CHICAGO, July 27—Nearly a dozen Progressive Labor Party (PLP) members and friends joined hundreds of other enraged workers and youth downtown today to protest the racist and sexist kkkop lynching of Black woman worker Sonya Massey. Our multiracial and multigenerational group distributed hundreds of flyers and copies of CHALLENGE newspaper as we openly called for communist revolution as the way to get justice for Sonya and too many others whose lives have been stolen by racist capitalism.
On July 6th, Sonya Massey called the kkkops to report suspicious activity outside her home in Springfield, Illinois. The Klan-in-Blue quickly escalated the situation by entering Sonya’s home and after a brief exchange, body-cam footage shows killer cop Sean Grayson fire three shots at the head of Sonya and kill her instantly.
Such a horrific display of racist police terror is rousing thousands of antiracist fighters to act in recent weeks, similarly to how the murder of Black worker George Floyd caught on video over four years ago ignited the world in militant multiracial rebellion. Like George before her, Sonya deserves to be alive today, surrounded by loving family, friends, and co-workers.
Capitalism needs racist and sexist terror to exist as much as a fish needs water. No reform – from body cameras to integrated police departments – can change this basic fact. All politicians, from Genocide Joe Biden to Top Cop Kamala Harris to gutter racist Donald Trump are going to back the role of the kkkops as fundamental in protecting the exploitation and inequality of the profit system.Those of us in PLP are calling for another system entirely: a worker-run communist society without profits, borders, or killer cops. We want to build an international movement of millions of workers, soldiers and youth to smash this rotten system for good! Capitalism murdered Sonya Massey – Let’s fight for communism to end capitalism!
Take the streets, shut it down for Sonya
After about an hour and a half of speeches in the downtown rally space, the organizers of the event lined up to march. Although there were some correct statements made by some reformist groups connecting Sonya’s murder to the imperialist slaughter in Gaza and the upcoming Democratic National Convention here next month, they failed to point out that racism and war are inevitable realities of capitalism. In this, PLP was alone in calling for the necessary violent overthrow of the system by the international working class.
Self-critically, our collective didn’t plan ahead to stay for the march and give more revolutionary and communist speeches and chants using our bullhorn within. Thankfully however, one comrade was able to stick around for the march and took the opportunity to speak once it was finished and share our political line:
“This police murder, that’s a problem of capitalism. So, if we want to end racism…that’s all a part of the same struggle. It’s an international struggle. When we see it like that, we’re much more powerful than we are when we just see ourselves as individuals struggling by ourselves. Because we’re not struggling by ourselves. We’re all struggling, whether we’re working together or not. So, if we’re going to struggle individually, we might as well just struggle together!
The reason why we say racism is so connected to capitalism is because the money that we need to survive distracts us from the fact that humans are wired to help one another. We’re wired to be in community with one another, and we need to understand that because our belief and our understanding that a better world is possible, is what MAKES a better world possible. Fight for communism! End capitalism and racism!”
PLP is the fighting alternative to this racist system
To honor the memory of Sonya, PLP pledges to sharpen the fight against this killer capitalist system. The bosses rushed to fire Grayson and charge him with first-degree murder, but the capitalist legal system gives no guarantee that he won’t beat the charges and either way kkkops are certain to strike again. Already, they’re dispatching their usual misleader suspects like Al Sharpton and Benjamin Crump to try and pacify more militant fightback.
The contradictions of the system are exploding out into the open, with rising fascism, threats of imperialist war, and devastating climate crisis worsening daily. The bosses’ usual toolkit of diverting working-class anger through elections and identity politics is faltering, but many of our class don’t yet see an alternative.
PLP is that fighting alternative to build a new collective society! Join us as we march, shout, and shut it down for Sonya and too many other working-class people taken from us by this rotten system. Communism means abolishing racism and sexism! Let’s fight for working-class power now!
