The Brooklyn Park Five: Capitalism Fails Black Youth and Women

BROOKLYN, NY, March 7—An innocent student’s arrest on trumped-up charges has intensified anti-racist, anti-sexist fightback inside our school. Communist women in Progressive Labor Party are helping to lead this ongoing struggle.
In January, we learned that kkkops had arrested five teens, including one of our students, in connection with the rape of a young woman in a Brooklyn park. The news spread quickly, and one communist teacher asked the principal for an emergency staff meeting. By that point, even before the teens’ first court appearance, the racist capitalist media had done its worst to convict them.  Ranging in age from 14 to 17, these young people’s photos, names and schools had been splashed over newspapers and websites. They were painted as violent, brutal rapists.
Black Students Guilty Before Trial
At the staff meeting, PLP comrades cautioned against jumping to conclusions. We reminded our co-workers of the Central Park Five, the infamous 1989 case where five Black and Latin boys from Harlem were falsely accused and convicted of raping a white woman jogging in Central Park. They spent up to 15 years in jail before being found innocent. In the sexist, dehumanizing profit system, which treats all workers as commodities, rape and sexist violence are rampant. But even as we defend women against these capitalist crimes, we must also defend our children against racist attacks.
The stereotype of the “animalistic” and “hyper-sexualized” Black male dates back to slavery. Used as a tool to oppress and divide the working class, it has destroyed the lives of countless innocent Black youth.
Students Discuss Racism, Sexism
Our next step was to bring this discussion into our classes. Students addressed the racist police tactics in poor, segregated neighborhoods like Brownsville, which is 93 percent Black and Latin. We discussed what students should and shouldn’t do if they are ever arrested. (For example: Never make a statement to the police without  a lawyer or parent present.) At the same time, we pointed out that our only real protection against cops is to fight back as a united working class.
Our young students understood how racism and sexism were being used in this case, which was actually about the criminalization of Black youth and the systemic oppression of women. The 18-year-old victim had in fact been abused by her father and utterly failed by “support systems” that care nothing about Black women. Capitalism is designed to fail the working class, particularly Black, Latin,and women workers.
Teachers Defend Student in Court
After a communist in the school got a call from the lawyer representing the accused student, she organized three teachers to come to the arraignment in support.  The prosecution’s case was weak, at best. As the defense lawyer noted, our student had “placed himself” at the scene of the crime only after three seasoned detectives had this scared youth alone in a room, without a lawyer or parent, to get the answer they wanted. Although the prosecution asked for $25,000 bail, the judge set it at $2,500. That may seem like a victory, but the amount was still impossible for the family. The lawyer made a plea to raise funds to keep our student out of Rikers Island, the New York City jail notorious for racist violence. Family and teachers got into gear and made phone calls, and the money was raised.
Organizing Inside the Schools
With communist and anti-racist leadership, the following days at school were full of discussions about the racist system and the need to fight it and defend our student. Money was raised within the school and beyond by some staunchly anti-racist teachers. We also discussed how to help our student in his transition back to school, with the weight of his charges still pending.
On February 24, the district attorney announced that charges against all five teens had been officially dropped. Again, this may seem like a great victory until you consider that these young men will forever have to deal with the consequences of this racist system. Their names will forever be connected to rape charges; they have been traumatized in countless ways.
Students, Not Criminals
Like thousands of Black and Latin students across the city, our students are treated like criminals every day. To enter the school, they must line up to file through metal detectors while being shouted at by New York City cops. Their bottled drinks are confiscated on the phony pretext that they might contain alcohol. When they walk through their own neighborhoods, they can never know when the racist cops will decide that they “fit the description” of a criminal suspect. Once they graduate, they face the grim reality of 51 percent unemployment for Black youth.
But that is the nature of capitalism, a system that needs racism to divide and pacify the working class. There is only one world that will smash racism and sexism—a communist world!  Under communism, a society organized around meeting workers’ needs, collectivity is essential. The political and economic divisions created by racism and sexism will be destroyed. Only then will we be able to build a world worthy of working-class women and men.
It is our continuing task in our schools and workplaces to show our friends, co-workers, teachers and students that they must join this fight. In that spirit, we are now organizing our second annual anti-racist school assembly. The struggle continues!