BRONX, NY, May 19 — Since NYPD’s killer cop, Richard Haste, murdered black teenager Ramarley Graham in February, the family and residents of the Norwood neighborhood here have continued to fight this fascist killing. Various organizers have mobilized weekly Thursday vigils in front of the Graham residence, followed by a march through the neighborhood and ending with a demonstration at the 47th Precinct. PLP members and friends have joined this struggle, organizing others to participate. CHALLENGE and our leaflet entitled, “Racist Killer KKKops, You Can’t Hide! We Charge You with Genocide!” have sparked good discussions with workers and students.
However, the politics and tone of the march changed when teachers from a neighborhood Preschool Day Care Program joined it, carrying a PLP banner emblazoned with the above “Genocide” headline. One of these teachers had attended PLP’s May Day March and Dinner. The other two are regular CHALLENGE readers.
Two teachers from this school have organized several friends, parents of former students and co-workers to attend the events. One who helped organize for a Thursday action asked a PLP comrade to remember to bring the PLP banner, saying, “We don’t want to forget that; it’s precious cargo!” The same teacher organized a former parent to help distribute leaflets to over 150 demonstrators preparing to march to the 47th Precinct.
Initially the chants at the Precinct were enthusiastic but primarily had a more reformist tone: “What do we want! Justice! When do we want it? Now!”; and, “I am Ramarley!” This resulted from liberal politicians’ influence.
While it may seem that Al Sharpton and other liberal misleaders are attempting to “lead a struggle,” in reality their role is to diffuse our anger! These politicians try to dazzle us with calls for “justice,” “independent investigations” and “sensitivity training.” But history shows that essentially nothing will be done to punish the brutal NYPD.
The entire judicial system is racist to the core! U.S. prisons contain 2.3 million inmates, 70% black and Latino workers and youth, two-thirds for non-violent crimes. Ironically, the black and Latino youth victims of racist murders are the very same people the racist rulers target for recruitment to fight and die in the Middle East, killing other workers who the oil bosses exploit for billions in profits. Many more workers and children have been brutalized and killed since then and, as this latest killing shows, will continue.
The cops have proven once again to be hired goons of the rulers who rely on racist terror to try to prevent workers and youth from fighting back. Racism is used by the bosses to divide all workers and reap billions in super-profits from the lower wages paid to black, Latino and immigrant workers.
PL’ers have raised these ideas with workers and students every Thursday. One member of the Graham family is beginning to see the contradictions of the liberal politicians, stating, “In the beginning all of these politicians were out here giving us hugs and making speeches. Now where are they? Nowhere to be seen!”
One PL’er who attended the rally approached a Graham family member and asked to lead some different chants. They enthusiastically embraced our offer and the chants added more militant ones: “NYPD You Can’t Hide! We Charge You With Genocide!”; Racism Means, Fight Back!”; “Capitalism Means, Fight Back!”
These PLP-led chants have become part of every Thursday march, and now outnumber the more reformist ones. Most importantly, a few of the organizers and Ramarley’s parents have approached PL’ers and friends asking to participate in the weekly organizing meetings. We plan to do that soon.
We’ve made several contacts with workers and students and won teachers from this Preschool to read CHALLENGE, distribute it to their friends and family and organize for the weekly Thursday events.
But convincing workers to march to militant chants isn’t enough. Currently, the family and march organizers continue to advocate voting for “good” politicians. PL’ers have exposed the true role of the police: instill fear among, and control over, the working class, preventing us from fighting the capitalist system as a whole.
We continue to support the Graham family while simultaneously challenging these reformist ideas. “So that’s why you guys call the cops fascist!” commented one CHALLENGE reader. Another worker commented, “We understand it’s the whole system, but don’t you want justice for Ramarley and set a precedent so this doesn’t happen again?” Another worker said, “It’s gonna happen again because it’s not just a few bad cops. It’s all of them!”
This same worker challenged some organizers in front of the 47th when she started yelling repeatedly at the cops guarding the precinct, “They’re all guilty!” Others joined in, causing a disagreement among demonstrators and some Graham family members. This brought some demonstrators closer to PL’s politics. Several offered to help distribute CHALLENGE and PL leaflets.
Struggles like this will continue. We’ll persist in doing what’s needed in this fight while raising the idea that we’ll never get rid of Killer KKKops until the entire capitalist system is smashed and rebuilt with a society led and run by the international working class. We call this communism!
On Sunday June 17 (Father’s Day), thousands of people angry at the recent murder of two young black men, as well as the daily humiliation of the NYPD’s racist stop-and-frisk tactics, will march down Fifth Avenue to the townhouse of “Mr. Wall Street” — billionaire Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
Bronx PL’ers have joined the fight against the fascist murder of unarmed teenager Ramarley Graham, shot by NYC cops in his own bathroom (see adjoining article).
More recently, NYPD officers used their police car to strike and kill a 27-year old bakery worker, Tavon Robinson, who the cops allege was stealing cobblestones in front of his home. Residents of the Bayview Houses in Brooklyn were outraged at the killing of this popular young man.
In 2011, the NYPD stopped more than 685,000 people, 87% of whom were black or Latino. Although black and Latino men between the ages of 14 and 24 are only 4.7% of the city population, they were 41.6% of the people stopped. The vast majority of those stopped and frisked (94%) were innocent of any crime, and the small numbers of arrests were generally for victimless crimes like marijuana possession.
The NYPD’s stop-and-frisk program has been aggressively promoted by NYPD commissioner Ray Kelly and Mayor Bloomberg, with the numbers of those subjected to stops rising from 97,000 in 2002 (Bloomberg’s first year in office) to what it’s projected to be in 2012: 800,000.
Constitutional guarantees against unreasonable searches go out the window when it comes to black and Latino men and women, the racist targets of the NYPD who are far more often humiliated by being spread-eagled while being searched.
A coalition of groups has called for the Father’s Day march: Local 1199 SEIU, the NAACP, and the National Action Network (Al Sharpton’s organization). All three are closely tied to the Democratic Party, and are doing their best to tame the anger of workers in NYC and divert it from their real enemy — the capitalists who profit from the racism.
• The original plan was to have the march leave from 125th Street in Harlem, which was changed to begin at 110th Street and march through mainly the wealthy neighborhoods on 5th Ave.
• The marches in the Bronx and Brooklyn against police terror have been loud and angry, but the organizers of the June 17 march want it to be a silent procession!
• Rather than have a militant rally or picket line when we reach the Mayor’s townhouse, the organizers want the marchers to immediately disperse. This is because they don’t want to antagonize a billionaire who still might endorse and fund the campaign of President Obama.
• A dozen or so Democratic Party officials — members of the city council and NYS assembly and senate — are part of the coalition leadership. Their approach is to pass laws limiting stop-and-frisk tactics, rather than rely on actions in the streets to force an end to it.
The organizers of this march, and the Democratic Party they serve, will never tell the truth about racist police brutality or the terror the police impose on black and Latino communities. Racism, including a racist criminal justice system, will never end under capitalism. In fact, racism is intensifying.
The recent recession took a greater toll on black and Latino men and women than any other group. Black unemployment is twice that of whites. The median wealth of white households went from being 11 times that of black households a few years ago, to being 20 times that today.
From 2005 to 2009 — largely because of foreclosures and falling housing prices — the median real wealth of black families fell by 53%, while the median wealth for Latino families fell by an astonishing 66%. And last year, there were 168,000 stops for young black men by the police, which is more than the number of young black men who live in NYC!
The stepped-up police presence and harassment in black and Latino neighborhoods in NYC is intended to send a message to its residents that rebellion against the deteriorating conditions of capitalism will be met with force. White workers should understand that the daily terror faced by black and Latino workers is what’s in store for them in the not-too-distant future.
Unless we build a multi-racial movement against racist police repression and capitalist austerity, we’ll never have the class unity necessary to stop the capitalists from slashing our wages, health care and pensions, or to prevent what happened in Germany, Italy and dozens of other countries around the world — the rise of fascist regimes using terror to impose their anti-working class program of lower living standards and imperialist war.
May Day in Stockton, California was celebrated mainly by immigrants and Occupiers. Two PL’ers distributed leaflets in Spanish and English. It stressed the importance of internationalism and how we needed a society without borders or the wage system. We also stressed the importance of not relying on politicians; we must depend on the international working class. No unions were present. We’ve had brighter May Days here and we will see them again.
Stockton Reds
Approximately 50,000 workers participated in this well-attended march, defying bad weather and police threats. They occupied both sides of Seventh Avenue and adjacent streets, harassing and frisking workers. Union leaders carried signs with no messages, and whined about a better functioning capitalism. Peasants and indigenous groups denounced the genocide, against them during the last 50 years, because of the bosses’ thirst for maximum profits.
There were groups of retirees fighting against the reduction of their pensions, neighborhood mothers fighting for their jobs, workers marching with whistles and horns and all types of opportunists cackling about peace, sovereignty and social justice.
PLP arrived early. We distributed our literature, sold CHALLENGE and let marchers know about our revolutionary program. A Coca-Cola worker we knew and some veteran operators of Bavaria beer, encouraged by our meeting, introduced us to their co-workers and invited us to attend their meetings and to inform our readers about their conflict with their bosses. We chanted our slogans against wage slavery and for a worldwide communist revolution. We explained that while capitalists get richer from our sweat, we’ll be the ones who’ll bury them. Then we organized our group to raise our flag and chant our slogans as we marched.
Some youth and workers joined our group as a comrade called out the slogans and directed the group with a bullhorn to help us chant as a single voice: “Democracy is a capitalist farce, Let’s organize a communist revolution,” “One working class, One communist world, One Progressive Labor Party,” “Don’t support any capitalist, We offer communist leadership,” and 30 other slogans. Our chants generated interest amongst the marchers because we rejected reformism, wage slavery, fascism, nationalism, electoral politics, the capitalist dictatorship, racism, imperialism — always presenting the internationalist communist revolution as the solution.
We marched with revolutionary pride, with raised fists, demonstrating our hatred of the class enemy, finally arriving at Plaza Bolivar, where we sung the Internationale. We highlighted the organization and discipline of our comrades and their active participation, and left in well-organized groups to prevent arrests by the bosses’ repressive apparatus.
At the end of the march 160 people were arrested, some youth severely beaten and local businesses damaged. Shock bombs, pepper spray, water cannons and explosives emptied the Plaza. The march was also reduced by arrests of dozens of youth before it began, starting from different points in the city, in Soacha, Bolivar, and Restrepo.
WASHINGTON, DC, May 1 — “1, 2, 3, 4, We declare class war, 5, 6, 7, 8, Smash the system, smash the state!”
Three hundred Occupiers and friends marched to the White House with red flags flying high to condemn the racist, capitalist system and politicians like Obama and Bush who foster imperialist war and the exploitation of the working class. Workers alongside the march saluted the May Day marchers with clenched fists of support and applause.
With the bullhorn cranked up to the maximum and pointed (illegally) towards the White House, the May Day marchers rattled the windows of the White House with revolutionary chants. The Labor Committee of OccupyDC vigorously organized all sections of Occupy to join this march. It was a smashing success, overcoming the fragmentation of the movement and demonstrating that the struggle that began with Occupy Wall Street last fall continues stronger than ever.
Highlights included speeches by a Metro transit worker, calling on Occupiers and Metro workers alike to unify against the system, especially as fare hikes and attacks on workers both intensify on July 1; a United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union organizer calling for ever bolder attacks on capitalism; a moving poem in the tradition of Langston Hughes written by a college student; a series of dramatic readings of May Day speeches from historic figures; several labor songs from the Labor Chorus including the Internationale in four languages; and a final rally featuring grassroots labor leaders from Bangladesh, Honduras, and the Philippines providing solidarity messages.
The PLP May Day march in New York and the Occupy May Day march in DC made many people realize the possibilities for revolution. At a recent PLP club meeting, two marchers pledged to join the Party, and two others pledged to continue to march with the Party through next year.
