LETTERS ... February 1, 2023

Down with slumlords and kkkops, up up with community ties
PLers continue to base build with the Rodwell Spivey family as they grapple with another capitalist-borne crisis —an electrical fire to their home. The Rodwell Spivey brothers were harassed, stopped, and frisked by undercover Newark police officers in June 2021 and faced continued harassment for up to two years. Inspired by their ferocious fightback against police terror, PL stood with the brothers and family and continues to stand by their side. As their family felt like they were just starting to get their lives back on track, ready to celebrate Christmas together, a vicious slumlord left the family in their home without heat for days.

Like many workers, they thought a quick and harmless fix would be plugging in a space heater. Unbeknownst to them, the slumlord left them in a trap of a home with improper electrical wiring that led to a fire to a floor of their home, setting new furniture ablaze and leaving a six-month-old and teenage girl without many of their clothes. After the fire, members of PLP visited and called the family as soon as we heard the news. We also crowdfunded donations amongst our group, and a stylish friend of the Party donated clothes to the teenage girl, Justin Rodwell’s daughter, who’s interested in fashion.

The Rodwell Spivey brothers are still awaiting a court date for municipal court after local bosses detained Justin for over a year in Essex County Jail. Although the charges have been lowered, workers have to face the brunt of this system in a number of ways daily, and it sometimes feels like we can never catch a break. The slumlord, who manipulates workers for profit, fixed some of the electrical in their home but is hardly doing anything to fix the extensive damage to the property.

When I suggested that the family report this slumlord to code enforcement, they shared that they knew a woman who reported a slumlord and was forced to vacate her property with nowhere else to live. This was a reminder that workers cannot count on reforms. Even reforms that seem to work for some, most typically stable workers, leave mostly others out in the cold once the verdict is done.  

The Rodwell Spivey family is now making do with what they can, just as workers do and always have and just as communists do and always have, we are standing by their side and practicing ways we can not just make this system easier to deal with but be smashed for good. As capitalism crumbles, more workers will be left with piecemeal reforms and our own crises to solve. We must keep pushing and showing how communism is the only solution.   

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DSA fights for piece-meal reforms
The North Jersey Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) recently held a forum in Jersey City concerning the right for counsel for tenants. The event started with a panel of tenants, many transplants from New York City that moved to Jersey City for more space and cheaper rent and were met with decaying housing conditions in a new building.

When their landlords refused to fix water leaking into their homes and shoddy elevators, the workers in the building banded together. They said one of the best things about the housing horror is that they were able to build community with their neighbors. They ended off the tenants’ panel by encouraging other workers to build tenants’ associations in their homes and shared they’d even help show people how to do it.

After seeing what the world would be like if workers fought for and built better housing conditions, DSA followed the discussion with a panel about their right-to-counsel reform idea. Basically, what right to counsel means is if you are threatened with eviction by your landlord, DSA is touting that you should get a free lawyer at the bare minimum.

One comrade pointed out the contradiction in DSA’s plan: they want workers to get behind protesting for community developers to fund this program. Not only that but DSA leaders imagine that this right to counsel could be central in City Hall of Jersey City. A comrade, a nonprofit worker, pointed out on the open mic that public and private dollars seldom coexist and that the plan doesn’t seem tangible.

DSA leaders’ response was that developers would fund it if we made them fund it! Besides, this plan is a stretch of the imagination, it continues to allow evictions and illegal rent increases to be maintained. If profit motives exist, profit will always be put over people.

The only way every worker will have a place to live is if we destroy profit, exploitation, and the whole capitalist system! Sell-out groups like DSA deter us from making this world possible.

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Need to explain material basis for racism
The January 4th issue has a lead article: John Hopkins Police Terror is Essential to Capitalism. It is a well written article documenting the history of racism on the John Hopkins campus and the role of campus security in fueling racism and attacking legitimate uprisings by students and workers at John Hopkins in fighting racism and injustice on the campus.

What I found lacking in the article was the material basis for racism in capitalist society. That is the underlying foundation for racism in the workplace and in communities in which we live. We as communists have a duty to educate and organize our class by developing communist consciousness. The material basis of racism which we have documented in Racism, A Fighter's Manual and other Progressive Labor Party (PLP) documents is the super-exploitation of Black and immigrant labor that allows Wall Street to steal trillions  of extra profit through underpaying Black, Latin, and immigrant workers in excess of the exploitation of the rest of the working class.

A system of racist job classifications which channel workers of color into lower paying jobs, unsafe working conditions still predominate throughout the labor force. This super-exploitation transcends national boundaries and can be found in Europe, the Global South,  Asia, the U.S., and wherever capitalism shows its face. This is the foundation of racism that generates its own racist culture globally to justify systemic exploitation. Racist police terror is not merely built on prejudice but the systemic racism of the profit system.Smash racist capitalism.  Build PLP.

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