Monday May 25, 2020, George Floyd was killed by Minneapolis police after the police were called for an alleged forgery. The officer who killed Floyd did so by kneeling on his neck and back for almost 9 minutes. The entire incident was caught on camera by horrified onlookers. Shortly after the murder, video and news of what happened in Minneapolis spread quickly throughout the entire country.
Within days, protests had sprung up across the country. Cities like Los Angeles, New York, Denver, Oakland, and Raleigh all had protests against not just the murder of George Floyd but Breonna Taylor, Tony Mcdade, Ahmaud Arbery, and all victims of Black genocide.
A flashpoint occurred when the people in Minneapolis forced the pigs to retreat, then captured, and burned the third precinct to a pile of ash and rubble. Dozens of fires were set across the city with reports that fires lit up the night sky and could be seen across state lines in Wisconsin.
In fact, protesters across the country raised hell. Images emerged of a police cruisers burning in Atlanta and in Los Angeles. In Seattle, six pig patrol cars were burned in a single night. In Oakland, protesters looted luxury brands, even driving away with a car from a Honda dealership.
In the wake of the riots, cities across the country have seen a wave of people coming out the morning after riots to clean up the mess left behind. Mostly comprised of settlers, these Ku Klux Kleaners could be seen sweeping broken glass, scribbling counterrevolutionary messages over agitational graffiti, and helping businesses board up windows and doors.
One striking example of the role of these Ku Klux Kleanups was seen downtown Raleigh. During the one night of rebellion in Raleigh, protesters sprayed graffiti on a wall that read “all pigs burn in [hell].” Not even 24 hours later, the message had been scrubbed from the wall. A white woman stood before the place the message once stood, scribbling a message in chalk that read “Most Black Li-“ the onlooker can only assume the final message would read “most Black lives matter.”
In another instance, a group of people in Los Angeles can be seen scrubbing agitational graffiti off the side of Chase bank, the largest bank in America. JP Morgan Chase was active in the American slave trade and would often accept slaves as loan collateral. Important to note also is that JP Morgan Chase, like any other bank will just as soon evict any of these volunteers the moment they miss a mortgage payment.
These Kleanups have been characterized as a way for people to get involved in the fight for Black lives. The outward face says, “sure let them riot, but tomorrow we will show how much we love our community by cleaning and rebuilding.”
Similar to the oft quoted Dr. King statement that, “a riot is the language of the unheard” so too a post-riot kleanup is the language of the dominant.
To riot is is to express a refusal to be controlled. To tidy up the scene of a riot is to express domination over Black people. Domination over our expression, our rage, and our lives. To clean up the site of rebellion is to say, “I get the last laugh.”
These Kleanups are akin to religious services because property is the deity of settler society. While these Kleanups pretend to care about the community, the hypocrisy is glaring. These same volunteers are nowhere to be found when their community members go hungry and unhoused on the same streets they erase evidence of a Black rebellion from.
Rather than caring for the human beings in their communities, these settlers would rather preoccupy themselves with the maintenance and upkeep of other people’s private property. Hoping to one day be the store owner themselves, they are imbued with a petty bourgeois consciousnesses. Since the foundation of this country, whites have aspired to be, and seen in themselves, the slave owner, the planter, the landlord, the banker, the shop owner, and the police officer.
America will one day be forced to reckon with its stifling of Black life. From literally snuffing out our lives in the middle of the street to snuffing out evidence of our pain and rebellion, America will soon be forced to answer for her crimes.
