On April 11, 20-year-old Black worker Daunte Wright became the latest victim of the murderous system of capitalism. Kimberly A. Potter, a thug in blue, murdered Duante in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota during a traffic stop, a routine harassment much of our class goes through daily.
This murder-by-cop took place just ten miles from Minneapolis where the trial over kkkop Derek Chauvin, who murdered Black worker George Floyd last May, is ongoing. This deadly profit system can’t help but terrorize. It’s not a flaw; it’s the fundamentals of capitalism. A system that terrorizes our class does not deserve to breathe.
Potter is a murderer
Reminiscent of the murder of Oscar Grant in an Oakland subway, kkkkop Potter —a 26-year veteran of the police department—claimed she thought she was firing a taser instead of gun. It was a mistake, says the murderer. Daunte was left to die in the street, being denied potentially life-saving treatment. After he died, his body was left exposed for up to six hours. Potter has been charged with second-degree manslaughter and the state gets off scot-free.
These capitalist-incited murders have long been commonplace. The biggest job for our Party and our class is to resist. The fight against every aspect of this blood-soaked capitalist system will continue until workers take state power under Progressive Labor Party’s red flag of revolutionary communism!
Workers in Minnesota have given us recent examples of how we must respond to every instance of kkkop violence towards our class. The resistance movements after the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Laquan McDonald, Sandra Bland, Eric Gardner, Dreasjon Reed, Trayvon Martin, and many others, have taught us that these capitalist lackeys will not stop their primary job of terrorizing workers and protecting the profit system. The response to these atrocities shows our class is resilient, purposed, and has the potential power to change the world.
Revolt against racism
The same day Wright’s life was stolen, workers revolted. As usual, militarized kkkop forces met them head on. The multiracial crowds of mostly young workers have not backed down. They are providing a lesson for us all about what it means to go against the bosses’ state (see box, page 1).
As CHALLENGE goes to press, workers in Brooklyn Center continue to confront these murderers on the third night of protests. They face the threat of arrest and attacks with chemical weapons. Chants of “if we don’t get no justice, they don’t get no peace” continue to ring out.
The interconnection of racist terror is deep; Duante’s teacher was George Floyd’s girlfriend. This is reminiscent of how Black Panther Party leader Fred Hampton’s mother babysat Emmett Till, a 14-year-old lynched in Mississippi in 1955. Our class continues to be shown there is no justice or peace under capitalism (see page 1).
As we approach May Day, the international workers’ holiday, we know that these fightbacks must continue. We are learning how to defeat all the divisions that capitalism breeds: racism, all forms of sexism, nationalism, and more.
Only through uniting as one class, under one mass international PLP, will we be victorious in strangling capitalism and breathing life into communism.
For Duante, join the fight.