No change unless we go after those in charge: Black activist

There will be no letup in the crackdown on the African American community in the United States unless activists “go after those in charge,” says a black investigative journalist based in New York.

George Mapp Jr., was commenting on a protest in San Francisco, where activists expressed solidarity with five hunger strikers Monday.

The hunger strikers, dubbed #Friscofive, called on Mayor Ed Lee to lay off police Chief Greg Suhr.

The hunger strikers, who have refused to eat for 13 days, were pushed on wheelchairs during the rally to San Francisco City Hall, which interrupted a Board of Supervisors meeting.

“The hunger strikes are getting national attention and possibly worldwide attention by now,” Mapp said, describing the demonstration as peaceful rather than one with “rioting and looting.”

He also asserted that such protests are the only measure that could bring about change in the African American community’s quest for equal rights.

“Until people go after those in charge, those who are accountable, there won’t be any change.”

Mapp stressed the role “peaceful protests” could play for the goal, describing them as moving in the “right direction.”

Police brutality in the United States has raised nationwide debates amid a string of police killings of unarmed black men that led to the creation of the Black Lives Matter movement.