For Alex, Workers Rebel Against Racism

LOS ANGELES, December 4—“How do you spell racist, LAPD!” Every night for 14 nights straight, antiracists marched to the Newtown Police Station to demand answers for the murder of 34-year-old Latin worker Alex Flores.
The family, friends, residents, and Progressive Labor Party (PLP) members have been protesting against the two thugs from the biggest gang in Los Angeles (the LAPD). The mainly Latin workers have rallied, marched, shut down streets, pounded on, and spray painted the doors of the local police station. The cowardly cops have locked the doors, infuriating the protestors, but the cops cannot escape the anger of the working class.
This fight is greater than just Alex. Justice for Alex means fighting for a world where innocent young men and women of the working class will  no longer be gunned down by police. It means fighting for a communist world because no politician (no matter how liberal), court, or settlement can erase the racist system that gave birth to this heinous act.
“Policia, cochina, racista y asesina”
PLP has distributed CHALLENGE and is working with the family and fighters to launch an organizing committee for Alex. PLP is also helping build multiracial unity by mobilizing friends from mass organizations including teachers, students, the church, and more. The most threatening thing to the bosses and their system, aside from communist revolution, is multiracial unity.
This fight provides the opportunity to expose the racist nature of the whole system. Under this racist, capitalist system that we live in, the police serve the bosses and protect their property and profits at the point of a gun. Only a communist revolution can rid the world of this racist terror and the rulers who are behind it.
 “Queremos justicia”
As usual, the local bosses’ media report on the killing mouthed the lies told by the cops: a shirtless man, who had wielded a knife, confronted the police. However, cellphone video taken by a resident clearly shows Alex moving sideways and away from where the two kkkillers stood as they pointed their guns at him. Regardless of Alex’s alleged offense, the police committed an act of murder. The capitalist media focused on calling this mini rebellion a mob. This goes to show which side of the fight the media is on.
Alex, working-class brother
Alex is our working-class brother. His father, who has helped lead the fightback against the killing, had emigrated to the U.S. from the Mexican state of Guerrero in the 1970s. His father worked in the garment industry in Los Angeles for 30 years. His parents raised him and his siblings in this South LA neighborhood.
Alex was known as a caring, patient, family-oriented man who was great with kids. As with many disproportionately Black and Latin workers, he was also a victim of mass racist unemployment, a product of the capitalist system. Like his girlfriend told us, the bosses’ system “didn’t give him a chance.” Capitalism sets up most of us to fail. Then, it blames us for the failure. (See box for more about Alex on page 8).
Justice = fight for communism
The working class is leading this fight. Should it grow, it will be exposed to many parasitic elements—pacifiers, provocateurs, misleaders, politicians, and reformists. To counteract the fight from becoming cynical or coopted by liberal misleaders, workers must challenge the whole system through communist ideas. It is up to PLP to bring an international class-conscious outlook to these antiracist fighters. PLP will continue fighting alongside the antiracists and building a base for communism. The positive response of workers in this community to PLP’s politics is a sign of a bright communist, antiracist future for our class.