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Antiracist School Struggle Communist Ideas Hit the Mark
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- 27 December 2013 63 hits
Newark, NJ, December 18 — “You know, all this stuff going on with the schools is really making me think more about capitalism,” said one teacher involved in the class struggle here. He isn’t alone. Over the past few months, Progressive Labor Party (PLP) members have been more openly discussing capitalism and the need for communist revolution. These discussions are framed by the fightback against Superintendent Cami Anderson’s racist attacks on schools in predominantly black neighborhoods.
At a recent rally led by misleaders of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and a local Newark group, New Jersey Communities United, over 200 workers and students protested these attacks. The leadership focused the blame solely on Anderson and ignored the contradictions within capitalism that cause schools to fail the working class. But PLP was there to offer our communist analysis. We distributed CHALLENGE and had good discussions with teachers who were unfamiliar with the Party.
‘Becoming way too radical way too fast’
One teacher had never known a communist before joining this struggle. He said, “I can’t believe that I would ever read a communist newspaper and agree with what they are saying. I am becoming way too radical way too fast.” He wasn’t alone. Many education workers and students responded to the Dec. 11 article about Anderson’s racist letter. They also found the editorial about the U.S. rulers’ drive to war helpful in understanding the world situation and how it affects public schools.
Through discussions and literature, PLP members have shown that the latest crop of education reforms, including the charter school movement, are designed to discipline the working class and consolidate U.S. rulers’ top-dog superpower status. Charter schools give the ruling class more maneuverability; they are operated without even a facade of accountability to parents and students. The new Common Core State Standards Initiative, backed by President Barack Obama and the capitalists he serves, are being pushed in all schools, traditional and charter. The Common Core is essential to the bosses’ plan for centralized ideological control and heightened patriotism.
Closing Schools for Capitalism
A few days after the rally, Anderson announced the closings of 20 schools and a remodeling that may lay off hundreds of education workers. An overwhelming majority of the schools to be shut down are from the mostly black South, West and Central Wards. The East Ward, which is mostly white and Latino, will remain untouched, still another way they’re dividing the working class. This is to persuade these students to think they are better off.
At a number of other schools, faculty will be forced to reapply for their jobs, regardless of tenure or seniority. Once again, this anti-worker measure will be concentrated in all-black districts. One exception is the Hawkins Street School in the East Ward, which serves most of the students from public housing projects like Hyatt Court, Terrell Court, and Riverview Court.
Misleaders Ignore Racism
In typical form, none of the union leaders — from the AFT to the New Jersey Teachers’ Union (NTU) to the Newark Teachers Union — will criticize Anderson’s boss, Governor Chris Christie. Nor will they acknowledge the racist nature of these school attacks. After Anderson’s letter was released, the NTU’s main complaint was that reduced truancy would result in fewer arrests of Newark students!
PLP has a different point of view. We have always said that fighting racism is essential to the fight for communism — and to the schools struggle here as well. Our communist leadership has won both teachers union members and students to make anti-racism a key element in our fight. In addition, we have recruited Newark parents and students to join our communist study group.
The Limits of Reform Struggles
A few days after the rally, our study group discussed “Reform and Revolution,” one of PLP’s core documents. Although it is over 35 years old, and some aspects of our politics have changed since then, it remains relevant for anyone who wants to organize within the reform movement for a communist revolution.
When we discussed the Dream Act, the immigration reform backed by the Democratic Party, one comrade emphasized the limits of any reform victories. The bosses simply reorganize, he said, and come back with a vengeance to take away temporary any gains. This is today’s reality for millions of workers who have been stripped of pensions, health benefits and decent working conditions.
The education struggle in Newark is no different. We may keep some schools from closing for a time. We may prevent some teachers from getting laid off, at least for now. But as long as the bosses have state power, schools will serve the profit-based system of capitalism. Until we win millions to fight for communism, the bosses will eventually win out every time.
In our study group we have friends who fear alienating students by talking about capitalism and communism. There are workers who hold back from the mass movement because they think workers are “out for themselves.” Through friendly struggle, we’ve made progress in convincing some of these workers to get involved in the mass movement, raise communist ideas and expand PLP’s base.
Growing PLP
Over the past two weeks, the schools struggle has definitely sharpened. Our work within the reform movement gives PLP the potential to grow and provide communist leadership to the thousands of workers fighting back. It won’t be easy, because the union bosses and community groups are competing for the minds of the working class. But if the Party keeps fighting, building relationships, and getting CHALLENGE to those around us, we can realize that potential. We are on our way.
I recently attended a mandatory meeting establishing (new) requirements for teachers regarding the reporting of suspected child abuse. A key part of the presentation was the idea that “the authorities” would rather see over-reporting of non-child abuse cases as opposed to under-reporting of actual child abuse cases. Now the ruling class certainly doesn’t care about child abuse. Cutting food stamps, intensifying racism, denying disability benefits, and using drone strikes to kill children are legal and beyond reproach.
It is now illegal for a teacher to not report suspected child abuse. In other words, they can now claim that you were “negligent” in not bringing to your supervisor’s attention that you “suspect” something is amiss, even if you never witnessed the supposed suspicious behavior.
What, then, is going on? There are several reasons for this more overt approach:
1) Since teachers care about the welfare of the students, the ruling class needs teachers to convince students that “the authorities” (child welfare agencies, district attorneys’ offices, police departments) are “on their side” and are dedicated to helping people.
2) The ruling class needs to convince teachers that poor student outcomes are, at the very least, the fault of the students and their parents.
3) The ruling class wants to use teachers in the same way the Nazis did: get them to encourage their students to rat on their parents’ (or anyone else’s) left-wing and communist politics. Using child abuse as the opener is a way to suck teachers into this kind of mind set.
4) The new rules make it even easier for school boards to find that certain “rebellious” teachers should be fired while claiming that their removal has nothing to do with politics but only occurred because the teacher “condoned” child abuse activity.
The above applies to Pennsylvania. I don’t know what is happening in other states but it’s probably not all that different. We need to be aware of these changes and to point out their very dangerous implications as well as to show how deceptive the ruling class is by hiding its methods behind “doing something to help children.”
Red Teacher
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‘Justice for Ronel Désir!’ Haiti: Rip Cops’ Maiming of Student
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- 27 December 2013 67 hits
Port-au-Prince, November 21 — Ronel Désir is a third-year student at the Ecole Normale Supérieure (Teachers College) in the Haitian capital, site of demonstrations for the removal from office of the right-wing President Michel Martelly. Like hundreds of other students from the campuses of UEH [Université d’Etat d’Haïti, State University of Haiti], Ronel took part on November 18 in a mass protest mostly organized by Lavalas, the organization of former President Aristide and current politicians like the outspoken senator Jean-Charles Moïse. Many students have no faith in Lavalas or bourgeois politicians like Moïse but took part anyway, with other left and liberal groups, because they have been fighting Martelly ever since the U.S. embassy helped him gain power.
When he came back to campus after the march that afternoon, Ronel was struck directly on the right hand by a vicious weapon, a stun grenade which not only deafens protesters with loud noise but showers them with toxic chemicals. It is supposed to be launched above the heads of a crowd, but the Haitian National Police shot Ronel point blank with it, essentially exploding his hand. His comrades got him to the hospital where his hand was amputated, but he was still fighting a dangerous infection in the arm.
Amputees in Haiti face a tough time in many areas, including employment. Students demonstrated immediately for “Justice for Ronel!” but without any response from the police or the government. This atrocity resembles the police killing with a tear gas canister fired into the head of a picketing teacher, Jean Louis Filbert, in October 2010. The policewoman who killed him merely served six months in jail.
The police, backed up by the UN army of occupation MINUSTAH, often target certain UEH campuses on days of mass demonstrations, attacking before the marches to prevent the students from joining, and after the marches to punish them. On November 18 there was a morning attack with tear gas and an afternoon attack with stun grenades. Ronel lost his hand not because of a police mistake but because of systematic police intimidation and psychological warfare — in a word, fascism. One of the hallmarks of fascism everywhere is police terror tactics against youth they fear may become rebellious.
Readers can respond with email protests to the Prime Minister, Laurent Lamothe, who is in charge of the commission which oversees the National Police, at this link: primature.gouv.ht/?page_id=22. Statements of support can go to the students at
As the UEH students’ “SOS” says, this is one struggle. A shout-out for Ronel, “Get well, Ronel!” started by a City University of New York (CUNY) union leader who had been informed of the assault, echoed among CUNY students rallying at Baruch College November 25, protesting the CUNY Board of Trustees’ policies of militarization, repression, and tuition hikes.
As capitalists everywhere prepare for war, students and workers internationally have to make our own preparations to defend ourselves. Uniting across borders — one CUNY group is called Students Without Borders — is job number one. “Get well, Ronel!” One day communist students and workers will make the bosses pay for their crimes.
Brooklyn, NY, December 15 — Today workers from a community mass organization in Bushwick had a march in the neighborhood to publicly inform both workers and the bosses about the updated law that has been passed in New York State, which will raise minimum wage to $8 an hour from $7.25. This so-called achievement is being praised by the community organization as another win for the workers. PL members have constantly reminded the workers that these reforms are only “bread crumbs” and will never be enough, because the bosses will always attack workers’ standard of living by increasing the price on rents, food and fares and that only a revolution can free us from this vicious cycle. The organization leaders always respond that something is better than nothing.
Documented and undocumented workers participated in the march and also gave speeches at the end of the rally. The real truth about the minimum wage reform battle came from the last speech by one of the women in the community organization, who supports the Party, especially during a crisis when her husband became ill, was given the opportunity to give a public speech. This is her story:
“I’m married. My husband got ill about a year ago, and ever since I’ve been forced to carry on all the responsibilities in my home now that my husband cannot work due to his illness. Earning $7.25 an hour cannot pay the rent, transportation, food and other expenses needed in the home, electricity and telephone, etc.
“I currently have two jobs so I can somewhat cover the expenses, and I know that on December 31 they will raise it to $8 an hour. But the rent also goes up, the price of milk and other products necessary for daily consumption, and now there are plans of raising the price of the Metro Card (fare card for public transit), so that means that the increase that we are going to receive will still not cover the expenses. It is good to have that increase now, but we need more. $8, $8.75, or $9 is not enough. We need a salary so we can live with dignity. We need $12 or more!”
This is a perfect example of how the bosses use sexism to make superprofits from the special oppression of women workers.
The ruling classes, which are just a few parasites at the top, need the wage system in order to steal from the labor power of the working class, which they have done since the start of class society. Even though $8 or $12 is better than $7.25, Progressive Labor Party continues to point out those workers need to destroy the capitalist profit system that imposes wage slavery on the workers with a communist revolution once and for all.
ALTOONA, PA, December 21 — Over 100 unionized electrical workers here have been locked out for one month by the criminal corporate Penelec bosses. These workers, who’ve been walking the picket line every day, had voted down the latest contract and the bosses responded by locking them out.
The bosses have declared that the lockout will continue until the workers accept this contract. However, the workers are in a fighting mood and are refusing to back down to the profit-hungry bosses.
There’s been some community support for the workers but with the holidays upon us, it’s clear that the workers’ families will be facing tough sledding. It is another example of a class war being waged by many in the working class.
The local press has given these brave workers very little news coverage while they attempt to convince everyone that the only thing worth reporting is local crime. The same could be said for the bosses’ national media. It is the leadership of PLP that is needed to help workers break from bourgeois ideology and move in a revolutionary direction.
This struggle deserves the support of all working people. Damn the Penelec bosses!
