GARY, IN—The brave actions of working-class youth in the majority-Black city of Gary have sharpened the struggle against racist capitalist attacks in education. The students of Westside Leadership Academy showed everyone the power of active fightback against the profit system’s injustice and racist neglect by staging a protest walkout on March 3. They have since been supported on a weekly basis by antiracist fighters demonstrating outside the school.
The 1972 National Black Political Convention was held at this school. Since then, the city has been controlled by one pro-capitalist politician after another. Black workers in the city have long been at the receiving end of racist legislation that affects the working class statewide. These students have pushed back against the anti-worker ideas taught to them, demanding a better existence than what capitalism can ever offer.
Members of the communist Progressive Labor Party (PLP), who are active in mass organization struggles in the area, have joined and supported these students. Young people have positively received CHALLENGE and been encouraged by PL’ers to speak loudly on the bullhorn about school conditions.
While learning much from the bold actions of these youth, we can never hold any illusions that the capitalist education system can be reformed to serve our class interests. Its racist and nationalist core serves to prepare working-class students for a life of exploitation, alienation or military service.
Education can only serve our needs as an enlightening and collective force when it’s freed from capitalism’s constraints. We fight for an egalitarian communist world where young people actively help lead society for the advancement of all.
Working-class youth express their needs
On the day of the walkout, students didn't hold anything back about their demands. Some shouted that they wanted better food, college information, better teachers, and water. The corporate shill superintendent has said that water fountains were closed to prevent further Covid-19 infections in the school. Instead, each student was given one small bottle of water for the entire day.
Also being protested are cases of sexist harassment, including accusations of one staff member sending inappropriate photos to students, and other staff members trying to engage in relationships with youth. Far from being opposed, this predatory sexism has been routinely brushed off by the school bosses.
Support services – already minimal before the pandemic – have been virtually nonexistent in the last two years. This includes the overbearing corporate climate that already existed in the notoriously corrupt city leadership. Students bravely spoke about the futures they wanted and how they knew officials weren't acting in their interests. PL’ers spoke candidly to the crowd about capitalism and its racist disregard for workers and youth. Students understood the role of the school-to-prison pipeline and talked about their real fears due to lack of support in all directions.
Capitalism continues to sacrifice our youth
In the wake of the student walkout, the school bosses have worked overtime to try to silence and intimidate. They immediately lied about how many students were involved in the walkout, while trying to cover up how they locked students out of the school to punish them. For the time being, the administration promised an ongoing dialogue with students to try to address their concerns, putting future actions on hold.
If one looks at the history of the school system in the city, there will be little optimism that this “dialogue” will go anywhere. Since 2017, three different emergency managers have been appointed by MGT Counseling, the company chosen by the state to manage the district to control the Gary school system. This was after many years of mismanagement by members of the Gary community school corporation and the distrust they earned from workers in the city.
Living under capitalism proves the bosses will always center their profit growth and working-class youth will not be spared in that pursuit. The corporate takeover of the school system has little to do with better support and performance of the majority of Black and working-class students, more so lining the pockets and boosting influence among the rotten capitalists.
Politicians, their cop enforcers, and public school administrators in Northwest Indiana have proven that their commitment is to money and systemic power. Youth are disenfranchised in their poverty-stricken communities, and many have lost their lives. Kemonte Cobbs, 15 years old, and Vincent Smith Jr, 16 years old, are two Black youths murdered by the kkkops in Gary.
Communism, not capitalism, is our future
Communists from PLP are active in these struggles by building relationships with teachers, students, and families, by sharing CHALLENGE and our political line. Being residents of the area, former students in these schools, and workers in the neighborhoods give us the opportunity to show youth that capitalism and all its destruction does not have to be their future. Continuing resistance and learning about communism for the defeat of the profit-driven system of capitalism are the needed lessons we will continue to push.