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The Brooklyn Park Five: Capitalism Fails Black Youth and Women
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- 26 March 2016 64 hits
BROOKLYN, NY, March 7—An innocent student’s arrest on trumped-up charges has intensified anti-racist, anti-sexist fightback inside our school. Communist women in Progressive Labor Party are helping to lead this ongoing struggle.
In January, we learned that kkkops had arrested five teens, including one of our students, in connection with the rape of a young woman in a Brooklyn park. The news spread quickly, and one communist teacher asked the principal for an emergency staff meeting. By that point, even before the teens’ first court appearance, the racist capitalist media had done its worst to convict them. Ranging in age from 14 to 17, these young people’s photos, names and schools had been splashed over newspapers and websites. They were painted as violent, brutal rapists.
Black Students Guilty Before Trial
At the staff meeting, PLP comrades cautioned against jumping to conclusions. We reminded our co-workers of the Central Park Five, the infamous 1989 case where five Black and Latin boys from Harlem were falsely accused and convicted of raping a white woman jogging in Central Park. They spent up to 15 years in jail before being found innocent. In the sexist, dehumanizing profit system, which treats all workers as commodities, rape and sexist violence are rampant. But even as we defend women against these capitalist crimes, we must also defend our children against racist attacks.
The stereotype of the “animalistic” and “hyper-sexualized” Black male dates back to slavery. Used as a tool to oppress and divide the working class, it has destroyed the lives of countless innocent Black youth.
Students Discuss Racism, Sexism
Our next step was to bring this discussion into our classes. Students addressed the racist police tactics in poor, segregated neighborhoods like Brownsville, which is 93 percent Black and Latin. We discussed what students should and shouldn’t do if they are ever arrested. (For example: Never make a statement to the police without a lawyer or parent present.) At the same time, we pointed out that our only real protection against cops is to fight back as a united working class.
Our young students understood how racism and sexism were being used in this case, which was actually about the criminalization of Black youth and the systemic oppression of women. The 18-year-old victim had in fact been abused by her father and utterly failed by “support systems” that care nothing about Black women. Capitalism is designed to fail the working class, particularly Black, Latin,and women workers.
Teachers Defend Student in Court
After a communist in the school got a call from the lawyer representing the accused student, she organized three teachers to come to the arraignment in support. The prosecution’s case was weak, at best. As the defense lawyer noted, our student had “placed himself” at the scene of the crime only after three seasoned detectives had this scared youth alone in a room, without a lawyer or parent, to get the answer they wanted. Although the prosecution asked for $25,000 bail, the judge set it at $2,500. That may seem like a victory, but the amount was still impossible for the family. The lawyer made a plea to raise funds to keep our student out of Rikers Island, the New York City jail notorious for racist violence. Family and teachers got into gear and made phone calls, and the money was raised.
Organizing Inside the Schools
With communist and anti-racist leadership, the following days at school were full of discussions about the racist system and the need to fight it and defend our student. Money was raised within the school and beyond by some staunchly anti-racist teachers. We also discussed how to help our student in his transition back to school, with the weight of his charges still pending.
On February 24, the district attorney announced that charges against all five teens had been officially dropped. Again, this may seem like a great victory until you consider that these young men will forever have to deal with the consequences of this racist system. Their names will forever be connected to rape charges; they have been traumatized in countless ways.
Students, Not Criminals
Like thousands of Black and Latin students across the city, our students are treated like criminals every day. To enter the school, they must line up to file through metal detectors while being shouted at by New York City cops. Their bottled drinks are confiscated on the phony pretext that they might contain alcohol. When they walk through their own neighborhoods, they can never know when the racist cops will decide that they “fit the description” of a criminal suspect. Once they graduate, they face the grim reality of 51 percent unemployment for Black youth.
But that is the nature of capitalism, a system that needs racism to divide and pacify the working class. There is only one world that will smash racism and sexism—a communist world! Under communism, a society organized around meeting workers’ needs, collectivity is essential. The political and economic divisions created by racism and sexism will be destroyed. Only then will we be able to build a world worthy of working-class women and men.
It is our continuing task in our schools and workplaces to show our friends, co-workers, teachers and students that they must join this fight. In that spirit, we are now organizing our second annual anti-racist school assembly. The struggle continues!
NEW YORK CITY, March 19—“Trump, Bernie, Clinton all the same—racist terror is the name of the game!” Over 30 Progressive Labor Party members and friends made a revolutionary uproar at an anti-Donald Trump rally and march. While nearly 2,000 demonstrators called out only Trump for his vicious racism against the working class, a multiracial PLP exposed the endemic racism of the profit system and all of its stooge politicians: conservatives and liberals, Democrats and Republicans and “democratic socialists.”
The rally began with speeches by immigrants’ rights fighters, students and various organizations. As they spoke, we distributed 500 CHALLENGEs. We also contributed chants that changed a reformist political tone to a communist one.
Shut This Racist System Down
Trump is the most open and obvious racist in the current president campaign, and his attack on Muslim, Latin, and immigrant workers and youth must be countered wherever he dares to show his garbage-spewing face. Even if he never gets elected, Trump is helping mobilize the anti-Arab and anti-Muslim racist fervor needed by the main wing of U.S. capitalism for the next global war to control Middle Eastern oil. But Democrats Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are playing their own deadly roles in luring workers away from rebellion and into the voting booth (see CHALLENGE, 3/23). It is the task of communists to expose all of capitalism, not just one particular puppet.
That’s what we did as the crowd marched through Central Park and across 59th Street and passed numerous upscale hotels and restaurants, including some owned by Trump. Our bullhorn finally gave out, but our chants stayed strong. When PLP called out the whole system as racist with the chant, “This whole damn system—shut it down!” a large number of youth and workers joined our contingent. When communists bring forth a sharp line, the working class more often than not responds with enthusiasm. (One Bernie Sanders supporter did try to shut us down—unsuccessfully.)
Tension from the police rose as the march exited the park and entered the streets of Manhattan. They began to form a solid ring around us, hassling us to quicken our pace. We boldly responded with the chant, “NYPD, KKK, How many kids did you kill today?” As the march headed south onto Madison Avenue, passing Gucci, Louis Vuitton, and Chanel, we defiantly chanted, “Capitalism means we’ve got to fight back!” All eyes and ears were on us, in the stores and in the streets. But the excitement was short-lived. As the march approached 57th Street, the police forces multiplied. They used their Long Range Acoustic Device, a sonic weapon, to warn us to stay on the sidewalk and not impede foot traffic. The cops arrested three protesters and pepper-sprayed the crowd.
Shut Down Highways, Not Just Shopping
At the same time, another anti-Trump rally blocked traffic on a highway in Arizona in an attempt to stop thousands from attending a pro-Trump event. Disrupting upscale shopping on Madison Avenue was certainly an intense experience, but it was not sufficiently militant to point us toward the actions we’ll need to take to shut down capitalism. The Arizona protest was a bolder step in that direction.
Don’t Vote, Organize for Communism
Fundamentally, the fervent support for Sanders and Trump stems from the same source: The working class is fed up with capitalist politics. Both the racist supporters of Trump and liberal backers of Sanders are deceived in trusting “maverick” politicians to have working-class interests at heart. The working class wants change, but electoral politics can only preserve the capitalist status quo—while giving workers the illusion of having a choice. The big capitalist bosses at ExxonMobil, JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup will make sure that the next president will continue to protect the interests of U.S. imperialism, as the rulers advance toward a broader global war. As an international working class, we must break out of the jail of electoral politics. We must organize anti-racist, anti-sexist fightbacks in our schools, jobs and streets. By continuing to fight racist tuition hikes, mass deportations and state-terrorist drone strikes, we’ll continue to show the bosses they cannot get away with violence against the working class.
There’s an alternative to the Clinton/Trump/Sanders/Cruz clique of ruling-class misleaders. That’s Progressive Labor Party. We stand for communism, a world system where all workers and youth will work together to meet our class’s collective needs. PLP continues to show that no matter our race, gender or nationality, the working class is united in a common struggle—the struggle for workers’ power. Don’t vote—organize for the long haul, for communist revolution!
Chicago, March 11—Thousands of protestors succeeded in stopping the appearance of gutter racist presidential candidate Donald Trump at the University of Illinois (UIC). The crowd was young, multiracial and international, and receptive to Progressive Labor Party’s communist ideas.
UIC student groups were outraged that the university would allow such a racist, anti-immigrant politician like Trump to speak, exposing the university bosses’ allegiance to the capitalist ruling class. The more conservative student groups, which support Bernie Sanders, called for peace, non-violence, and freedom of speech. Other student groups rejected that liberal program. A young Latin woman took the microphone and said, “The cops don’t understand peace and harmony—we need violence!” The microphone was quickly taken away from her. So much for the bosses’ phony free speech!
“Racists Go Home”
Many protestors gained access to the auditorium where Trump was to speak, and shouted anti-Trump slogans as the police tried to remove them. Trump was forced to cancel when it became clear that anti-racist militancy could not be silenced.
Scuffles and pushing matches broke out between Trump supporters and anti-racists. To clear the auditorium, the cops led Trump supporters into the parking lot. The anti-racists followed them, chanting, “Racists go home!” A protester threw a bottle, hitting a kkkop on the head.
It’s Not Just Trump; It’s the Profit System
PLP members and friends participated in the demonstration of thousands outside the building. We distributed over a thousand leaflets and 150 CHALLENGEs. We explained that unapologetically racist Trump, Wall Street-raised Clinton, and so-called socialist Sanders are all servants of the capitalist ruling class. Like Barack Obama, any president will continue to murder our class sisters and brothers in their wars for maximum profit. No matter which candidate wins, workers will lose. Capitalism is based on racism, war and the exploitation of the working class. Only a revolutionary communist party can destroy capitalism once and for all.
Communists Welcome, Must Give Leadership
Demonstrators were interested in communist ideas and what CHALLENGE had to say. Many gave us donations and contact information. One student gave $20 for a CHALLENGE subscription on the spot. A student from Serbia expressed interest in organizing PLP there.
Self-critically, we could have given more leadership; we had too few papers and no bullhorn. Before the demonstration, we discussed the idea of disrupting Trump’s speech from the inside. We decided we’d go in if our friends wanted to. As it turned out, anti-racists inside the building took the lead and were invigorated to fight against Trump’s racist supporters. Moving forwards, we must give bolder leadership. We will develop more confidence in the working class as we build a mass party.
There will be many more opportunities to lead workers and students on the road to communist revolution. Let’s build for a massive celebration of May Day, the international working class holiday representing fightback and our potential to build a communist world.
CHICAGO, March 11—Fight sexism by fighting capitalism. Fight capitalism by fighting sexism. With this dialectical poster message and others, comrades and friends of PLP celebrated International Working Women’s Day with our third annual dinner. A room full of over 40 workers and youth honored past and present working women by sharing some of the rich history of their contributions to anti-capitalist movements and towards a communist society.
The event was organized with the goals of continuing to develop a sense of international communist culture within the Party and around our friends. We also wanted to sharpen the consistent anti-sexist struggle and build communism. Those in attendance were treated to a program that included class-conscious poetry, a case study describing gender equality in hunter-gatherer societies, a brief history of the holiday, and personal recollections of immigrant mothers fighting to keep their community center from being destroyed by the racist and sexist bosses. The event wrapped up with an open political discussion, and finally dancing and socializing.
Giant Leap for the Working Class
A central theme in setting the political tone of this year’s program was the importance of challenging the sexist division of labor. The Soviet Union made lifetime leaps for the equality of women and men. This included collective childrearing, thus redefining the family, legalization of abortion ages before the capitalist United States, struggled with women to give political leadership, were taught literacy, and much more.
A legitimate criticism of both Soviet and Chinese revolutions in their fight for gender equality is that while these societies were effective in getting women to work in roles that had long been traditionally “male” (such as heavy industry or the military), there wasn’t as much effort in winning men and women workers to understand the importance of tasks long characterized as “female” work, such as childcare and cleaning.
While the old communist movement made the most qualities advance for women workers in history, its socialist economics did not eliminate the core of gender divisions: unpaid vs. paid labor. Contrast that with our vision for a communist future, where there are no wages or profits. All labor is done according to commitment and struggle. PLP is putting the pieces in place for a society that begins to undo all the damage caused by thousands of years of sexism in thought and practice.
As one comrade remarked during the open discussion, before we can see that future, there needs to be an international communist revolution led by PLP to destroy capitalism, the present form of class society and primary root of women’s oppression. She explained the need for women leadership in class struggle in the fight for communism. It’s essential for all of us to challenge the bosses’ sexist exploitation and sexist culture.
Celebrating International Working Women’s Day is a huge inspiration. Fight sexism in the class struggle—at work, in schools, in the hospitals, streets, military, and wherever you are. Fight sexism by building a communist Progressive Labor Party worldwide. Let’s celebrate by fighting with anti-sexist politics every day of the year!
CHICAGO, March 17—Illinois politicians are failing working-class college youth. Unable to agree on how to deal with the budget impasse, the bosses are furthering the attack on the working class by shutting down Chicago State University (CSU). This racist, sexist assault on the mainly Black and women students has been met with fightback and some communist leadership by Progressive Labor Party.
While all of Illinois’s public schools are struggling financially, CSU in particular is in the most precarious situation since it relies on the state for one-third of its budget.
CSU’s impending doom is already visible: at a February 27 press conference, CSU officials announced that all 900 of its employees face possible layoffs at the end of the semester. Three days earlier, the University had cancelled spring break in order to end the semester a week early.
CSU’s closing will pose dire consequences for its working-class students. It is the state’s only majority Black student public university. In addition, 70 percent of the students are women. CSU graduates more Black students than any other Illinois public college or university. It also sends more Black graduates to medical schools than all other Illinois public colleges or universities combined. Shutting down CSU would force many Black and Latin students into the low-wage job market or into the “economic draft” leading to military service.
Students and Workers Fight Back; Bosses Mislead
Some students and faculty are fighting this racist and sexist attack. On January 28, about 25 fighters marched onto the nearby I-94 interstate highway, briefly shutting it down, as well as two other expressways feeding into it. Then, on February 8, more than 50 CSU students and faculty rallied at the State of Illinois building and marched through downtown Chicago to protest CSU’s possible closing. We need more of this, as it exposes the working class’s refusal to take the losses of this capitalist-caused budget crisis.
Unfortunately, most students and faculty in the current struggle are won to the CSU administration’s line of protesting only within legal limits. The administration has brought to campus Jesse Jackson, members of the Illinois legislative Black Caucus, and other obedient servants of capitalism. Bernie Sanders used CSU’s convocation center for one of his rallies.
The message of these liberal politicians is to register to vote and rely on politicians to solve our problems for us. They defend capitalism and are misleading a new generation of workers to know their place in this racist, sexist system. This was evident when one student leader at the February 8 rally said: “We’re not asking for reform. We’re not asking for revolution. We’re asking for them to do their basic duty. Sign the darn budget.”
Leading with Communist Politics
But revolution for communism is exactly what is needed to fulfill the needs of CSU’s working-class students. The basic duty of politicians and government stooges is to defend capitalism’s profit needs. The proposed CSU shutdown reveals the universities as part of the ruling-class machine. Well aware of this fact, PLP members and friends have joined the protests, brought CHALLENGE into the classroom and have expanded our campus study groups. We’re struggling with students and faculty to understand that a revolution for a communist society is the only answer.
Under communism, a college education would be free, students and teachers would work collectively in planning the curriculum and racist and sexist divisions will be prohibited. Communist education would train students to critically evaluate and build their new society. There will be no more divisions between manual and mental labor.
In building for May Day — a worldwide communist holiday — our slogan at CSU is, “Don’t Vote, Organize for Communist Revolution.” Following liberal politicians and union leaders has already led to fascism in the U.S. Under their direction, the working class has been subjected to racism, sexism, wars, poverty, police terror and mass incarceration. Organizing for communist revolution means joining PLP to build a world free of these budget-slashing politicians, racist cops and their profit-hungry bosses. Another world is possible!
