ANNAPOLIS, MD—Chants and demands rang out in Maryland’s state capital as over 150 protesters, with support from 90 mass organizations, marched on the Annapolis statehouse. The collective of the Maryland Coalition for Justice and Police Accountability had high hopes that a bill repealing the Law Enforcement Officers’ Bill of Rights (LEOBR) would finally pass but as is the case with many reform struggles, these hopes came crashing down as multiple amendments obliterated demands. Progressive Labor Party (PLP) joined the voices calling out the legislative betrayal of the working class and chanted: “only communist revolution will break our chains.” We can’t reform away racism that’s integral to this profit system’s survival.
PLP has been working with the coalition to end racist police terror and murder for years now. Several PLP members who also work with Community Justice in Prince George’s County and the West Wednesday Coalition in Baltimore attended the march, distributing copies of CHALLENGE.
Our message to workers: ending police terror and murder requires a revolutionary overthrow of the whole damn system—appealing to the legislature will never free the working class. Pandering politicians represent and manage this racist capitalist system.
A history of racism, masked as reforms
Following the passage of the National Fair Housing Act in the 1970s, Black workers moved into Prince George’s County. As the population grew more integrated, the government established the racist LEOBR, providing a free pass for the klan-in-blue. Since its establishment, LEOBR has inspired similar measures in surrounding counties, giving cops extra protection whenever they are charged with excessive force and murder.
LEOBR has been the focal point of  antiracist protests for over 30 years. However, despite growing awareness of racist murders and attacks at the hands of the police, minimal reforms were granted only after the Baltimore uprising against Freddie Gray’s murder.
The insulting reform simply reduced the time that cops can refuse interrogation from 10 to five days. Of course, five days is plenty of time for a racist murderer, emboldened by the system,  to “get stories straight,” tamper with evidence, and evade accountability.
A militant working class can never be defeated
In response to these continued racist measures The Coalition was formed and established a set of demands to protect Black and Latin workers: abolish LEOBR; open records for cops charged with misconduct; remove armed police from schools; establish a state-wide policy to minimize force used by cops; and return the Baltimore City police department to local control.
Demands for these reforms have been largely led by the voices of mothers whose children have been killed by cops. Many participants in the march this month were also fighting for “Anton’s Law” named for a victim of police murder in which the cop’s questionable records were not reviewed when he was hired on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.
Over 20 bills related to these demands have been introduced by one politician or another, but predictably, virtually all were amended to make them useless, and few were even passed by the State Senate. Liberal politicians, the sneakiest wolves in sheep's clothing, posture as friends of our class. Workers have seen this betrayal repeated in state legislatures throughout the U.S.
Learning from a summer of struggle
About 15 million people, in the U.S. alone, participated in the massive protests and rebellions this past summer against police terror. Workers worldwide joined in solidarity, fighting racism in the name of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and so many more lost to racist murder.
What we saw was the potential of a united working class to change the system. In the face of an organized, multiracial, multi-generational, and antiracist, antisexist fightback, politicians were forced to take up issues they’ve historically ignored. To the degree that laws or practices were changed to reduce police terror, we’ve experienced the limits of reform.
Communist revolution is the only solution
As the Maryland legislative session draws to a close for 2021, it looks like the only substantive change in law enforcement legislation is that the records of some officers may be made open to the public, but only if it is deemed reasonable to do so by the police department. Cops will remain in schools, police will continue to be shielded and parents will go another year without justice despite a summer of open rebellion against the racist capitalism.
The struggle against racist police terror predates even the Civil Rights movement by decades. These fightbacks are often schools for communism and sharpen the politics of the working class but fall-short as capitalist rulers continue to foster racist police brutality, intimidation, and terror to maintain their power over us.
PLP continues to bullhorn the belief that only communist revolution can put the working class in power. While many workers are still not won away from the racist and capitalist ideas that have been ingrained in us, we struggle every day to counter racist stereotypes and expose racist laws and structures.
We remain encouraged by workers taking to the streets and the extensive mutual aid and support for our neighbors during the Covid-19 pandemic. Those disillusioned with the capitalist system should consider joining PLP and build towards revolution to create a communist system for the working class, run by the working class.