BRIDGEVIEW, IL, December 5 - The vicious and dehumanizing racist nationalism currently exploding across occupied Palestine by Zionist fascists was mirrored in a courtroom in the south suburbs of Chicago today. The family and community supporters of Murod Kurdi – a 28-year-old Arab worker who was struck by a vehicle and killed in June of this year – were forced to endure the cruel farce of what passes as legal proceedings under this capitalist system.
Murod was murdered on June 5th in front of his home in Oak Lawn by a white woman, Leanne Cusack. Cusack had been drinking at a bar before striking him and killing him just after he exited his truck on the street. The kkkops of Oak Lawn again proved their racist nature in failing to evaluate her sobriety and charging her only with “failure to reduce speed to avoid an accident.” The killing of someone by vehicle merits, for these killer cops, a relatively minor traffic offense. Under this inherently racist system, the value of a worker’s life is next to nothing.
The racist murder of Murod, and the abuse heaped upon his family and so many other working-class people across this greater area are helping shatter many illusions among the masses that this capitalist injustice system exists to serve our needs. The international communist Progressive Labor Party (PLP) has been active inside and outside of the courtroom to raise the demand that honoring Murod and so many other fallen workers means smashing this system that places private property and profit over all else and replacing it with a worker-run communist society.
Multiracial unity for Murod
A multiracial, multigenerational group of at least 30 workers came to the traffic court today and rallied outside to protest the pitiful charges made against Cusack, and to demand a penalty fit for the crime. Our presence inside the courtroom was certainly felt, as demonstrated by the beefed-up security presence.
The guards didn’t miss a beat ordering people in the courtroom to not read, write, or talk. But even with all the threats and intimidation, one university student from Students for Justice in Palestine boldly kept raising an issue of our newspaper CHALLENGE with the headline “From the rivers to the seas, communism will set us free” for all to see.
Leanne Cusack pleaded innocent before the judge, apparently not even willing to accept blame for the pathetic traffic violation charge. Her sleazeball attorneys made empty statements of sympathy to Murod’s family members in attendance, but in practically the same breath pushed to discredit and undermine the testimony and evidence of his brother Suphi when he took the stand. In a cynical twist, one of the kkkops from Oak Lawn brought up to testify and help absolve Cusack from blame, Mark Hollingsworth, was one of the kkkops involved in the vicious beating of Arab teenager Hadi Abutelah in August of 2022!
In the end, the judge ruled her guilty with a penalty of a fine of only $750 and thirty hours of community service. This is nothing even resembling justice or a victory for a worker like Murod or his grieving family. As his brother sadly commented after the ruling, “She gets to go home with a $750 fine, and we get to go visit my brother in a graveyard.”
The capitalist system is guilty as hell – fight for communism
Despite the non-victory, this antiracist fight is far from over. The community groups involved in supporting Murod’s family are calling for Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx to formally file criminal charges against Leanne Cusack and for Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul to launch an independent investigation into the racist terror of the Oak Lawn Police Department.
While those of us in PLP fully support efforts to expand the scope of the struggle, we caution against having confidence that we can use the master’s tools to dismantle the racist structure of capitalism. Trusting in liberal misleader bosses such as Foxx and Raoul to deliver justice for our class has historically proven to be a dead-end. Either they fail to hold these racist killers accountable at all, or they make minor reforms that give the illusion that the system can work for us when it overwhelmingly never will. And even if Cusack received a harsher sentence, it would not address the racist conditions that imperil our brown working class brothers and sisters.
What lasts longer than any specific reform is the multiracial working-class unity cemented in struggles such as this one. We plan to continue fighting side by side with our fellow workers to advance a greater understanding of how capitalism works and how true justice will not occur until this miserable profit system is buried for good.