Antiracist healthcare workers expose liberal misleaders

LOS ANGELES, June 13—Over 300 healthcare workers marched on two LA County jails, and then on to the ICE detention center. The LA County jails are the largest jail system in the country, which is the largest jailer on the planet! As we marched with a pickup truck and sound system Progressive Labor Party chants led all along the way. Chants such as, “Racism means… Alex Flores means… Our healthcare means… WE GOT TO FIGHT BACK” rang out through downtown Los Angeles! We were also joined by three families who had their loved ones murdered by LA Sheriff’s including the family of Alex Flores, killed by the LAPD in November 2019.
A reform group that gets money directly from George Soros (liberal, capitalist billionaire) and is connected to the Movement4BlackLives (M4BL) organized this march.  The Progressive Labor Party has been involved in this group over the last two years.
Multiracial unity against racism confronts identity politics
During the march the identity politics of ONLY talking about “Black lives” fell flat on many workers, as hundreds of multiracial health care workers joined forces with the families and friends fighting against racist police murders.  Meanwhile a PLP comrade gave a rousing speech describing the horrors of racism created by the capitalist system, the creation of the police from slave patrols, and the impact of racism on our health, particularly with the role of mass incarceration on the HIV epidemic.
Our comrade was followed by an even more powerful and passionate speech by the sister of Alex Flores.  She talked openly about her brother’s struggles with a racist education system, difficulties he had landing a job, and connected this racism to her job as a dental hygienist.  She described the inferior care the mostly Black and Latin patients get.  She openly called for multiracial unity and fightback against this racist, capitalist system. She got a great reception by the hundreds in attendance. It was inspiring!
 This group was formed to organize healthcare workers to join the “abolitionist” fight around reforms surrounding LA County Jails.  Our work has consisted of ending money bail, ending pre-trial assessments that lead to increased incarceration for Black and Latin workers, and more recently around the “Alternatives to Incarceration” plan to move County money from the Sheriff’s to the various health agencies within the County.
Let’s march on the jails, not send emails to politicians
We have been meeting mostly to discuss campaign-specific issues, with little political discussion.  So it’s been difficult to really get to know the members in a deep way (they’re all over LA). We’ve mainly brought friends into this group and also politicized our on-the-job work at an HIV clinic. In this crisis period of racist Covid-19 pandemic and police terror, this work has provided an opportunity to mobilize some medical workers and students to participate in the Flores fight, especially our protest at the DA’s house.
More recently we pushed for this march which had us leading over 300 healthcare workers. The leader of this group is also part of the national leadership of M4BL. He has a reformist outlook, while espousing words like “abolition” and exposing “capitalism” to some degree.  For the last two years, he has been calling on members to attend meetings with politicians and send them “angry” emails, like the “digital action” he had us do toward the end of the march. He has been reluctant to build for any concrete actions against the LA County ruling class.  
However, in this post-George Floyd and Breonna Taylor moment, the multiracial uprisings of workers all around the country, made it difficult for him to oppose a march on the jails.  Our comrade, with some support, made the call for the march that he was forced to support.
On the day prior to the march, he wanted to “clarify” messaging on “defunding the sheriff’s” and to call for closing the Men’s Central Jail, only one of seven jails in LA County.  Our comrade asked him why he was singling out only one jail and not all seven given the many calls to “defund.”  This leader then exposed himself when he basically said that the Board of Supervisors, who run the entire LA County system, wants to close the jail anyway because it is completely rundown.  It was pathetic.  He was forced to take the position of closing all the jails, though of course we know that under capitalism that will never happen.
Nevertheless, this period of heightened racist attacks on our class and the uprisings following have created opportunities in a struggle that was seemingly non-moving for the last couple of years. It proves the absolute necessity of working in mass organizations for the long term. That slow work has provided an opportunity to move our base into action, expand our base, and grow our Party for the long-term fight for a communist world.