Fight Racist Disaster & Displacement in Puerto Rico

NEW YORK CITY, June 10—The normally festive Puerto Rican Day Parade was noticeably different this year as participants waved black and gray flags and wore t-shirts commemorating those who died in the 2017 Hurricane Maria. Thousands turned out, including a contingent of Puerto Rican families who have been displaced by the hurricane.  At the same time, there was celebration and recognition of the resilience and grassroots organizing efforts of the working class on the island. While U.S. capitalists have plans to maintain Puerto Rico as a playground for investors, bitcoin businesses, and real estate developers, workers have a different idea. Collectives have formed all over the island to reopen the schools, fight mass evictions of farmers, occupy spaces, and develop communities that rely on solar power rather than electricity.
Katrina and Maria = genocide
According to Mercedes Martinez, president of the Teachers Federation of Puerto Rico, the immediate response to the hurricane was to close schools. She said,
Many people still don’t have electricity or water. Batteries are being stolen out of generators. People are tired and vulnerable—and the ruling class is taking advantage of this disaster to advance a corporate reform agenda. For all the public sector workers in our country, including in education, organizing now is very hard.
The Secretary of Education tried to shut down more schools after the hurricane, but our communities fought back and won. Teachers worked to fix up many of the schools even though the government didn’t want to reopen them. We had to protest with the communities, requesting that children be able to go back to school. She shut down 50 schools during the hurricane, and we were able to stop the closings of 30 of them. (Labor Notes, 5/14)
 It gave big real estate interests the ability to issue mass eviction notices to farmers and 55,000 foreclosures to families.
Following the model of New Orleans, the first response to the 2005 Hurricane Katrina, thousands were kicked out of public housing, which eventually became tourist areas and fancy condominiums. Public schools were closed, teachers were fired, the teachers union was crushed, and schools were privatized. Houses of working class people, mostly Black workers in the city’s Ninth Ward, were torn down as residents were forced to relocate to Houston and other cities.
As thousands of workers languished at the Superdome, reports came in about people dying there. Black workers waited for hours and days to be rescued on their rooftops. The most shocking episode during the aftermath of Katrina was the shootings of Black residents on the Danzinger bridge by New Orleans police as the residents were trying to get to safety.
The racism of the U.S. media was on full display as white residents were portrayed as “looking for food” while Black residents were “looting”.
U.S. capitalism & imperialism, the real hurricane
 Puerto Rico has been the richest colony in U.S. history.  As documented in Juan Gonzalez’s Harvest of Empire, Puerto Rico has been the home to huge drug companies (Big Pharma) and hundreds of Fortune 500 companies. Due to a tax loophole, U.S. owned firms escaped federal taxes. “Puerto Rico, in short, has become the primary offshore tax haven for the American drug industry” (p. 283). In 2008, nearly four out of every ten dollars made on the island ended up in U.S. firms (p. 284).
Gonzalez explains how the colonial status of the island turned Puerto Rico into a corporate bonanza unlike any other in the world, with duty-free trade, low wages, and tax loopholes. Seven members of a Management Board (known as La Junta) is charged with implementing cuts in pensions, public health and education to pay the debt created by the ruling class.
The struggle continues
Last March, a student led strike at the University of Puerto Rico shut down the campus in protest of austerity measures and the fiscal crisis. Solidarity marches were organized on campuses in the U.S. This year, workers and students rallied in the capital, San Juan on May Day  and faced tear gas and arrests. Immediately after the hurricane, community groups (Brigades) began organizing in many areas, collectively organizing to bring food and water to people. At the same time, as in Haiti after the earthquake, various well-funded groups have shown up on the scene, backed by Big Pharma and other capitalist interests. Their goal is to whitewash over what has been done to the working class in Puerto Rico and prevent rebellions and challenges to the system.
All roads lead to revolution. We salute the many who have been fighting back in every way possibl. The goal of an egalitarian society and workers power has never been more important. Whether we are fighting for the displaced Puerto Rican families living in NYC hotels, the students whose schools have closed, the college students whose tuition has increased, the workers whose pensions are in danger of being cut, the farmers whose land has been taken—we in PLP say always keep our ideas on the prize while in struggle—we have a world to win!