Working-class leadership, the personal is political
I lost the Condo Board of Directors’ election but advanced the political struggle just a notch. I had run for a seat on the Board of Directors at the urging of my new neighbors at the old but solid building complex I settled into last spring.
It started over a grill. I had asked a ground floor neighbor if they wanted my charcoal grill (allowable under management rules). She declined because she did not want to become a target of building management again.
“Again?” I had personally felt mistreated by management when I moved in, but then spoke with many different neighbors. People shared their own struggles with management as well as those experienced by their neighbors. Everyone - “Asian, Latin, Black and white!” felt  mistreated!
During the door-to-door campaign for the Board seat, I heard that residents simply wanted respect, dignity and unity –98 percent  of the people talked about mistreatment by management, rodent and roach infestation, inadequate parking, increasing fees, and management’s refusal to support the disabled and elderly who wish to age in place.
The election itself was shady. “Someone” tore down my posters in common areas, I wasn’t given contact information that the other candidates had access to, and the balloting site’s on-line location was communicated inconsistently. The virtual meeting was difficult for anyone with poor internet connection or limited internet knowledge to participate in. The capitalists' message is clear: Keep out!
During the virtual election forum, the President of the Board, a local, Harvard-educated politician who supports real estate developers, took 90 percent  of the time to focus on herself and what ‘she’ claimed to have accomplished, apparently single-handedly, for the entire local region. She shamelessly attacked my character. The one candidate who did not have his camera on never spoke but garnered the most votes. Clearly, capitalist investors protect their investments and pay lip service to the working class.
I had focused on what residents really wanted: respect, community, health and safety. In contrast, the Board president, when pressed about the rodent infestation, blamed the residents, claiming that they wouldn’t allow exterminators into their apartments because of the Covid-19 virus. This was a blatant lie!
The issues in our buildings are complex. They are old and need expensive repairs, like much working-class housing around the world. The whole mess is another example of why we need communism!  
I plan to regroup and work with my wonderful neighbors and not abandon the struggle for livable housing now and revolution in the not so distant future!
*****
Building my confidence in the working class
I'm a transit worker in NYC and about a month ago the working class in Haiti underwent and are still facing difficult times, our comrades included. Our comrades said that they needed funds due to the earthquake so I went out to ask the workers at the union meeting for help and also my coworkers at the quarters. I wasn't expecting much mostly because of my own lack of confidence in the working-class. Sometimes it's a little hard to feel hopeful. But when I started asking my coworkers, I was wonderfully surprised that they were all too willing to give what they could. Some workers said, "of course man, we gotta help especially how they been treating them at the border,” in response to the racist imagery of Biden’s troops gallavanting on horse, chasing workers with whips like the slave catchers of the past. Another worker said “Yeah we gotta stick together”. Another said,"make sure I get a receipt or something. Wanna make sure it's going to the right place."
It's easy to get caught up in cynicism when faced with the everyday visciousness of capitalism. But when we reach out to our fellow workers, we are the ones being lifted up. Keep reaching. Keep fighting. Communism is alive with every worker's sacrifice.
*****
Call it what it is
CHALLENGE is a wonderful newspaper!!  The only newspaper that really fights for communism! But I have a criticism. On page four  of CHALLENGE (12/1) in the article from Chicago, the term “food insecure” is used twice.  This is the bosses’ euphemism for hunger and starvation. I don’t think that it should be used in CHALLENGE except to explain its hypocritical usage by the bosses. CHALLENGE doesn’t use any other bosses’ euphemisms (such as “underserved” and “disadvantaged”) and I don’t think that “food insecure” should be used either
*****