Anniversary of Alex Flores: WOMEN WORKERS LEAD ANTIRACIST MOVEMENT
Friday, December 4, 2020 at 4:53PM
Challenge_DesafĂ­o

LOS ANGELES, November 30—"We all want justice for these families. That's why we are here. But if we are honest, and this is a hard conversation to have especially with the families who lost loved ones, real justice can only come when we overthrow capitalism!"
This speech was also the overwhelming sentiment of the 75 people, including five other families who lost loved ones to racist killer cops, who came to Newton police station tonight. We commemorated the life of Alex Flores, who was murdered by the racist LAPD November 19, 2019.  
This militancy was echoed in the speeches of two different sisters whose loved ones were murdered by police. Both of these working-class women have been leaders and organizers in this campaign and respect the revolutionary communist Progressive Labor Party (PLP) and our ideas. Through the last year of fight back, we have fought for everyone involved in this intense struggle to see the need for a party and a communist world.   
Women lead militant fightback
The sister of Cesar Rodriguez, who has been fighting for over three years since her brother was murdered by Long Beach kkkops, referenced the comrade's speech and acknowledged that this is a lifelong battle for her and won't end until we have a new system. The sister of Alex Flores also gave a militant speech on the need to overthrow capitalism. She thanked PLP and said, although her family has painfully lost their family member, her family has also gained many new members, referring to PLP and she then asked the crowd to join us.
As Los Angeles is entering its third Covid-19 surge, there are countless ways that capitalism brutalizes our class. While the focus of the last straight 52 Friday nights has been how the police enforce the oppression of our class, we have fought for all involved to take a broader look at the roots of our oppression.
Saluting one year of antiracist, antisexist fightback
This struggle has had militant, antisexist women leadership since Alex’s racist murder became a mass issue one year ago. Anti-racist marches with family, other antiracists and PL’ers have blocked streets and intersections and chanted while shutting down the entrance of the kkkops’ “Shootin’ Newton” station.
Women political leaders from Alex’s family have been a key force not only in leading chants and marches, but also in being receptive to expanding the antiracist fightback.
 With fellow Black working class sisters and brothers gunned down by racist killer kkkops in this racist capitalist system; a system that only offers our class fascism through racist police terror, racist unemployment, and deadlier imperialist wars and genocide.
BLM misleaders collaborate with kkkops
Just over a week prior, the local Black Lives Matter (BLM) chapter organized a "victory" meeting with newly elected LA County District Attorney Gascon to "manage family expectations."  The sister of Cesar Rodriguez found out about it and let us know, as well as a half dozen other families who have been ardent supporters of BLM and yet weren't invited to this meeting. The families were pissed. In this meeting the true colors of both BLM and DA Gascon were shown as many families left furious knowing that their cases would not even be reviewed.  
La lucha continua!
At rallies like this one now, when asked "Can there be a good DA [District Attorney] in a racist system?  Can there be a good politician in a racist system?" the crowd emphatically responds "NO!" This is a potential sign of the times— masses of workers are open to communist ideas, to militant antiracist fightback, to a solution to this capitalist system that murders our working class sisters and brothers and crushes whole countries into hellscapes through sharpening imperialist rivalry.
We are building a fighting PLP by continuing to expose the reformists and their scams like voting. We have made local political connections to the racism and sexism of capitalism as it manifests in surging Covid-19 rates, hospital closings, underfunded schools, unemployment, and the exploding rates of houselessness.
We still have a long way to go to develop the necessary class consciousness and confidence in our class to turn all these workers into revolutionary communists.
But waging these anti-racist struggles, making these bigger connections, and a deepening commitment to basebuilding is positioning us for longer-term struggle connecting over a dozen families, our on-the-job work, and our mass organization work. Our night may seem dark for now, but our future couldn’t be brighter. The struggle continues, and there’s no better time to join the fight with PLP than now.

Article originally appeared on The Revolutionary Communist Progressive Labor Party (http://www.plparchive.org/).
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