photo used from Sana SaleemBAY AREA, October 22—Workers and students from Progressive Labor Party and friends demonstrated against the racist and sexist murder of Jessica Williams, a Black mother of five. Sergeant Justin Erb killed Jessica on a Thursday, May 21 this year in Bayview, the only Black neighborhood in San Francisco.
The police try to justify her murder by saying she was driving a stolen car. This is similar to the racist, sexist murders of Shantel Davis (June 2012) in Brooklyn, New York. The police try to paint these Black women workers as criminals in order to justify their murders. We refuse to accept this! None of these women deserved to die!
Jessica’s murderer Sergent Erb has a history of terrorizing the working class. One such complaint includes lying to obtain a search warrant that lead to the arrest of an innocent person, complete trashing of the young person’s house (48Hills, 7/13). The place was so badly damaged, the Housing Authority had to relocate the family to another apartment. The only “crime” the cops, with their guns drawn, found was a father caring for an infant. Erb was exonerated.
In the Bay Area, these racist murders help real estate bosses make more money. As San Francisco (the profit trinity of banks, real estate bosses, and government sanctions) builds property for greater profit, the police ramp up terrorize against Black and Latin workers to drive them out. The Black population has dwindled down to only 3 percent (Counterpunch, 1/11).
Mario Woods (20 bullet wounds), Alex Nieto (15 bullet wounds), and Jessica Williams are three more names added to the list of people murdered here. They were executed in the street with no indictment, no trial, not even words exchanged between the police and the victim.
Workers Indict Capitalism
Workers joined the rally, raised their fists, joined in chants, thanking us for keeping the fight going. One woman asked for a no-racism button and asked if she could give out CHALLENGE at her senior center. Another woman wanted a copy of our “KKKop Wanted for Racist Murder” poster (see photo). Yet another woman said, “What can I do to help this rally?” and she took leaflets to distribute. Some made connections between the system, racism, and war. It was a reminder that the working class has so much to teach us.
PLP raised the idea that the whole system, not just one cop, is guilty of racism. It’s the whole damn system! One worker said, “I don’t care what color they are! They’re all [bad]!”
Another worker responded to us saying, “Of course they murder. The culture of the police is ‘shoot to kill’ Black people.”
It was clear that police serve and protect the system that feeds off of the oppression and exploitation of the working class.
Justifying Murder with Psychobabble
When asked if they thought elections could fix the system, one worker said that all politicians are messed up and serve people with money. He’s right! These racist murders are supported by Obama and his Department of inJustice (DOJ). The DOJ has paid psychologist William J. Lewinski to train officers to shoot by instinct and testify at their trials when they murder workers. Lewinski has used phony science to justify why officers should “shoot first, ask questions later.” His studies are not published in science journals and the editor the American Journal of Psychology said his studies “lacked basic elements of legitimate research…and drew conclusions that were unsupported by the data” (NYT, 8/1/2015). Obama and his administration don’t care about Black and Latin workers any more than the previous presidents Bill Clinton or George Bush did.
Whether Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton becomes president, racism will still be the order of the day. Clinton is the greater danger for the working class, as proven by her long history of starving, maiming, bombing working class families all over the world (see Elections Supplement).
Multiracial Unity
So what can we do about racist terror? One worker told us, “Black people and white people gotta get together and fight.”
That’s what Progressive Labor Party is doing all around the world. Our demonstrators included men, women, Black, white, Asian, and Latin workers from ages 7 to 70! The action was organized and led by three young women. This is just one rally out of many we’re planning in the future. We won’t stop fighting until we’ve gotten justice for Jessica by getting rid of capitalism.