BROOKLYN, January 21—A small anti-racist student movement has shaken Brooklyn Technical High School. Progressive Labor Party must turn this struggle into a school for communism.
Tech is the tenth-largest high school in the United States. Over the last month, two speak-outs by students and one by angry Black alumni have put the education bosses in New York City on notice that the growing racism in our school system is intolerable. These bosses have held up Tech as a model of excellence as the school’s combined Black and Latin student populations have dropped to 15 percent—as compared to 68 percent in city schools overall.
The disgustingly racist message is clear: If more Black and Latin students are admitted, this “elite” school’s quality will diminish.
Safe Space for Racists
Racist messages emanate from New York’s educational system, top to bottom. On Tech’s website, an administration’s report defends the high-stakes exam that systematically excludes Black and Latin students from the specialized high schools. Inside the school, academic tracking has a decidedly racist character (see letter, page 4).
No wonder Tech has become a “safe space” for individuals to express racism. White students have gone so far as to tell a Black teacher rushing down an overcrowded hallway, “Watch it, n-----!” Sources say the dean’s office gave those students a mild talking to and no more.
Such shocking encounters pale beside the vicious racism faced by thousands of Black and Latin high school students in New York, as they are greeted each morning like criminals by police and metal detectors.
After the hallway incident, the teachers’ union chapter committee raised the problem of hate speech with the principal. At a December student speak-out, with teachers and administration in the room, two dozen Black students made their voices heard. A fightback began.
As #blackinbrooklyntech began trending on Facebook, racist assaults were hurled at Black students by their peers: “You are going to end up like Sandra Bland” (the young Black woman found dead in a Texas jail cell last July), and worse. Misguided students urged a return to silence because Black students are “ruining the name of the school.”
On a January weeknight, hundreds of Black alumni descended on Tech to hear the administration’s response—the strongest show of interest by Black alumni here, ever. Recalling a time when many more Black students attended Tech, they demanded that the Department of Education (DOE) confront the systemic racism responsible for the current crisis.
Even if current trends are reversed and Black and Latin enrollments rise in New York’s specialized high schools, they will still be part of a brutally racist terracing of education. The central myth will remain: If you fail under capitalism, it’s your fault.
Whose Schools? Bosses’ Schools!
Historically, the U.S. bosses have used public schools to create a myth of nationalist, all-class unity for imperialist war—and to recruit the cannon fodder they need to protect their profits.
The specialized high schools can’t perpetuate that myth if gutter racism runs rampant in their halls and classrooms.  It’s no accident that NBC—owned and operated by U.S. finance capital—seized onto #blackinbrooklyntech and made it national news. The major media outlets are controlled by the capitalist ruling class, the same interests that applauded Barack Obama’s plea to Congress to authorize military force against ISIS in his recent State of the Union address.
Unity and Pitfalls
Members of PLP working inside the bosses’ schools want to organize a different kind of unity. We need multiracial unity to fight racism. We need to prepare the working class to turn the next big imperialist war into a class war for communist revolution.
While the movement we are building has much promise, it contains pitfalls as well. The prevalence of “white privilege theory” has hampered white and Asian students from expressing their anti-racist sentiments. Anti-racist energy that should be directed at the DOE has been sidetracked into arguments over who can use the N-word. In a communist future, nobody will use that awful word.  
But we are making progress. At a second speak-out in January, the Muslim Students Association and the Gay-Straight Alliance joined members of the Black Student Union to broaden the scope of the struggle. Female students demanded action against sexism, from how the racist “dress code” is enforced to the way they are received by male classmates in math and science classes.
All students agreed that the endless stress of competitive, high-stakes testing and excessive homework leaves little room for building unity and compassion among students. They are beginning to hit at the heart of what is wrong with education under capitalism.
Fight Against Racism!
The anti-racist fight at Tech can spread across the entire city school system—but only if student leaders refuse to fall for the elitism fostered at exclusive, specialized high schools. This struggle is about racism in all the schools. Tech students come from every neighborhood in this city. A broad and vigorous organizing effort could demand an end to segregation and to racist policing of our schools. Imagine a day where high school students converge on Times Square instead of reporting to their first class. PLP and friends can have much to do to make this a reality.
The bosses fear the power of working-class, multiracial unity. High officials at the DOE are directing Tech bosses to select a few Black student leaders and make them partners in quieting the struggle. So far, however, this effort has failed.
A strong commitment to push the fight forward persists. The time is now. Students, teachers and alumni, Black, women, Latin, gay, Asian, straight, white, men—turn up the fight against racism!