BROOKLYN, NY, May 21—What do we do when our students are under attack? We stand up, fight back! Against censorship and suppression, the fight to memorialize 15-year-old Harry* killed by street violence has finally resulted in a school memorial and balloon release. This was possible only because Harry’s mother, friends, students, and educators organized. 

To be a communist means to fight racism and smash the system that kills our kids. A system that breeds violence cannot be a part of the solution. No amount of reforms can bring justice to Harry or any student. Only a communist society—one built on needs and unity, not numbers and dollars can provide that. 

It wasn’t the first time

After dismissal, education workers held their first meeting about how to create a sanctuary for our migrant students against immigration raids. The discussion was, “in the face of deportations, what does it mean to protect students?” (see future issue for more). Little did five of those teachers know they were about to be tested. Less than a mile away, their student Harry was taking his last breath. 

Upon notice, teachers rushed to the street of the shooting and then to the hospital. There, they found a devastated family. Harry’s mother hugged the teachers and asked, “What is the school doing? Are you going to do a moment of silence on the loudspeaker?” 

The teachers went home with their marching order—memorializing our student. 

Sadly, this school tragedy is not the first. Less than two years ago, 17-year-old student Claude* was killed in the same neighborhood. Despite attacks from administration, education workers and students had fought to memorialize Claude.  Some teachers hoped it would be different this time.

Sure enough, the day before school, the principal wrote in a staff email that while “there is access to grief counseling,” “school business must go on as usual…classes must occur as they would normally do” and that “we must be careful as to what messages we convey to the students.” 

In response, a communist teacher replied all and asked for a collective response: “If we go about our day as if nothing has happened, we risk sending a harmful message—that [Harry’s] life and death are things to be processed in private, rather than something we, as a school community hold space for. The message should be clear: we lost a member of our community, and his life mattered...We struggled with this…last time [a student was killed], and it left students feeling unseen. We have a chance to do better now.” 

This exchange ignited what has been a month-long fight for student voice. 

Doing it all for him

Here’s a chronological recap of the main actions taken by students and education workers. 

• The next morning, so many sobbing students filled the hallways. Some students turned their grief into action by making posters and using their lunchtime to collect messages.
• Students also created and distributed stickers for several days. Some are still stuck on doors, floors, and walls to this day.
• Some teachers refused business as usual and used their classes as spaces to process and collect ideas. 
• The Student Council wrote and distributed a statement regarding their concern over how administration is giving leadership to this collective tragedy.
• The administration was pressured into calling an open meeting after school to organize a memorial. Over 15 students attended.
• Students and education workers wrote messages to the family on large handmade cards.
• Education workers collected funds and assembled a care basket for the family. 
• In solidarity with students, a multiracial group of education workers attended the vigil with balloons. They presented the care basket. Two spoke. 
• The communist teacher also distributed a leaflet printed on Harry’s favorite color orange. (See below for a snippet of the leaflet.)
• At the funeral, we all wore red ribbons with the  message “we will always remember.” Students, though shy, still stood together on stage when teachers gave speeches. 
• At the student-centered school memorial, we made sure to give mom the chance to be present. We made bracelets, shared memories, and then released balloons. It was a display of student-worker-parent unity. 

Throughout it all, we met so many students and former students who loved and grieved for Harry. We also deepened our ties and made new connections with other education workers and students. Certain classrooms became spaces for students to gather, grieve, and organize throughout this time. It’s evident to students who they can rely on to be pro-student. 

Bosses’ tools: censorship and fear

Minimizing and hiding our pain is the bosses’ tool. The institutions we are part of would rather contain, censor, and move on from this. Which is why they prevented students from using bulletin boards to display memorial posters in the hallways. Which is why they didn’t say Harry’s name over the loudspeaker that first week. Which is why they reprimanded an advisor of the Student Council with a disciplinary meeting resulting in an official letter in their file. Which is why they demanded teachers put away the “shrines” (classroom memorials) for Harry. Which is why they have yet to hold a schoolwide town hall. 

Fighting back against this systemic violence is how we keep Harry alive. When we refuse to accept this as normal, when we demand a better world for our young people, we carry Harry with us. We realize we aren’t alone—and that we have so much more power than we think.

Moving forward, we need to fight for the promise of planning a basketball tournament in Harry’s memory since he loved basketball. We need to fight against suspensions that continue to perpetuate systemic racist violence against our youth. And we need to commit ourselves for a lifetime of serving the working class. That includes showing communist alternatives to this unsafe world. 

You deserve better

Students deserve a world where safety—real safety, no guns, not policing, not surveillance—is the priority. A world where our students’ lives are valued and protected—communism. Progressive Labor Party fights for that world.  

*The pseudonyms Harry  and Claude are inspired by the 20th century Black communist leaders Harry Haywood and Claude McKay

Violence is endemic to capitalism

This system does not care about our kids. It never has. Systemic racism and systemic violence have locked our kids in—making it harder for them to dream, take risks, be creative, speak their truth, walk the streets, have fun, and even breathe without fear. 

Individual violence in the streets is the byproduct of the toxicity that capitalism creates. Capitalism’s very DNA is the violent exploitation and oppression of the working class by the big gangsters: the rich and their government. 

We live in a systemically violent world. By that, it means these big forces that harm people by preventing them from meeting their basic basic needs or rights. The conditions in which working-class students are forced to grow up are violent—failing schools, dirty waters, slumlord housing, rent hikes, food deserts, sickening hospitals, healthcare cuts, killer kkkops, rising homelessness, unsafe transit, inflated grocery prices. So many suspensions but not enough teachers/staff are violent. Lack of jobs and afterschool programs are violent. 

All these attacks create a culture of hopelessness and alienation—which the Covid-19 pandemic only made worse—and makes our class more vulnerable to individualism and violence.