As Progressive Labor Party prepares for our 2017 Summer Project in Chicago, the city’s working class is under intense attack. Decades of rule by the “lesser-evil” Democratic politicians have done nothing but make the political, social, and economic life of workers more unbearable, as shown by unprecedented numbers of Black families leaving the city (WGN, 6/22).
As always with capitalism, racist and sexist attacks are the tip of the spear in the drive to bring down the living conditions of all workers. More than ever, workers in Chicago and everywhere need PLP’s communist politics and organization as the only permanent path out of capitalism’s destruction and towards a working-class egalitarian world that meets our needs.
Gang Violence vs Economic Violence—The Real Criminals
The working class of Chicago has received a lot of media attention in recent years, the overwhelming majority of it negative. The bosses’ racist and sexist mouthpieces depict the city as a lawless warzone, with gang violence running unchecked in hyper-segregated west and south side neighborhoods. But this skewed perspective purposefully deflects attention and the proper blame away from the capitalists and their politicians, the criminals most directly responsible for the violence that workers face.
Far less noted in the bosses’ media is the fact that capitalism’s racist unemployment prevents at least 50 percent of Black youth between the ages of 20-24 from finding jobs in the city (Chicago Tribune, 1/25/16). Practically forgotten is how Obama and Clinton protégé Mayor Rahm Emanuel led the charge in 2013 to close 50 public schools—the majority in Black and Latin neighborhoods—in addition to closing half of the city’s mental health centers. For over three years, the bosses’ infighting has prevented a budget from being passed for the state of Illinois, shredding various social programs and destroying countless working-class lives.
A communist class-conscious outlook cuts through the hypocrisy and places blame on the bosses, exactly where it belongs. The poverty, desperation, and lack of opportunity inflicted on the working class by capitalism, which needs rising unemployment, a shredded safety net, and ultimately war to survive through its economic crises, is a violence that far outweighs that of any street gang. The communist society that PLP fights for would be the exact opposite: our needs and development as workers would be the primary goal. There’d simply be no reason to turn to drugs or reactionary violence in order to survive.
No KKKops, No Fake Councils, Only Workers’ Power
The bosses’ only consistent answer to address the class violence and inequality in the city has been to advocate for more of their own racist attack dogs. In September of 2016, Mayor Emanuel made his proposal to hire 1,000 more cops by 2018 (CNN, 9/21/16). A thousand kkkops just means a thousand more potential Jason Van Dykes (murderer of Laquan McDonald) or Dante Servins (murderer of Rekia Boyd) roaming the streets, terrorizing and murdering our working-class sisters and brothers. Chicago already has a relatively high proportion of cops compared to other cities. All it has led to is more bloodshed and a costly federal investigation regarding the rampant institutional racism of the police department (CPD).
PL comrades and friends in Chicago have made our presence known in many of the actions taken over the years against the notoriously racist and sexist CPD. We marched on Van Dyke’s home last summer to let everyone know that there’s no refuge for racist murderers.
We helped organize and lead a mass demonstration against the racist Fraternal Order of Police headquarters in Chicago this past September, pointing out how the kkkops’ “union” essentially helps them get away with murdering workers and youth.
With every action, we’ve made it our responsibility as communists to explain to the working class that freedom from racism and murderous cops doesn’t come through hiring more Black or Latin cops or through civilian “control” of the department—only through organizing for communist revolution and workers’ power all over the world.
The Fight for a Communist World Involves YOU!
The more intolerable that conditions get for the working class, in Chicago and all over the world, the more important our task as revolutionary communists becomes.
Readers of Challenge, anti-racist, anti-sexist fighters everywhere are strongly encouraged to connect with PLP during the week of July 9 through the 16 in Chicago as we fight back and continue building the movement to destroy the bosses and their profit system. Join the fight!