CHICAGO—At least 100 workers, community members and many youth, have been organizing nightly in the Lawndale neighborhood on the west side of the city, to draw attention to the alleged “suicide” of 15-year-old Black teen Steven Rosenthal. He was murdered after a foot chase by the kkkops of the Chicago Police Department (CPD).
Comrades from Progressive Labor Party (PLP), our co-workers, and friends have taken an active role in building for and supporting the nightly rallies and connecting Steve’s death to other racist attacks of the capitalist system, and the need for international communist revolution.
‘Suicide’ by kkkop
On the evening of Friday, August 17, Steve was stopped by the racist kkkops for questioning, for nothing more than being a Black youth in the path of the police. Steve took off on foot, and according to the CPD, shot himself in the back of the head while cornered in the stairwell of his grandmother’s home.
The working-class residents of the area immediately converged to confront the kkkops and demand answers. Like always, the racist hit men put their crime scene on lockdown, pushing away and intimidating any community members present.
‘Weaving words to smother the kids who die’
The CPD quickly put out a statement expressing their “condolences” over the tragic “suicide” of a young teen. The county medical examiner has corroborated with the killer cops by ruling the death to be self-inflicted.
But the working class is intelligent, and not so easily fooled. A talented and bright 15-year-old with no history of mental illness doesn’t just suddenly decide to end his life, much less by putting a gun to the back of his own head. Several witnesses state that it was in fact the CPD that shot Steve in the stairwell. One of his friends even stated that she was on Facetime with him at the time the cops rolled up, and they were talking about what they were going to wear to a party that they were planning to meet up at that same night.
The fact that the CPD is refusing to release body camera footage or allow the family to view Steve’s body makes it almost certain that he was murdered at the hands of the killer cops and their racist capitalist masters. He tragically joins a growing list of victims of racist police murder in the city, including Maurice Granton Jr. and Harith Augustus, two young Black workers executed by the CPD during the course of this summer alone.
Can’t stop, won’t stop the working class from fighting back
Although the racist capitalist bosses and their killer cops inflict so much violence on our class daily, what never ceases to inspire is the capacity and determination of workers to fight back. Steve’s family and friends have succeeded in mobilizing dozens of other working-class fighters on a daily basis to rally in front of a local school, and to march and block traffic in front of the 10th District Police Station on Ogden Avenue. Their vow is to continue disrupting the bosses’ “business as usual” for 30 days straight until the city starts giving answers and taking action over Steve’s death.
PLP comrades have been honored to take leadership from these working-class fighters in their fight against racism and for justice. We have met and began building ties with his immediate family and other supporters. Those of us who work at the nearby hospital where Steve’s body was first taken have struggled with our co-workers to participate in the rallies to support the family, fight back, and see this fight as their own.
Throughout our participation, we have been bold and unapologetic in blaming the racist capitalist system for Steve’s death, and advocating for communist revolution as the only solution to ensure justice for all members of the international working class. We have linked his death to the increasing racism and fascism facing workers in the city, particularly Black and Latin workers, and the system’s need to terrorize, divide, and weaken all working-class people in order to preserve their deadly profit system.
These attacks from the bosses are certain not only to continue but intensify as the capitalist system spirals even deeper into crisis. They can only be overcome by building a mass international multi-racial Red Army led by a PLP of millions that smashes the capitalist state and its racism, sexism, and inequality, and replaces it with a communist society run by workers that guarantees our needs and development.
Fight for the kids who die
“This is for the kids who die,” begins a classic poem by Black communist poet Langston Hughes. We rise up in revolutionary struggle against racist capitalism, which can only offer death, misery, and alienation to the overwhelming majority of the world’s workers, including 15-year-old children like Steve.
Justice for Steve! Fight for international communist revolution!