Now I know I’m a communist
At first when I saw your table I thought this was a student club just about Palestine, which I wanted to get involved with. But then as we spoke I discovered it was about more than Palestine, it was also about racism and capitalism. Before I moved to this country, I hadn’t thought about these questions very much, but in the last year, this changed after the genocide in Gaza. And now I know I am a communist. I don’t have fancy words for the ideologies and I don’t feel comfortable yet making an argument - English is my fourth language and I still have so much to learn! But I want to learn more and what I know so far is that this party is fighting for the right things, which are equality and a better world. Capitalism is the cause of it and we need communism.
When I think about my home country, you would not believe the divide between rich and poor. The capital city is where the rich people live, and all the people from my district do all the labor. It’s exactly like the book The Hunger Games. The people who work in the districts live completely different lives and never enjoy what the rich in the capital have.
There is more to life than being born, living and working like a dog just to afford life’s necessities. I want to join and come to the next meetings. A very good friend of mine is also a student and is interested, and I will talk with him about coming too.
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Students in solidarity with Springfield
“An injustice to one is an injustice to all” is our school’s motto. We developed this motto because of our history of facing inequity on our campus over the years. As a mainly Black and Latin school in a mainly white neighborhood, we have faced struggles against cops who force students to leave immediately after school, school safety agents who attack and arrest students, DOE policies that give whiter schools more resources and support. We have learned that unity - students, teachers and parents – is the only way forward.
When students learned about the racist attacks that students and workers currently face in Springfield, Ohio, they naturally wanted to show their solidarity. The two students, a part of Student Government, who crafted the solidarity letter to Haitian workers in Springfield both expressed their disgust with what was happening and also with world-wide racism. One student, who is from Haiti, talked about how angry she was that people were saying these things. Another student, when asked why she volunteered to craft the letter, expressed that these attacks happening to workers worldwide needed to be stopped.
The letter was spread to other teachers in the school who were asked to get their students to sign on. In one history class, dozens of students signed on when the statement of solidarity was read to them. “We the students of… stand in solidarity with the students and workers from Haiti in Springfield, Ohio who are under racist attack. In our school, we believe an injustice to one is an injustice to all, every person has a purpose and can contribute to improving our society, and that NO human beings are illegal. We condemn the racists who are putting you in harm’s way and commit to doing our part in fighting racism and its impact around the world.”
Many students were happy to know that the solidarity statement, along with their signatures, would be sent to workers from Haiti living in Springfield, Ohio. As one student said “Even taking a small stand against racism is an important thing to do! She grasped our motto in the Party which is that what we do counts! I urge PL’ers to start a petition showing their solidarity with workers in Springfield at their schools or jobs.
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Bringing PL ideas to labor reform
A coalition of community groups, with the support of the TEAMSTERS union, held a press conference at the mayor’s march. The goal was to talk about a bill called the “Safe Jobs Act.” Its main content seeks to prevent any non-unionized worker from being thrown out of their job without justification.
At this conference, we introduced some members of the Progressive Labor Party (PLP). We work within one of the community organizations present. Through our newspaper, CHALLENGE, our slogans, and in the meetings and events where we participate, we constantly organize to build for a communist world, a world run by the working class.
After the conference, a group went into the offices to lobby the council members. Their goal was to gain majority support when the bill goes to a vote. For the time being, we must engage in this struggle for reforms within community organizations, churches, workplaces, etc. Our goal is to achieve the unity of the entire working class, led by a mass PLP, to make the revolution and build a communist society.
After crushing capitalism, imperialism, and its entire profit system forever, our class will no longer have to fight for crumbs, for it will have everything.
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Proposal divides workers; need housing for all!
Recently, a friend of mine found a flyer posted on his front door. It was circulated by a “community member” calling for the community to come out and oppose plans for a future shelter in the neighborhood. According to this flyer, the neighborhood is already riddled with problems like gang shootings and crime; families are not able to walk the streets especially at night and their property will be devalued, etc.
This community meeting was to take place the following day. The proposal was that a vacant factory in the neighborhood would be used to house 120 men. I notified my friend that I could make the meeting and invited another friend. My friend wanted to attend to oppose the divisions that the bosses create among workers without homes and those with. The only plan I had was to distribute CHALLENGE newspapers and maybe speak like I’ve done at previous community meetings. But I didn’t have a back-up plan.
Workers and property owners started trickling in, by twos and threes until the seats were filled. The meeting began and the presenters gave information on the role they were each playing in this future endeavor. But they didn’t finish.
People in the back seats started shouting, not giving the presenters the chance to finish. There didn’t seem to be a leader of the opposition as several people were shouting down one of the main presenters at the same time. Then the alderman comes walking in, apologizing in English and Spanish for being late. The opposition community members didn’t stop their shouting even for the alderman.
Long story short: The alderman asked the opposition to go outside to talk. They all went out and we stayed inside with the remaining community members. Some were either in favor or opposed to the new shelter. My friends and I spoke of the need for people to have, not only a roof over their heads and basic needs met, but also to be trained for jobs; that the city and nonprofits needed to be more transparent with the community; that affordable rents are not so “affordable” and any one of us could potentially be thrown out into the streets like the thousands already homeless. A young woman, who worked in a nursing facility across from Cook County jail, said that so much money was taken out of her paycheck in taxes already and assumed that more money would be taken out if a new shelter was built there. She was sincere, not hostile.
I didn’t get her name or give her a CHALLENGE before leaving the building. That was a big mistake. As we left, we saw the group standing outside with the alderman. Neither of us stayed. Another big mistake! We might not have been able to distribute CHALLENGE to the outside group but I could have given one to the young woman inside.
It’s been more than a year since I was directly involved in working with migrant refugees in a shelter close by me. I need to become involved again and build a base in the working class to better understand what it takes to strengthen myself as a revolutionary communist in Progressive Labor Party and not a reformist for capitalism like the alderman, the panelists and non-profits. In the long run, capitalism can’t be reformed.
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