COLUMBIA, SOUTH CAROLINA, July 18 — “Shut this racist rally down! Chase them out of town!” Scores of anti-racists took up Progressive Labor Party’s chants at a rally here against the Ku Klux Klan. Both Black and white working-class families welcomed PLP’s call for multiracial unity against all forms of nationalism.
South Carolina has been rocked by racist murders. Walter Scott was shot in the back by kkkop Michael Slager after a routine traffic stop. Klan-lover Dylann Roof murdered nine people at Emmanuel AME Church, spurring a national debate over public displays of the Confederate flag. 
Black youth take the lead and batter a kkk scum!
The bosses permitted two nationalist protests at the South Carolina State House. On the north side steps were Black nationalists advocating for the “power in the melanin” and for Black capitalism. On the south side were the Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan and the National Socialist Movement, a Nazi organization, calling for white power.
The white supremacists waved Confederate flags and performed Hitler salutes. In response, PLP and others in the crowd chanted, “Death, death, death to the racists!”
PLP has a long history of fighting Klan and Nazi groups. We invaded a Nazi headquarters in Chicago and physically stopped them from broadcasting from a Kansas City radio station. We smashed David Duke and his forces in Boston. We burned a Klan hood at a John Brown demonstration in Texas and stood up against armed Klansmen in Tupelo, Mississippi. More recently, we infiltrated and attacked these gutter racists at New York City Hall and in Morristown, New Jersey.
In short, these cowardly fascists have a history of taking a beating from anti-racists. And that’s what happened here today. A group of Black rebels beat a KKK scum who had earlier taunted the crowd with racist slurs. Wherever fascists are on the attack, the working class must up the ante and fight back.
Part of fighting back means attacking the root of racism: capitalist state power. The ruling class runs on racist exploitation of workers. U.S. bosses reap billions of dollars each year by paying Black, Latin, and migrant workers less than white workers. The genocide of indigenous people and enslavement of Black people is the foundation of U.S. state power. All capitalist institutions are built on this bedrock of racism: the government, police, military, industry, schools, prisons, churches, media, hospitals, and more.
Just as the Nazis won much of the German working class to its genocidal ideology, U.S. ruling-class racism helps gutter racist groups dupe poor white workers into scapegoating other members of their class. By dividing workers with the mythical concept of race, the rulers make it more difficult for communists to build the multiracial movement we need to smash the system.
PLP fights for communist state power. The working class will rule every aspect of society. This world will be based on need and collectivity, not racist and sexist exploitation. Wherever we put forward these ideas, workers respond to them. More than 500 anti-racists, Black and white, took our leaflets and CHALLENGEs in Columbia. Some signed up for a CHALLENGE subscription.
Black Capitalism Is Still Capitalism
Unfortunately, despite a small PL presence, the most conspicuous alternative to the neo-Nazis was a group of Black nationalists. These counter-revolutionaries called for a country without “Indian, Chinese, or Irish” workers. They called upon Black people to “buy Black and invest in Black businesses”—in other words, to identify and ally with Black capitalists. They also threatened “any blue-eyed devil” who “dared to come” to their town hall meeting after the rally.
Nationalism is the rulers’ main tool to divide our class. It traps us into false unity with groups of bosses based on nationality or race, from Barack Obama to the new Black police chief in Ferguson, Missouri. It leads to our self-destruction. As the historian Lerone Bennett wrote in 1970 in The Road Not Taken,
Before the invention of the Negro or the white man or the words and concepts to describe them…these people worked together and relaxed together. They had essentially the same interests, the same aspirations, and the same grievances. They conspired together and waged a common struggle against their common enemy….The race problem in America was a deliberate invention of men who systematically separated blacks and white in order to make money.
The need for a common struggle against capitalism is no less urgent today. Workers from Haiti to South Africa to Cuba must no longer retreat from communist revolution. Those who organize along nationalist lines are lining their own pockets, not serving the international working class.
In Columbia, amid the Confederate and Black nationalist flags, the working class of South Carolina was presented with an alternative: the red flag of communist revolution. Capitalism lives off nationalist division. What it can’t survive is a mass, multiracial communist party. For the working class worldwide, that party is PLP.
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Black Lives Matter Convention: PL’ers Push Back vs. Nationalists
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CLEVELAND, July 26 — At the first Black Lives Matter (BLM) convention, as our Black, white, and South Asian comrades chanted “Racism means we got to fight back!” a group of people tried to rip the bullhorn from our hands. They apparently were outraged by a multiracial group like the Progressive Labor Party leading anti-racist chants.
Our opposition wasn’t the Klan. It wasn’t the cops. It was a leaders of Black Lives Matter.
A seemingly progressive, grass-roots organization, Black Lives Matter is in reality backed by arch-imperialist George Soros, the Kellogg Foundation (champions of anti-student education reform), and the Ford Foundation, the philanthropic front group for the Hitler-backing corporation that oppresses workers throughout the world. Given their vested interest in maintaining global capitalism, these funders must keep workers divided to continue to maximize profits. Within BLM, they have found some willing junior partners to promote working-class division, capitalist-controlled elections, and the reactionary ideology of Black nationalism as a false solution to racist police murders and poverty.
BLM’s leadership exposed their anti-worker ideas when they attacked our multiracial group of comrades. Multiracial fightback to smash capitalism—led by the revolutionary communist PLP—is the only solution to racism and poverty. It is the only real threat to capitalists like Soros, Kellogg, and Ford.
The Poison of Privilege Politics
BLM’s leadership attempts to mislead workers into believing that racism is a Black issue that white people cannot fully understand. Since white workers benefit from “white privilege,” as this faulty reasoning goes, their only incentive to fight racism is a moral one—a modern version of the “white man’s burden.” Ignoring the crucial role that racism plays in the exploitation of white workers, BLM asks Black workers and their “white allies” to organize separately in their own communities.
But despite the BLM leadership’s call for a Black-only conference, a dozen Black, white, and South Asian PL comrades from New York, Indiana, Chicago, and DC showed up here. When we entered the conference, the leadership asked our white comrades to leave and wait for them to create a “white ally” space. We remained as one group and attended the workshops, where the leadership consistently attacked the white people simply for being there (see letters, page 6).
If left unchallenged, these attacks would create the illusion that the fight against racism is for Black workers alone. In reality, racism oppresses all workers while super-exploiting Black, Latin, Asian, and immigrant workers. It uses racist distinctions and divisions to drive all workers’ wages down. By focusing workshops on the question of the white comrades’ presence, BLM’s leaders distracted everyone from fighting the system and toward fighting each other.
Black Workers Embrace Communist Ideas
Despite these attacks, many attendees supported our multiracial group. We distributed our literature and held a forum on fighting capitalism with multiracial unity. The forum was a success, with people showing openness to our ideas and even giving us contact information and subscribing to CHALLENGE.
Perhaps our biggest gain was in the experience of engaging the class enemy. All of the PL’ers were young and gained leadership experience. Moreover, we now have a sharper view of today’s Black nationalism and identity politics. We’ve seen it proliferate in our textbooks and classrooms, but we deepened our political understanding by confronting it in practice. We all need to understand how to combat the wide variety of capitalist ideas and better fight for revolutionary communism.
The leaders of Black Lives Matter are not serious about fighting racism. If they were, they wouldn’t be taking money from the same people who create, perpetuate, and depend on racism to reap super-profits. They wouldn’t be doing the bosses’ job by creating divisions between honest Black and white workers who share the same interests. They wouldn’t be holding a conference where they focus more on attacking a multiracial group of anti-racists than on organizing for the one-year anniversary of Michael Brown’s death.
Progressive Labor Party, not Black Lives Matter, is the only group serious about eliminating racism, poverty, and capitalism. All workers must fight together to smash our chains. Join us!
BROOKLYN, July 21 — It is two years since Kyam Livingston was killed in a Brooklyn jail cell. She was ill and crying out in pain for over seven hours while her pleas, and those of others in her cell, were ignored by the murderous New York Police Department. The 24th demonstration for Justice for Kyam was held today, on the second anniversary of her death, outside the courthouse where Brooklyn Central Booking is located. More than 60 people joined this multi-racial rally.
Chants of “We want justice for Kyam Livingston, killed in a Brooklyn cell!” and “If we don’t get it, shut it down!” were loud and clear throughout the demonstration. The sound of voices grew as people arrived at the end of their workday. PL’ers distributed over a hundred CHALLENGEs and several hundred leaflets. As the demonstration took over the street, the police were forced to divert traffic. Anita Neal, Kyam’s mother, her daughter’s ashes in her hands, walked in and then out of the courthouse to make the point that her daughter was now free. As a PL’er sang a song about the true nature of the bosses’ racist terror, Anita’s wailed in anguish for her loss—and in anger at the brutality of the profit system.
Anita’s determination inspires the rest of us to keep fighting back against the system, in the name of Kyam and for the millions slaughtered by police and in wars for profit. Several speakers talked about how the loss of human life from simple callousness and cruelty is business as usual under capitalism, especially for Black workers. Racism and racist terror are built into this system as an essential for the bosses to keep the working class divided. When we build multi-racial unity and fight back, the ruling class shudders in fear!
PLP has a long, storied history of fighting back against racist, fascist police murder in Brooklyn, helping to form multi-racial fight back and justice committees that regularly take to the streets. When we are out fighting for Kyam, we are also fighting for Shantel Davis and Kiki Gray, for Mike Brown and Walter Scott, and for the all too many other victims of police terror. As the sister of Shantel, who was killed by the NYPD in Flatbush three years ago, has said many times: What the cops and bosses don’t realize is that they’re building a family of anti-racist fighters, bonded together.
At the end of the demonstration, a vow was made to keep the battle going, to support Kyam’s mother and the rest of the family in the struggle for justice inside and outside the system. Within that struggle, people learn about the true nature and violence of capitalism. Families of slaughtered relatives may get compensation money through the courts, but the killer cops almost never suffer for their crimes. The racist nature of the system survives unscathed. As a PL speaker said, it’s impossible to get real justice under capitalism. Only a communist revolution can end racism, because only communist revolution will smash the system that breeds and survives on racism—capitalism. Join PLP in the fight for working class justice and communist revolution!
STATEN ISLAND, NY, July 18 — “We are going to continue to fight to build a mass struggle around the issues of racism and police brutality, the only way we can bring any change. Electing politicians won’t change anything!” This declaration of defiance was made today by two dozen workers on the steps to the office of Staten Island Congressman Dan Donovan.
The rally was called to commemorate Eric Garner’s murder and condemn this racist politician. Donovan made sure that the grand jury didn’t indict Garner’s murderer, killer kkkop Daniel Pantaleo, or anybody else for Eric Garner’s murder. He even had the courageous Ramsay Orta, who took the video of Pantaleo’s choke hold, arrested and indicted three times!
Students, campus workers, professors and the local community responded to the urgency of forming a multiracial, anti-racist organization at the College of Staten Island: Staten Island Against Racism and Police Brutality. One group member stated that New York’s “broken windows” policing is the problem, and that New York Mayor Bill de Blasio his appointed police commissioner, William Bratton, are directly responsible for Eric Garner’s murder. As another worker noted, if Pantaleo couldn’t be indicted, a cop will never beheld accountable for killing a Black man.
The Progressive Labor Party salutes the bold community members taking this anti-racist struggle forward! PLP is building a mass, international anti-racist movement of millions to destroy the root of racism—capitalism—with armed communist revolution. We invite these bold fighters in Staten Island to share their lessons and struggles with us, and help us forge a future without racist police terror.
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I was invited to a vigil for Sandra Bland this weekend in Brooklyn by a group of college student activists. Bland, who died in jail in Texas on July 13, is one of the latest victims of racist police terror. There has been a lot of discussion about whether Bland committed suicide or was murdered, but one of the participants at the vigil summed it up: “Sandra would be alive today if she had never encountered that police officer.”
The vigil was poignant and well organized. Everyone had a chance to speak and share their thoughts. Two participants spoke of revolution. Many young women spoke of how Sandra’s death hit home. People agreed that having marches and vigils in working-class communities was better than organizing rallies in the downtown area.
The group of mostly young women marched through Prospect Park and leaflets were given to onlookers. A few people joined, including a young Russian student who spoke of the racism faced by African workers there.
PLP has been saying that we must not “get used” to all the injustices of capitalism and that we should take every opportunity to fight back. These young women, including two students in my class, did a great job of making a statement. Let’s keep fighting back—every day, in every way!
Within the Black Lives Matter movement, there is confusion over the meaning and significance of “white supremacy.” As communists, we need to understand what the term means to folks who are actually using it. Distorted ideas can weaken working-class struggle against racism, capitalism and for workers’ power. Yet many advocates of these ideas may simply not yet be familiar with the richness of class analysis, which includes anti-racism at its core. Our discussions with such potential comrades need to be clear and friendly, and help move the struggle forward.
“White supremacy” can certainly be used to characterize obvious groups like the historic Citizens Councils and the KKK. The U.S. ruling class has used white supremacist ideology as a prop for capitalism. But some people who decry “white supremacy” miss its ideological function. They conclude that “white privilege” offers all white people advantages over Black and Latin workers in all aspects of life. The Progressive Labor Party always tries to clarify that the condition for most white workers and their families is one of oppression—less, in general, than the oppression experienced by Black workers, but oppression nonetheless. There is, therefore, an objective basis for unity of the oppressed. White workers and students who are anti-racist are not “allies”—they are comrades in the struggle!
At an AFL-CIO panel in DC, the white supremacy argument was directed toward the historically white leaders of unions who limited positions within unions to white workers. But the greater issue for the unions today is the failure to militantly fight the bosses. Union leaders should fight for economic and social justice for all workers and broaden the struggle for equality to issues beyond wages and benefits for their immediate members. But few do this as they capitulate to the needs of capital.
A PLP member noted that many union leaders failed to support workers’ struggles in the Detroit auto strike and the DC Metro strike in the 1970s. He called for unions to attack capitalism itself and destroy it. Both Black and white politicians and union leaders have attacked worker’s struggles. A better analysis would focus on the capitalist class and their supporters in labor—the class traitors Marx called “the labor aristocracy.” Replacing white union leaders with Black leaders does not change the equation if they, too, play the role of sellouts.
What many people think of as “white privilege” cannot be denied in a day-to-day functioning of society. Disparities in health, housing, jobs and education are apparent. That’s racism! Background checks hurt Black workers more than white workers because of racist attacks on Black workers in the so-called War on Drugs that led to mass incarceration. But white workers are also oppressed by capitalism. They need to destroy capitalism and replace it with a communist society as well. How then to build unity and solidarity?
PLP recognizes that only by taking on the sharpest anti-racist struggles can we build this unity. Black and Latin leaders (including PLPers!) are crucial to success. In DC we have supported the transit workers’ struggles for years and led the 1978 wildcat strike. This predominantly Black workforce is increasingly under attack with new job rules, extended wage progressions, rigid background checks and privatization. The years-long struggle against racist police brutality was central to our work in Prince George’s County and DC. We have engaged in public health struggles over AIDS, housing and mass incarceration. Multiracial unity has been essential to advancing these struggles.
Many Black workers do not see Black capitalism as a solution, but they may be influenced by the rhetoric to organize with nationalist formations. This reinforces the divisions in the working class and limits the ability to build a truly revolutionary movement. Racism in Europe and Asia leads to similar nationalist formations. PLP has opposed this thinking for the past 40 years and continues to try to unite all workers against capitalism in a single international party.
We have to explore the meaning of the current language of “white privilege” with our friends, point out the reactionary direction such ideology takes the movement, and continue to struggle for multiracial unity among leaders and members of the mass organizations to which we belong.
