Capitalism rules by both deception and force. This is apparent in the murder of Philando Castile, and the subsequent acquittal of the kkkop who killed him. On July 6, 2016, Diamond Reynolds live-streamed the moments directly after her boyfriend was shot multiple times by police officer Jeronimo Yanez. About eleven months later, a jury returned a verdict of not guilty on all three charges against Yanez.
A huge part of Yanez’s defense was the accusation that Philando was a drug user, but police reports and news made no mention of drug use. It was only later that, kkkop Yanez said, and implored jurors to believe, “I feared for my life...I thought...if he had the audacity to use marijuana...to just smoke in front of his five-year-old...if he could just do that and give her secondhand smoke and endanger her life, what did he care about me. I really felt scared.”
Progressive Labor Party has a very different view of what happened. Yanez—along with the Falcon Heights Police Department and the criminal justice system at large—is riding the coattails of an old bosses’ ploy: character assassination. As a grandson of Malcolm X wisely observed: “Character assassination is before the physical assassination, so one has to be made killable in the eyes of the public in order for their eventual murder to then be deemed justifiable.”
The vicious and racist ruling class began to make Philando Castile killable, along with all those who look like him, during the so-called War on Drugs, beginning in the 1970s. In reality, illegal drug use is approximately equal across all races, but Black and Latin workers are routinely
arrested, prosecuted, and incarcerated for drugs at much higher rates. So with the character, dignity, and humanity of Black workers being stripped away for decades, we are seeing widespread state-sanctioned carnage, rationalized by the bosses with racist criminalization.
Tawanda Jones, sister of Baltimore’s Tyrone West—murdered by a notorious plainclothes unit of the city’s kkkops says, “We won’t stop, can’t stop, ‘til killer cops are in cell blocks!” After he was beaten to death by more than 10 cops in July 2013, the claim was made that Tyrone had a package of drugs under one of his socks. They claimed this became evident when he was forced to sit on the curb, and his pants leg lifted.
The truth, however, is that Tyrone was wearing shorts, and his socks were just ankle height. As with Philando Castile, it was part of a smear campaign and character assassination.
Beware of the bosses’ character slander! Communism will fight racism at every level, just like the workers shut down the streets of St. Paul. Reject their lies! We need you to  join the fight for a society that has no use for racism or police murderers terrorizing the working class. We need you to fight for communism. Workers of the world unite!