class always does.

Lawyers can sue and get monetary settlements, mothers of dead children are dragged out for show, while the state apparatus churns on. The mass movement which could put a stop to this and other human rights abuses is rarely mentioned as a response.

Political treachery and allegiance to the Democratic Party lead to a repetition of outrage followed by bitter disappointment when justice does not come. There will always be a Jayland Walker, one every day to be exact. They may be hit by one bullet or by many. The sad revolving door of marches, outrage, and opportunism will continue absent a determination to change course.

Perhaps we should look not just to our past but to the rest of the world for guidance. While Black people here wring their hands due to misleadership, inertia and political impotence, the masses in Ecuador recently brought their country to a standstill with a general strike. Thousands of people took to the streets against neo-liberal policies and environmental destruction and their demands were met. In Colombia a Black woman was recently elected vice president after that country's African descended community developed a mass movement over many years.

That kind of victory can happen in this country if we admit that we must change our thinking. It is time to recognize that people around the world have achieved revolutionary changes while American political life grows more and more reactionary. Protests for Jayland Walker will achieve nothing unless there is recognition that he and all Black people are colonized and suffer the same fate as all colonized people in the world.

Unlike indigenous Ecuadoreans, Black people in this country are under the misapprehension that they have the rights that the law claims they have. The recently celebrated Declaration of Independence said all men were created equal while simultaneously permitting chattel slavery in the new nation. It isn’t surprising that a Black family mourns a police homicide every day.

Perhaps the masses who acted in concert in the 1960s didn’t use the word colonized, but they knew what they were up against. They may have used the term civil rights, but they were struggling to have their human rights defended. They knew they had to look to themselves and to no one else. That recognition is missing decades later.

The police and the courts aren’t under any illusions but too many Black people are. It is appropriate to grieve for the fallen, but not to be shocked when they fall or when the system that took them out shows its unjust nature. No one should be protesting for Jayland Walker who isn’t also protesting against a rotten system.

The struggle is one for change, but that can’t happen if police killings are viewed as aberrations instead of as features that the system needs in order to operate. Protesting for Jayland Walker cannot be about police abolition either. Abolition of the entire system must be on the agenda. That demand is a very tall order and that is why it must be studied now before amnesia takes over once again.

Margaret Kimberley is the author of Prejudential: Black America and the Presidents. Her work can also be found on Twitter and Telegram. She also provides original work on Patreon. Ms. Kimberley can be reached via email at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgendaReport.com.

Black Community Control of Police
Police Abolition
Police brutality
Jayland Walker

Do you need and appreciate Black Agenda Report articles. Please click on the DONATE icon, and help us out, if you can.


Related Stories

Memphis Police Chief Trained with Israel Security Forces
Alice Speri 
Memphis Police Chief Trained with Israel Security Forces
08 February 2023
The chief of the Memphis, Tennessee police department took part in trainings in Israel.
Solve Tomorrow’s Uvalde in nano seconds…
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
Solve Tomorrow’s Uvalde in nano seconds…
27 July 2022
                                                                                                    Solve Tomorrow’s Uvalde in nano seconds
“The connections between policing and militaristic assault on the world are endless”: An Interview with Julian Akil Rose
Roberto Sirvent and Julian Akil Rose
“The connections between policing and militaristic assault on the world are endless”: An Interview with Julian Akil Rose
01 June 2022
BAR Book Forum editor Roberto Sirvent and Julian Akil Rose discuss community organizing, Black Queer Feminism, the struggle for police and pris
Patrick Lyoya’s Death Sentence for the Crime of “Contempt of White Cop”
Mark P. Fancher
Patrick Lyoya’s Death Sentence for the Crime of “Contempt of White Cop”
20 April 2022
Police in the United States kill an average of three people every day and one of those persons will be Black.
Automating Banishment: The Surveillance and Policing of Looted Land, a New Report from the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition
Stop LAPD Spying Coalition
Automating Banishment: The Surveillance and Policing of Looted Land, a New Report from the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition
26 January 2022
Surveillance is an integral part of policing in this country.
Black Panthers, Sacramento CA 1967
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
Copaganda
05 January 2022
Copaganda I.
Thousands of Police Killings Are Unreported
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
Thousands of Police Killings Are Unreported
06 October 2021
Police killings of Black people are a feature of American law enforcement and they are deliberately under counted.
Biden’s DOJ Sleight of Hand on Police Reform
Netfa Freeman
Biden’s DOJ Sleight of Hand on Police Reform
22 September 2021
DOJ "reforms" are a smoke screen covering up systemic complicity with law enforcement.
Black Is Back Coalition Holds Conference on Community Control of Police
Black is Back Coalition
Black Is Back Coalition Holds Conference on Community Control of Police
15 July 2021
“We must deepen the resistance to police terror and all attempts to protect a status quo of colonial domination of our people,” the 17 organization
The Radical Practicality of Community Control Over Policing: A Reply to Our Critics
Pan-African Community Action
The Radical Practicality of Community Control Over Policing: A Reply to Our Critics
03 March 2021
Once we are able to secure Community Control over Police and ensure that entire communities are empowered to exercise such control, we will be free

More Stories


  • Black Agenda Radio March 24, 2023
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Black Agenda Radio March 24, 2023
    24 Mar 2023
    In this segment, we learn why Atlanta is the site of the planned Cop City police training facility in what purports to be a Black mecca
  • Ray McGovern Connects Anniversary of Iraq Invasion and Ukraine Proxy War - Part 1
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Ray McGovern Connects Anniversary of Iraq Invasion and Ukraine Proxy War - Part 1
    24 Mar 2023
    Ray McGovern served as a CIA analyst for 27 years, from the administration of John F. Kennedy to that of George H. W. Bush.
  • How Atlanta Politics Led to Cop City
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    How Atlanta Politics Led to Cop City
    24 Mar 2023
    Tea Troutman is a community organizer, urbanist, and cultural critic from Atlanta, Georgia. They are currently a Ph.D. student in Geography at the University of Minnesota working on a dissertation…
  • Biden Continues Punitive Immigration Policies - Part 1
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Biden Continues Punitive Immigration Policies - Part 1
    24 Mar 2023
    Aly Wane is on the advisory board of the Immigrant Justice Network. He joins us from Syracuse, New York to discuss Biden administration immigration policy and its similarities with that of Trump and…
  • Commemorations of the Attack on Iraq March 20th and Libya March 19th Reaffirm that the U.S./EU/NATO Axis of Domination Remains the Greatest Threat to International Peace on our Planet
    ​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
    Commemorations of the Attack on Iraq March 20th and Libya March 19th Reaffirm that the U.S./EU/NATO Axis of Domination Remains the Greatest Threat to International Peace on our Planet
    22 Mar 2023
    Iraq and Libya were both targeted by the U.S. in the month of March. The anniversaries of these war crimes must be commemorated, and the nature of the US/EU/NATO war machine must be understood.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us