A statement by the Kenosha branch of the Wisconsin Freedom Road Socialist Organization
On the evening of Sunday, August 23, the streets of Kenosha, Wisconsin ignited in protest. A 29-year-old Black father named Jacob Blake was shot in the back seven times in front of his children by a white Kenosha Police officer.
While Blake was fighting for his life in the hospital, a viral video of the attempted murder spurred hundreds of people to gather at the crime scene. The large crowd decided to march to the Kenosha Police Department, where they were attacked by militarized police with riot gear and tear gas.
Garbage trucks set up by police as roadblocks were torched, and a dozen fires blazed into the early morning, conjuring images of previous rebellions in Ferguson and Minneapolis.
Mass protests are scheduled to continue, and Wisconsin FRSO welcomes the righteous rebellion against racist police crimes.
As revolutionaries we understand that the United States is a jailhouse for the oppressed. Police enforce the oppression of African Americans and other oppressed nationalities in the United States. While we build toward socialist revolution against the white supremacist capitalist system, we also have to organize to win all that can be won under the current system.
We demand that the National Guard deployed by Governor Tony Evers to brutalize protesters be recalled.
We demand the Kenosha cop who shot Jacob Blake be immediately arrested, charged and convicted.
We demand real police accountability through community control of the police and shifting police funding to essential public services like education.
We call on protests to continue until all the demands of the movement are met.
Nothing short of this will be accepted. No justice, no peace!
