Newark, NJ - Over the last few weeks, workers and students, along with members from the Progressive Labor Party (PLP), have shown sparks of fury against the racist liberal bosses at Barringer High School and the Newark School District, for firing a Latin, antiracist teacher over attending a rally with his students in New York City (NYC). The rally was in solidarity with the mother of Raymond Chaluisant, a young man murdered by the police last July.
When teachers are punished for encouraging their students to be militant in the face of racism, that is a dangerous sign for our class. This is especially the case at Barringer High School. Whenever liberal run institutions lead the charge to fire and isolate antiracist teachers or suspend militant antiracist students, these attacks are warning of more intense fascist discipline to come. The bosses use such attacks to quash multiracial, antiracist fightback wherever it flourishes, be it in our schools, jobs, or on the streets.
In an education system that both students and teachers recognize as racist and mediocre, building communism means nurturing anti-racist, working-class teachers that teach students about how the real world works under capitalism and why working-class solidarity is crucial for everyone’s survival. We must defend our anti-racist, working-class teachers and students!
We keep us safe
The ruling class drives home the idea that a bigger police state is what keeps the working class “safe.” We have seen this idea carried out in schools. From metal detectors to cops in schools, the working class is told to trust the bosses when it comes to our safety. But during the George Floyd protests of 2022, one common slogan was “We Keep Us Safe” in response to the police terror. It is with this idea of working-class solidarity that antiracist teachers organize every day.
With this antiracist attitude, nine students chose to go across the Hudson River on their day off from school and stand with the Chaluisant family against police brutality. Even though the students and their parents didn’t personally know this family, they still chose to stand with them in their fight against police terror. The bosses attempted to justify their firing of the teacher by stating that he created “unsafe conditions” for students. The reality is that this teacher’s classroom exemplifies the kind of safety that all students deserve. Last year this same teacher got written up because he allowed his students to stay in his warm classroom before school during the winter months. The administration would rather have them freezing outside in the cold. This was also the teacher who organized groups of other teachers to deliver food to families isolated during the pandemic.
The strengthening of the working class in fighting back against racism and for a communist world is the ONLY security that we need for ourselves and our future.
Keeping us safe through base building
After the teacher was attacked, he had the confidence to reach out to the parents of all nine students and they gladly opened up their homes. These families agreed that protecting this antiracist teacher was important. This reinforced the idea that trust between teachers and parents is safety we must build without asking the school bosses that divide us for permission. Students have committed to sharing leaflets about fighting back inside of the school even though the teacher is not there.
This demonstrates the level of work this teacher has done to build a base with students. These growing concentrations of united workers terrify racist bosses. In a community meeting, a multiracial and multigenerational group of former and current students and workers from the Newark School District, along with other community organizers and youth workers, came together, determined to figure out: How do we use this struggle to get students and parents to organize to improve school conditions everywhere? How do we turn this attack into an opportunity to expose the limits of capitalism in meeting our needs? When asked about organizing a student walkout, a freshman student asked, “What is it?” Someone else responded, “A walkout is when a group of students collectively decide to walk out of a school building at an agreed-upon time without permission in order to demand something from the school administration. Back in high school, I had been in several walkouts in response to my school being stripped of things we needed.” Given the chance to think collectively, this exchange of experiences between all of these working-class people gave us a huge victory. That freshman student was won to be a part of a new defense committee along with others present to keep this fightback going.
The struggle ahead
It is not a coincidence that Newark Public Schools are firing this antiracist teacher for building up a base of anti-racist students while attacks on Black and Latin students continue to go unchecked. Students at Newark School of Global Studies recently spoke at a Board of Education meeting about the unchecked racism that targets Black students at the school (Chalkbeat, 12/15/22). An elementary school in the Ironbound of Newark, one of the most racist sections of the city, was recently sued by a parent for attacks on her student who is one of the three percent of Black students in the school (nj.com, 12/22/22). Students at the school still don’t have access to fountains and struggle to learn in overcrowded classrooms. The attack by these liberal fascists against these teachers is to send a message to other teachers - don’t organize and fight - be quiet and teach the curriculum. This gives us a picture that this fight must spread to other schools in the districts.
Revolutionary communist workers must build unbreakable bonds within the working class to transform any attack by the bosses into another nail in the coffin of their system. We must continue building this and other fights in the bosses’ courts, schools, streets, and social media. Depending on the bosses to keep us safe is deadly. Only we, the working class, can keep us safe.