Washington, DC, September 19—Today Progressive Labor Party (PLP) members brought communist politics to a rally of 30 supporters of the Haitian Bridge Alliance at the White House. Protestors declared that nothing has changed since the racist, horrific attack on workers from Haiti, escaping U.S. imperialism, by the U.S. Border Patrol a year ago (see photo). The Biden administration continues to apply Trump-era Title 42 policy to keep immigrants out of the U.S. This racist repressive policy is based on false public health fears of disease that even the CDC has denounced. Another example of how the finance capitalist Big Fascists are just as virulently racist as Trump. The Big Fascists (see glossary on page 6) are more dangerous because they use fake, liberal rhetoric in attempt to build all-class unity and patriotism for imperialist war. They do this all while ratcheting up racist attacks on the working class.
PL’ers active in Public Health Awakened joined the event, the first in a week of action calling for the U.S. to follow its own rules and welcome asylum seekers from Haiti. As we fight alongside our class, it is imperative to point out that the state was created to protect the interest of the ruling class. The very U.S.-led empire that created the conditions for unlivable working conditions in Haiti is the same imperialist empire that is now refusing to provide asylum to the workers whose lives they ruined. Capitalism creates the conditions of misery, and then blame the victim.
Conversations against racism
Protestors were excited to see the articles on Haiti in CHALLENGE. One expressed delight that the paper was in Spanish. A young Black worker used the QRCode to access the newspaper on his phone.Then we joined a conversation with a worker from Telemundo and another speaker who had denounced racism toward Black workers.
The Telemundo worker from the Dominican Republic (DR) described how of bus drivers in his homeland regularly refused to pick up their class sisters and brothers from the neighboring island of Haiti. He shared that he had asked a driver why he did not pick up a young man. The driver replied, “Because he’s Black.” The worker got off the bus in anger and solidarity. Racism is a creature of capitalism, designed by the bosses to divide workers and reap superprofits. It is good for our class to reject all forms of racism, brought on by bosses or members of our own class.
This engagement by PL’ers followed last year’s protest of the racist attacks on Haitian migrants in a letter published in the Washington Post. As a crisis of capitalism and civil war expands in Haiti, there will be more workers and families seeking asylum.
As members of PLP and friends in public health declare, we need multiracial unity and revolution to smash this racist sexist capitalist system!
