BATON ROUGE, LA, JULY 10—After Alton Sterling was murdered by the kkkops, Black workers carried out nightly protests. When the Progressive Labor Party heard this, we mobilized a multiracial group mainly women to go to Baton Rouge. Women, among them mothers who left child-rearing duties with their husbands, led the PLP group. The goal was to learn from our working class sisters and brothers and instill revolutionary communist politics into the fightback.
Sterling’s murder was no accident. As one Black worker told PL, “The police who shot him knew him. Knew who he was. These were the same police that always patrol the neighborhood. They knew what they were doing.” The kkkops who murdered Sterling were doing their jobs under capitalism: serving the bosses and terrorizing the working class.
Black workers in Louisiana, as elsewhere, feel the cutting edge of racism the deepest. The state of Louisiana has the third highest unemployment rate in the U.S.
Baton Rouge, the state capitol, ranked first in the U.S. for HIV and AIDS case rates in 2013. The vast majority of these cases are in the segregated Black working class neighborhood of north Baton Rouge, where one-third of Black workers live below the official poverty line, and where Black men had a 46 percent high school graduation rate (New York Times, 7/11/16). New Orleans, only less than two hours away, is where in 2005, the capitalist disaster Hurricane Katrina and Rita sideswiped the city, and the bosses abandoned over 100,000 Black workers in New Orleans, murdering over 1,000.
Workers, Youth, Reds Turn Up
PLP joined a demonstration at steps of the state capital building. A multiracial crowd of over 1,000 workers was quietly listening to prayers and speeches given by a church group. PL’ers led chants on the bullhorn as the crowd began marching. The responses chants and CHALLENGE newspaper sales were militant and enthusiastic. Within minutes, the PL’ers became the leadership of the whole march.
A teenage girl asked if she could be on the mic. She then led us in chanting, “No justice, no peace! No racist police!” The unity of the workers and their anger were palpable.
One Black woman worker, infected by identity politics, told a white woman PL’er she shouldn’t lead the chants. The comrade responded by arguing for multiracial unity—this fight belongs to the whole working class. This Black worker insisted there were “already too many white people.”
But the other Black workers in the crowd weren’t having it—they told the comrade not to ignore the nationalist. Everyone continued chanting, “Black and white—shut it down, Asian and Latin—shut it down, woman and men, shut it down, with multi-racial unity—shut it down! The PL’er was judged and respected by her antiracist politics, not her skin color.
Misleaders Pacify, Reds Electrify Workers
The deadly trap of identity politics, especially Black Nationalism, is robust in the boss-funded Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement—liberal white billionaire George Soros, best known for exporting capitalist “democracy” and diverting workers’ fightback into support for U.S. imperialism, has gifted BLM with millions of dollars (Washington Times, 1/24/15). Black nationalism serve the bosses by blaming white workers for capitalism’s racist horror house, instead of instead of fighting the bosses and building for revolution.
Consider the mass leadership provided by multiracial mainly-women communists in Baton Rouge. When boss-serving misleaders aimed to pacify workers and remain in a church parking lot, a vocal PLP Black woman worker on the bullhorn electrified the crowd and inspired them to take to the streets.
They took the streets and ran up against cops with guns and riot gear. A local worker called the PL’ers to warn of the police’s plan to use tear gas. Since this particular balance of forces wasn’t in the workers’ favor, PLP and friends tactically retreated, warned the crowd of the cops, and regrouped.
The police drove a car into the remaining crowd and separated it. They made arrests, grabbing people by the necks and throwing some over fences.
Cops know how to take advantage of a disorganized march. PLP was able to sharpen the politics of the workers’ anger. Comrades and friends work collectively to sharpen the fight. But, PL’ers also followed the leadership of workers.
The identity politics of groups like BLM purposefully drive a wedge in working class unity, while drawing in many honest antiracist workers and youth. PLP fights for the international working class to unite under communist leadership and smash this racist profit system.
From Baton Rouge To Every Continent: Build A Mass PLP!
In Baton Rouge, and in 27 countries, PLP is learning to fight and fighting to learn to build a mass communist movement to seize state power. The workers of Baton Rouge are angry and fed up. They are angry and frustrated with this racist system and its lack of jobs, its closings of schools and hospitals, and its unending police terror. They want real leadership and are open to communism. Although they are calling for the firing of the police chief and mayor, many understand that whoever takes over will continue to oversee racist terror on our class. Many also see past the nationalist lies that putting more Black people in ruling-class positions will improve the conditions of Black workers. Baton Rouge’s mayor, Kip Holden, is Black and as many workers in Baton Rouge put it, “he is nowhere to be seen.”
Workers can learn many lessons during these increasing surges of class struggle as the capitalist system exposes its inherently racist and violent nature. The bosses use their state power to exploit workers for profits, super-exploit some with racist terror, and send the workers’ youth to fight in imperialist wars. It is the job of communists to build international working class consciousness. In fighting back, the working class gains confidence that it can build a communist society based on the needs of the working class. From Baton Rouge to every continent: JOIN PLP!