After two hours of deliberation, a jury ruled in favor of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) in a civil suit that Dr. Melina Abdullah brought against them for what she called their campaign of terror unleashed on her and her family.
In 2020, amid the protests that erupted after George Floyd’s murder, police officers dispatched to Abdullah’s home violently forced her and her family out of their sleep and into the street in response to what they call reports about illegal activity.
Abdullah, co-founder of Black Lives Matter Los Angeles and Black Lives Matter Grassroots, maintains that LAPD manufactured the calls to legitimize its actions against her. The Thursday, May 23 verdict sparked fury among her comrades and supporters, many of whom had been in the thick of a longtime endeavor to hold police officers in Los Angeles and across the U.S. accountable for killing Black people.
Days before the verdict, Abdullah briefly spoke about her situation.
“LAPD swatted my home three times,” Abdullah said on May 20 when she virtually joined a press conference hosted by Brother Attorney Malik Zulu Shabazz at the National Press Club in Northwest. “They don’t [get to] get away with that. This lawsuit is in the name of so many that police terrorize and silence.”
Abdullah tuned into the press conference just moments before she was scheduled to appear in court for the second week of the civil trial. The conference, which featured Dr. Cornel West as the headliner, took place at the end of the Afrodescendant Nation’s May 17-19 National Reparations Conference.
West and Abdullah are running on an independent presidential/vice presidential ticket in the November election. In her remarks, Abdullah outlined a policy position centered on economic justice for Black people and other marginalized groups.
“The truth is that we can house everyone in this country,” Abdullah said. “We can have free higher education. This campaign is about recapturing the resources to use for the benefit of our people. It means looking at generational harm from a country built by stolen land and labor… Economic justice requires real reparations.. meaning that if you stole the resources from our [ancestors], then those have to return. We want real reparations.”
Dr. Cornel West Paints the Bigger Picture
West tapped Abdullah, a professor and co-founder of Black Lives Matter Grassroots, as his running mate back in March. As they attempt to appear on every state ballot, West and Abdullah are running on the platform of truth and justice.
At the press event, West drew distinctions between himself, a justice-seeking scholar and activist of 50 years, and his opponents, Biden and former President Donald Trump, both of whom he calls manifestations of an American empire on its way to extinction.
He lambasted Biden for not enacting a federal executive order for reparations and not aggressively pushing for the passage of the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which didn’t pass through an evenly divided Senate in 2021.
Both situations, he said, further highlighted a political atmosphere chock-full of politicians, color notwithstanding, who tip toe around the real issue at hand for Black people.
“We’re talking about the tradition of a people in the midst of an American empire experiencing spiritual decay and moral decadence [on the backs of] indigenous, Black people, and poor and working class people for 400 years,” West said on Monday.
The convention promoted a boycott of banks, corporations and other entities that continue to perpetuate economic inequity. In his remarks at the National Press Club on Monday, West indicted Biden as a willing participant in a system that, not only marginalizes people in the United States, but perpetuates imperialism and genocide abroad.
“The 62 cent per dollar that goes to the military, that’s warped priorities,” West said. “ There’s grotesque health inequity. We want to abolish slavery, but have a liberal version. No one wants to be poor in the richest country in the world. Look at Haiti. Look at Congo… [The U.S. empire] is broader than Rome [and] more expensive than Britain, even as it’s imploding.”
Afrodescendant Nation, an ongoing effort to unite Black people in the western hemisphere around self-determination, human rights, and reparations, also brought Kamm Howard of Reparations United to the podium, along with Attorney Harriet Abubakar and representatives of the National Reparations League.
The Reparations Movement: Alive and Well
Throughout much of last weekend, thousands of Black people converged on the District for the convening, conducted by Shabazz. A bevy of speakers, including Attorney Nkechi Taifa, Anthony Browder, and Professor James Small, touched on the state of the reparations movement. Participants also gave a rallying cry against Biden and other elected officials they say haven’t seriously advanced recompense for Black people whose ancestors experienced chattel slavery and Jim Crow.
The reparations convention took place amid efforts by Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) and Rashida Tlaib D-Mich.) to advance a resolution, titled “Reparations Now,” that’s intended to shed light back on H.R. 40 the federal bill that, if passed, would create a commission to study reparations.
Since 1989, lawmakers have attempted to advance H.R. 40, all to no avail. Earlier this year, Bush, Lee, and Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) wrote Biden a letter urging him to issue an executive order in support of H.R. 40. Biden has yet to do so, despite the White House’s condemnation of the Supreme Court’s affirmative action decision and Republican efforts to eliminate voting rights protections.
Despite the lack of traction at the federal level, reparations legislation and commissions are advancing at the state and local level. The California Senate pushed forward with legislation that would establish an agency to help Black families research their lineage and confirm their eligibility for reparations doled out by the state. Other proposals create a fund for a reparations program and compensate Black families for land seized under eminent domain.
A reparations task force in Boston endeavors to compile recommendations by 2025 while a similar entity in Philadelphia recently made its launch. In the District, D.C. Councilmember Kenyan McDuffie (I-At large) reintroduced legislation last year intended to launch a task force that develops reparations proposals for African Americans living in the District.
Meanwhile, Biden faces opposition among young people and grassroots organizers for, not only his lack of movement around reparations, but U.S. support for Israel as it continues to kill Palestinians. Despite concerns about “spoiler candidates” like West and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. data shows a growing independent voter movement.
Howard, who has also lobbied the White House for a reparations executive order, said that such factors make the West-Abdullah White House even more of a possibility. Throughout the reparations convention, he waved posters demanding that politicians “earn the Black vote.”
“Those looking for a third party overwhelmingly say they’re looking for West. They’re tired of being taken for granted and being held accountable for saving democracy and getting nothing in return,” Howard said at the National Press Club on Monday. “In November, the Black vote has to be earned. Black voters have demonstrated political will for reparations at this time. State and county officials are creating [their own] task force at this current time.”