This podcast was edited by  Paola Michelle Ortiz, hosted by Sughnen  Yongo-Okochi and reported by Paola Michelle Ortiz, Michelle Diaz and Kaity Assaf.

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Madeleine Greene, a resident of Illinois and an active participant of the protests in Chicago yesterday, said that the verdict represents a broken system that protects the white, wealthy class. 

Protesters gather in Chicago, Illinois to peacefully rally about the verdict on the Breonna Taylor case. September 23, 2020. Photo courtesy of Madeleine Greene

“White officers killed Breonna Taylor, and only one is being charged with a Class D felony that is akin to property damage. The verdict here is a joke, and this is not justice,” said Greene. “…2020 needs to be a watershed moment for our country to reckon with its racist foundation. Slavery did not end in 1865, it was simply morphed into the prison industrial complex.”

Kentucky Attorney General  Daniel Cameron said that the decision was reached by examining the actions of Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly, Detective Brett Hankison, and Detective. Myles Cosgrove — the three officers who fired  weapons in the early morning hours of March 13.

The grand jury decided that the officers were  justified in firing into her home because they needed to protect themselves after they faced gunfire from her boyfriend. The only charges were three counts of wanton endangerment against  Hankison for shooting into a  neighbor’s home. He is the only officer who has been removed from the force.

As the public continues to express outrage and demand justice for Breonna Taylor, the justice system’s role has also come under the microscope.

“We will not know justice until we defund the police, and defund the private prison industrial complex,” said Greene. 

Black people are not the only ones protesting at this time of explicit racial unrest. 

“I am protesting because I am a teacher, and I am a white woman,” said Greene. “As a white woman, I was afforded a multitude of opportunities and privileges that got me to where I am today. I am protesting to fight for that equality for my Black and brown students.”

A barrage of tweets permeated cyberspace as the hashtag #BreonnaTaylor went viral.

Ibram X. Kendi (@DrIbram), a number-one New York Times Bestselling Author, Professor, and Director of the Center for Antiracist Research at Boston University, tweeted in support of the cause. He also spoke on the precariousness of being a Black person in America.

To not indict the officers for murder is to claim #BreonnaTaylor killed herself. Racist America constantly kills Black people and then tells Black people we killed ourselves. Racism extends past death. But we’ll never stop declaring that our lives matter, that our deaths matter.

— Ibram X. Kendi (@DrIbram) September 23, 2020

People expressed anger across the country, and thousands also publicly denounced Kentucky’s Attorney General, Daniel Cameron.

This is who @DanielCameronAG is. They elevated him to speak at the RNC before the “investigation” had concluded. They tossed his name around as a future Supreme Court Justice. And now there is no justice for #breonataylor This man is a disgrace. pic.twitter.com/iToI8R6bJf

— ArcticMother (@arcticmother) September 23, 2020

Cameron held a press conference  to detail the investigation findings, which led to  Hankison’s indictment announcement.

“The decision before my office is not to decide if the loss of Breonna Taylor’s life was a tragedy — the answer to that question is unequivocally, yes,” said Cameron. “…My job as the special prosecutor in this case was to put emotions aside and investigate the facts to determine if criminal violations of state law resulted in the loss of Miss Taylor’s life.” 

Keshia Morris, a resident of Foley, Alabama, said that Cameron’s actions regarding Taylor’s death showed carelessness and a lack of empathy. 

“What happened today was disheartening, and I have no respect for the attorney general,” said Morris. “He wouldn’t even address her death as a murder; instead, he referred to it as a tragedy, as though she was killed in a car accident. No, she was murdered.”

 Many concluded that he was incompetent and unable to carry out the civic and humane duty of honoring Taylor’s untimely death with ample justice after he announced that no murder charges would be brought against the three officers in question.

“Cameron needs to be out of a job. Everyone involved in determining this case needs to be out of a job,” said Morris. “Breonna could have been my sister or my cousin, and I think that today, the bare minimum was done.”

The verdict also sparked a peaceful rally in the City of Grand Rapids, Michigan, where Taylor was a native before moving to Louisville, Kentucky. Hundreds gathered at the Rosa Parks Circle in Downtown Grand Rapids for a peaceful solidarity rally, and the City of Grand Rapid’s official Twitter page sent out a thread of tweets in support of the movement.

Our hearts are with Breonna Taylor’s loved ones and all those who feel her loss. We see you, we hear you and we support you. We feel her loss, too. This is her hometown. She is one of us, and we are grieving with her family and our community. We are in this together.

— City of Grand Rapids (@CityGrandRapids) September 23, 2020

Taylor’s extended family led the protests in downtown Grand Rapids. In an interview with WOODTV, Taylor’s cousin, Tawanna Gordon, referred to Taylor’s death as a “wound that never heals.”

“I am upset. I am over it, and I am going to march today to the police department,” said Gordon to a crowd of protesters.

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The main message of the demonstration was to destroy systematic racism in the U.S and defund the police. They also called to refund education and criticized L.A. District Attorney Jackie Lacey.  The demonstrators marched from Mariachi Plaza to Hall of Justice.  

They chanted, “Lacey  has got to go”, “No justice no peace, No racist police” and encouraged everyone to join the march. 

Protestor prepares for the march. Photo by Talgat Almanov

Roosevelt High School alumni leads other protestors chanting “Defund the Police.”Photo by Talgat Almanov

Protestors chanting “Black Lives Matter” and “Defund the Police.”Photo by Talgat Almanov

Protestor gives an interview staying 6 feet away from a journalist. Photo by Talgat Almanov

Protestors walk through the highway towards Downtown. Photo by Talgat Almanov

Protestor holds a “Prosecute killer cops” sign. Photo by Talgat Almanov

Protester holds a “Black Lives Matter” sign. Photo by Talgat Almanov

Protestor leads others chanting “Why can’t we matter? Photo by Talgat Almanov

Roosevelt High School alumni call to join the march and thank their sponsors and supporters. Photo by Talgat Almanov

Protestor listens to Roosevelt High School alumni speak. Photo by Talgat Almanov

Protestors dressed in traditional indigenous clothing. Photo by Talgat Almanov

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On December 11, members of Immigrant Worker Justice, a working group of Occupy Wall Street, hosted a "teach-in," in order to relate the message of Occupy Wall Street to immigrant communities. Photo by Eric Zerkel

Packed into a conference room in a lower Manhattan office building, members of Occupy Wall Street’s Immigrant Worker Justice Group (IWJ) got to work, trying to set the agenda for how they would tackle a hot button issue that Republicans and Democrats both struggle to answer.

“It’s all about equal rights,” said Donald Anthonyson, 52, of Harlem, a member of IWJ. “When you’re talking about immigrant worker justice, you can’t get justice unless there is some equality. Immigrant Worker Justice is a vehicle to get equal rights.”

Donald Anthonyson, talks about immigrant workers justice with another group member. Photo by Eric Zerkel

“A big issue for me is not having meetings in immigrant communities,” said Mark Kushneir, 26, of Prospect Park Brooklyn who helped form IWJ. “I think getting people who are working 6 and 7 days a week, 14 hours a day to come to these meetings, it’s impossible for them to come.”

The IWJ working group is just one of 118 listed working groups behind Occupy Wall Street. It is comprised of a loose coalition of 20 or so New York City based immigrant and labor rights organizations and offers a chance for Occupy Wall Street to shake its demons and accomplish a specific goal.

With no direct immigrant involvement to drive the direction of the group, meeting topics typically steer towards the specific campaigns of the organizations involved – a prison divestment campaign, a boycott on Domino’s pizza, even solicitations to buy tickets for one organization’s fundraiser. With members throwing around the acronyms of the dozens of immigration and labor rights groups in casual conversation, and “twinkling” – moving fingers up and down, in silent agreement– in a measure of “solidarity” with each other, simply communicating in an IWJ meeting is overwhelming to any newcomer.

“Part of the flaws of this whole thing are that if you’re not part of an organization, NGO, or a solid group of people, it’s difficult to participate,” said Kushneir.

Some group members held out hope that two events, a December 11 teach-in and a planned December 18 march from Foley Square to Zuccotti Park, would shift the focus back onto individual immigrant communities.

But Sunday’s teach-in was little more than a staged coalition networking session. There was little discussion of IWJ, or how it could expand into the immigrant communities so underrepresented within. Instead, 10 immigrant and labor rights organizations took to the podium for eight presentations that stretched nearly four hours; IWJ was “teaching” to the choir.

“Organizations are so incredibly focused on what they are doing that they miss a lot of people and miss ways to bridge gaps between communities where there isn’t necessarily a connection,” said Kusneir.

But some members still believe that IWJ can reach out to individual immigrant communities and fight specific cases, such as deportation.

“The Occupy movement is full of thousands of people who are looking for a fight,” said Danny Katch, 36, of Jackson Heights, Queens. “And there is sort of this rare moment, when you have a lot of people saying, I don’t like how this thing usually works, I want to fight that. “

Katch is a self-proclaimed activist and frequent IWJ attendee, who spends his spare time writing articles for the International Socialist Organization. Katch’s first foray into IWJ actually came on behalf of an immigrant facing deportation, Ahmed Hossain.

When Hossain entered the United States from his native Bangladesh, his lawyer at the time mistakenly filed his application for political asylum under a different name, leading an immigration judge to dismiss his case on grounds of fraud and setting the stage for his potential deportation.

Hossain, of Woodhaven, Queens, has been in the United States for 18 years, embedding himself in the Queens Bangladeshi community, earning his way as a taxicab driver, and eventually building a family. In spite of all of this, Hossain faced a November 8 deportation hearing, with the possibility of leaving behind all that he had built in his nearly two decades in New York City.

As a part of Hossain’s campaign, Katch looked for ways to extend Hossain’s case outside of the Jackson Heights Queens Bangladeshi community, where Katch said Hossain’s case already had gained tremendous support.

“I do think there is a big gap between the Bangladeshi community, where there is a lot of knowledge and support, and the rest of the public, where there is kind of nothing,” Katch said.

He racked his mind for ways to bridge that gap in order to garner a wider array of public support, which he hoped would pressure Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, to suspend Hossain’s case.

“Ahmed was going to be facing deportation at 26 Federal Plaza which is only 10 blocks north of Zuccotti Park, said Katch. “So I had it in my head, how do we get Occupy Wall Street involved in this case?”

Through the International Socialist Organization, Katch was put into contact with the IWJ, and after acquiring a spot on the group’s agenda, Katch brought Hossain before the working group to plead his case.

Members sprang into action, planning a march on Hossain’s hearing date, offering guidance, legal aide, and most importantly using their immigrant and labor rights’ organizations’ contacts to lobby politicians on his behalf.

But before the group could march and protest in true Occupy Wall Street fashion, ICE issued a one-year deferral of Hossain’s case. And, despite all of IWJ’s involvement in Hossain’s case, Katch remained skeptical of the group’s affect.

“We’ll never know, because ICE doesn’t tell you why they make the decisions they do, but my opinion is that Immigrant Worker Justice and Occupy Wall Street didn’t have that big of an impact, said Katch. “I have a feeling that, the fact that a bunch of politicians, including Senator [Kirsten] Gillibrand, signed on in support probably had the bigger impact.”

Katch said that he usually doesn’t believe lobbying politicians offers a more effective outlet than protestation, and saw a new potential in Occupy Wall Street and Immigrant Worker Justice.

“What’s more important is that it [Ahmed’s case] kind of showed a direction that the Occupy movement could go in,” he said. ”Maybe the Occupy movement could fight deportation, and fight cases that highlight immigrants.”

But in order for that potential to take hold, IWJ will have to take further steps to include direct immigrant involvement, a value that Tsedeye Gebreselassie, 32, of Park Slope, Brooklyn sees great value in.

“Trying to fight through the xenophobia and anti-immigrant hysteria to try to get your message across is really tough,” said Gebreselassie. “And one of the best ways to do it is to have immigrant workers themselves get to the forefront of these campaigns.”

Kushneir echoed Gebreselassie’s sentiments, saying that the movement would have to start with organizations, but that the goal is to move away from that emphasis and into immigrant communities.

“They [organizations] are going to be focused specifically on doing it one way,” said Kushneir. “Whereas if we approach immigrants independently, the potential I think, is really endless.”

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