Say his name: George Floyd

Central Executive Committee, June 2020
This post was originally published as a statement at ycl-ljc.ca

The YCL-LJC expresses full and unwavering support for those fighting for justice for George Floyd, Regis Korchinsky-Paquet, and all others murdered by police in white-supremacist violence. Alongside their communities, we mourn the lives of George Floyd, a black man murdered by police in Minneapolis and Regis Korchinsky-Paquet, an Afro-Indigenous woman murdered by police in Toronto. Solidarity actions continue to take place across North America, with thousands taking to the streets to demand justice. The corporate media continues to call it looting, violence and disorder, however those who fight on the side of justice call it an uprising, a rebellion, and class-struggle.

Race & Racism: Biology or Systemic?

"You can't have capitalism without racism" - Malcolm X

Kayla Hilstob

The way we come to identify ourselves and others within our society has much to do with our social conditioning. Most of us have been conditioned to believe that because of the colour of our skin, naturally we belong to a certain group. This is the concept of race, the mother of racism.

This creation happened only a few hundred years ago in a deliberate move to justify and enforce the system of slavery for white Southern American plantation owners. Scientists have continuously tried to find a biological basis for race since its inception, to justify racial oppression, conflict, segregation, apartheid and genocide, yet there have been no findings whatsoever. Conclusively, there is no biological difference between people of different complexions, other than the few genes that produce the trait of skin colour. Race is a social construct that was created to impose a hierarchy of oppressed people to make a few powerful plantation owners very, very rich.

Black Lives Matter TO's Tent City: “Those in power that don’t serve the people - you are on notice!”

S.L.

The colonialist-imperialist Canadian state has murdered, impoverished, and sentenced to abject misery countless people worldwide in the name of corporate greed, most often targeting non-white nations, namely in Africa. The Canadian government also offers support to the racist apartheid state of Israel and plays a role in the colonial occupation of Palestine, and has been involved in illegal coups worldwide, such as in Honduras and Haiti. This oppression is not solely exported - the same brutal occupation tactics that Canada supports and uses around the world are exercised over the racialized population within Canadian borders.

Black Lives Matter TO’s Tent City: a look back at the first week

Special to Rebel Youth

As Black Lives Matter–Toronto’s Tent City outside Police Headquarters in downtown Toronto enters its 2nd week, participation and solidarity have continued to grow.

Here Rebel Youth is republishing statements, videos and media releases from the past week, which talk about why this action is taking place, the demands of Toronto’s Black communities, and provide an overview of the brief but important history of this ongoing struggle.

Saturday, March 19th

(The day before the “BlackOUT for Justice” rally and the beginning of BLM TO’s Tent City)

BLM TO statement on Facebook:
"This week, Toronto’s Black community was inundated with anti-Black violence from the state at every turn. From the erasure of another Black community festival in Toronto, to the slaying of two Black community members to the SIU decision not to charge the police officers responsible for murdering Andrew Loku. The Black communities of Toronto have waited over six months for a decision that confirms what we have always known: the system is set up to protect an anti-Black police system that continues to target, brutalize and destroy Black communities, Black dignity and Black life.