MSJ to protest at US Embassy Wednesday

THE Movement for Social Justice (MSJ) is calling on country and Caribbean by extension to support the protests in the US following the murder of George Floyd at the hands of police.

In a media release on Tuesday, leader of the MSJ David Abdulah wrote: “The MSJ also believes that we in Trinidad and Tobago must, notwithstanding the limitations of covid19 on public activities, express our solidarity in a concrete way. We therefore call on people to blow their horns whenever they pass the US Embassy so that the Representative of Mr. Trump knows that racism must be ended and justice must be done.”

MSJ he said is calling on all CARICOM governments to express concern and solidarity with all those who are fighting a historic battle to bring about a better world and a more just and inclusive society.

Leaders of the MSJ he said, will be present on Wednesday at noon, opposite the US Embassy to express our solidarity with those who are protesting in the US. He added that TT should learn from what is happening in the US, “for there is much that is wrong in our society: discrimination, inequality and injustices abound here and they must be corrected.”

Following the death of Floyd, the US exploded with massive protests throughout the country. Floyd died of asphyxiation after Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on his neck. Floyd was being held for allegedly presenting a counterfeit banknote.

The act was captured on video and shared via social media. Despite pleas from Floyd and witnesses for the police officer to move his knee, he continued pressing on Floyd’s neck for the entirety of a nine-minute video. Chauvin, was charged with murder and he and three other officers were fired.

He said the MSJ is “compelled to extend our solidarity” to the movement in the US because there are many Caribbean nationals and their descendants living and working in the US who have to face on a daily basis the institutional racism of the US and the fear of police action and “the unjust criminal justice system.”

“The US was built on violence – the genocide of indigenous people; slavery; Jim Crow and so much more. It is that culture of violence that is also being seen in the protests today. There has been a foot on the neck of black people since slavery and so black America understood what the murder of George Floyd meant to them – they experience injustice every day.”