The co -founder of Black Lives Matter: "A black girl from my neighborhood the only thing she has received is police and state violence"

El 13 de julio de 2013 la activista estadounidense por los derechos civiles Alicia Garza escribió un post de Facebook movida por la impotencia que sintió al comprobar que George Zimmerman había sido declarado inocente de asesino en segundo grado de Trayvon Martin y absuelto de homicidio. Zimmerman era el voluntario de una patrulla vigilancia vecinal en Sanford (Florida, EEUU) que, un año antes, mató a tiros a Martin, un adolescente negro desarmado que volvía a casa tras comprar unas golosinas y cuyo asesinato inició un debate nacional sobre la discriminación por perfil racial y los derechos civiles:

por cierto, dejad de decir que no es ninguna sorpresa. Eso en sí mismo ya es toda una desgracia Yo sigo sorprendiéndome de lo poco que importan la vida de las personas negras y no voy a dejar de sorprenderme. Dejad de ver la vida de las personas negras como una causa perdida. Yo JAMÁS nos voy a considerar una causa perdida. JAMÁS

And then, Patrisse Khan-Cullor, an activist friend whom I knew since seven years before, replied with a hashtag: #blacklivesmatter

Thus was born an anti -racist and left -wing movement, feminist and queer who, with the help of the Opal Tometi activist, who has put systemic racism and police violence in the social and political conversation in social and political conversation in social and political conversation in social and political conversation in social and political conversation.

After eight years leading the organization, Khan-Cullors resigned from the Black Lives Matter direction in May this year after accusations of lack of transparency in their management and being questioned by relatives of some victims of police violence, such as Breonna Taylor's mother.When they call you terrorist, his poetic memories about what it means to be born being black and poor in the United States - and that they refer to the formal complaint his brother received after hitting his car with a white woman - they now arrive in Spain from the handof Captain Swing with translation of Clara Mistral and Foreword of Angela Davis.There, Khan-Cullors, who was born and grew up in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Los Angeles (Van Nuys) puts context to that violence and systemic oppression that prevents black people from being socially criminalized by criminalizing them.And he does it through the personal story of his own experience in relation to two close relatives who have suffered it - his father and his brother - and exploring the autodium to his race that he assumed through the archetypes of the series and films, howOvercoming class shame and the feeling of guilt, how the war on drugs became an "ethnic limip site" or why the prison system is the new tool to make free slaves in the United States."Our country is like a giant and terrifying version of those survival realities," summarizes in his book.We chat with her via zoom one afternoon from the beginning of October and this was what he told us:

In these memories, activism is not the construction of a purely political movement, it is understood as a way of claiming care when the system undo.Why?

The community organization in essence is an act of caring.It is important to differentiate between an activist and a community movement.Everyone can be the first, but not everyone can be part of the second.In a community organization you have to take the time to coordinate your group, make sure you are doing your job well and that you are helping to create the new generation of leaders.And there must be very careful wrapped.When you know the members of your community, you find people who have experienced trauma from many prisms: racism, sexism, patriarchy, police violence ... and you ask them to tell their stories.Those who do this work, do not do it from a place of excitement and joy.

It should not be easy.

No, because in most cases we are also traumatized.So we take care of each other while we do this job.It is important.I grew up in a community where any black girl knew that our needs were not met.We did not have access to healthy food or an educational program under conditions.All we received was police and state violence.

He says that at the beginning of Black Lives Matter he worked for weeks to get people to feel comfortable pronouncing the words of 'Black people's lives matter' because, even within the movement, many people considered that those three words in English in EnglishThey could be seen as dangerous or "segregators".

I knew that the phrase was shocking and that this impact was not going to be perceived in the same way for everyone.For black people it is a motto that appeals to our essence, to what we are, what we wanted non -black people to see.But I think that more than the phrase, what really scared certain people is that we create a global political project.That was afraid.When a group of young blacks is not that they only said "black lives matter", but also politicized it.And we talk about the art world, about Hollywood and its industry, about the economy, that is when the reactive movement begins, when the real fear begins, when the motto went on to organize community.

What to say to those who now claim #allivesmatter (all lives import) or #bluelivesmatter (the life of the police import)?

It depends.Eight years later, I can assure you that when someone uses one of those two expressions, they are creating division.And they are adopting a political position on their position regarding the movement that fights for black liberation.

Eight years later write that hashtag, what has changed and what has improved?

Many things have changed.It is a global movement and not only has a plan.Just before speaking with you, a message from one of my colleagues in Sweden has come to me that is being organized there.I think that the whole world has had and still has an adjustment of accounts around racial justice, that there are many black communities worldwide that are trying to change the material conditions of their communities.We have seen the increase in civic commitment, the increase in Black Lives Matter of young people, all the generation that only understand a political organization that is not alien to them.When I was a girl, the political organization was not fashionable.Now you have an entire generation overturned to change the world.

In the book he affects several times that Black Lives Matter, when he managed, was thanks to the queer, intersectional and feminist movement.It also emphasizes that in the initial meetings they had the participation of trans women.

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If I highlight it, it is important that people understand that we live in a patriarchal society and that we have been sold to the heroes of our social movements, who were given a platform to be seen as the Holy Grail of Activism.And that is simply false.And it is for the past and is false for the present.Much of the people who have been on the first line to make changes, which have been the architects of social movements, have been women.And in this case, black women.That is why it was important to leave it in writing: I had to challenge that need to erase us.

He says that the US prison system is a new form of slavery.

Technically we get rid of slavery, but if you look at the constitution of the United States, the thirteenth amendment says that slavery has been abolished, except if you have committed a crime.And that's when people become the property of prisons, not only in private prisons.They are state property of the penitentiary system.And that is something we really should think about.Slavery is obviously a story of dehumanization, a story of humiliation, punishment, shame.What has been done is to translate the culture of slavery to the industrial complex of prisons through mass imprisonment.

That is why they want to abolish prisons and police?

Yes, the work I have done and that many of us have done to challenge the penitentiary system is to fight for abolition, fight to abolish the entire system.And when I say abolish, I really mean the police from the police, get rid of prisons, get rid of judicial systems, get rid of the entire device that has allowed human beings to be caged.And in that abolition the will to imagine something new.You can't simply abolish something.You also have to imagine replacement.

This "replacement" is now taken into account within the US Democratic Party, but with reservations and division.What to do to implement it?

First we have to learn to learn about problems.I don't know anything about Spain, I haven't visited it yet and I hope to do it soon, but in the United States we have a country that is quite ignorant.We do not know our Constitution.We do not know how politics works.That has changed in the last four years.Many more people are understanding the current system in which we live.But we are also subject to misinformation and misinformation.There is much to analyze and you have to disassemble the attacks of white supremacists to reach the truth.So we have to invest in our education, our research and our learning to deal with those issues one by one: sex trafficking, weapons, the penitentiary industry, and so on.But we all have to be part of that change.

Black Lives Matter was born with the Obama Administration, survived Trump and now lives with Biden.Have you noticed a will for change since 2020?

In the issues that most concern me, such as the abolition of prisons and the police, no.It is a safer administration, but we do not idealize it to be favorable to make the changes that we most needed.We want them to do it.We will press to continue doing so for the next three years.In this government is Kamala Harris that is obviously the person who, before arriving at the White House, helped to design the language of the war on drugs and has been part of this system, so we will need time to change it.It is important entender que los cambios por los que trabajamos nunca se manifestarán de forma inmediata.

Bamboozled, by Spike Lee, opened teenagers's eyes to understand the autodium he had towards his condition of being black in the media.Do you perceive a cultural change?

When it was a kid there were not all those contents on television or entertainment about being a black, queer or trans women.It is very powerful to see how now there are all these series and documentaries in which we can show ourselves and share everything that is happening.

Since that hashtag launched in 2013 until today the networks have changed exponentially.How does it carry it now?

Networks have changed a lot.I have experienced a significant amount of extreme right attacks during the last decade.I have been attacked by the media, by individuals on the right and by the previous administration directly.Consequently, my relationship with social networks has changed.It is a tool among many others that I use to treat abolition, but my strategy is to do everything possible to concentrate on what I think people should be talking, instead of reacting to what I am increasing.

Those attacks have affected their personal life.He was accused of having corrupted the movement for buying several properties, but you assure that he used his own money to take care of his family, his mother and brother.How does it carry it?

For a long time, the media on the right have perfected their attacks, creating this vision of those who lead the social movements to discredit us.I have gone through moments when I felt that target in a very personal way, but I understood it as a confrontation that sought to divide a whole movement.To achieve this, they point to their leaders.Our challenge, as organizers and activists, is to remember that the opposition and the extreme right will always try to tear those who are more visible to achieve their goals.