THE BRONX, November 20 — One of the many capitalist lies that we are force-fed is that workers are essentially selfish and lazy, looking out for only ourselves. But we don’t need to look far to see that despite the barrage of individualist ideas from the media and schools, workers are usually ready to stand together and fight back.
A multiracial group of 20 students and professors showed this capitalist lie for what it is at the Bronx Community College (BCC) today. Led by Progressive Labor Party, and a campus club of mainly black and Latin students, the group demonstrated against the racist murder of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri and the disappearances of 43 students in Guerrero, Mexico. Every student left with a copy of CHALLENGE and some even signed up to travel to Ferguson!
In response to “natural” (read: caused by capitalist inequalities and racism) disasters or racist police murders, we can witness solidarity among workers at an international level. The bosses’ biggest lie, that workers can’t run society and communism can’t work, is laid bare in these situations.
We marched in front of the campus and down University Avenue, chanting “Hey, hey, ho, ho, racist cops have got to go!” and “How do you spell racist? N-Y-P-D!” In fact, many of the chants were about the racist NYPD, which speaks to another truth that workers and students know: cops in New York are the same as cops in Ferguson, in Chicago, in Mexico: racist, vicious, and ready to kill workers and students. Passersby nodded their heads, honked their horns in solidarity, and took CHALLENGE.
Rely Only on the Working Class
No one in the crowd was from Missouri or Mexico or knew Mike Brown or any of the missing students. But here was the solidarity of workers that emerges all over the world. The attack is on the same class everywhere. We felt compelled to march because, as one speaker put it, we know that only we the working class can make change. The cops aren’t going to do it, the politicians aren’t going to do it. It’s up to students and workers. Some spoke of being optimistic, despite our relatively small numbers. “This is just the beginning,” said one speaker. “Every big movement started out small,” said another.
A professor reported about a concurrent demonstration at Hostos Community College, another City University New York. This Hostos rally was held after professors heard about the boldness of students at BCC. Everyone agreed that we would be ready to demonstrate again the day of the grand jury’s verdict about whether or not to indict Darren Wilson.
This club, full of revolutionary potential, is an incubator for the kind of fightback that we need to build a communist movement. The key to winning is to organize black, Latin, and immigrant students on campus, those who bear the brunt of the bosses’ attacks. PLP is working to bring more and more students around to see that the fight has just begun, and that abolishing racism means abolishing capitalism.