STATEN ISLAND, NY, August 28—Progressive Labor Party (PLP) members and friends rallied against hundreds of gutter racists who oppose housing migrant workers in an abandoned Catholic school, St. John Villar.
In Staten Island the racists put out flyers online calling their gathering a block party. A local PL’er here made the Party aware of the situation and we immediately decided we needed to organize to support the migrant workers the very same day (See letter on page 6). 30 antiracists marched armed with multiracial unity, communist internationalism and CHALLENGE. PLP is a fighting party, so when the international working class is under attack, we stand up and fight back.
As this system sinks deeper into decay, more crises like climate change, inter-imperialist war, and inflation will force more workers to flee and seek refuge in imperialist strongholds like the United States and Europe. Our only refuge from this global misery is to smash this lethal racist system, and build a communist world without profits, wars, nations, or borders. We welcome migrant workers to fight for communism. Join PLP!
Racist anti-migrant propaganda along with decades of segregation, liberal misleadership, and widening inequality pushed many workers in Staten Island into the hands of gutter racists, followers of Donald Trump. These misleaders use toxic patriotism and anti-migrant racism to pit white workers against their fellow class brothers and sisters. We call them Small Fascists.
But the Democratic Party liberals are just as bad if not worse. From mass incarceration, to brutal deportations to killer cops in the big cities and migrants sleeping on sidewalks, the liberals are responsible. And they are more dangerous because they talk nice. We call them Big Fascists.
The plan, the action, the reaction
Everyone gathered an hour before the racists “block party” to discuss what to expect and assigned tasks for the march. We wanted to respond quickly to any situation and get close to deliver messages of solidarity to migrant workers.
At our designated starting point, before kicking off our march we made signs, distributed CHALLENGEs and talked with workers standing nearby. One worker expressed gratitude that communists from Brooklyn came to Staten Island to fight racism, and talked about how Staten Island was purposefully designed to be politically and geographically segregated to keep workers divided. We then started picketing, chanting Asian, Latin, Black, and white workers of the world unite, which immediately grabbed workers attention. Our multiracial group, our discipline and our militant antiracist chant: Racism means we got to fight back! inspired two young Black workers to join our march. Along the way, we got positive receptions from antiracist white, Latin, and Black workers.
But with the positive also comes negative. We encountered several racists heading to their racist block party, clutching American flags. Some of the racists began to shout at us but we chanted even louder to drown their provocations.
As we neared the end of our march we noticed the school area was swarming with kkkops who set up barricades, blocking us from moving closer to the racists. We quickly moved to form a picket line and began chanting as loudly as possible, making sure our message reached the migrants inside.
As we picketed, PL’ers took turns giving out speeches in English, Spanish, and Kreyol on the bullhorn, highlighting internationalism and multiracial unity, letting migrants know that communists are welcoming them, and that they deserve better than what they've been provided. Migrants are only seeking refuge in the first place because of this racist capitalism. Big Fascist politicians like KKKathy Hochul, Jim Crow Joe Biden and Top kkkop Eric Adams represent the set of imperialist liberal bosses that helped create the miserable capitalist conditions they’re trying to escape from.
A PLP public school teacher gave a speech saying that migrants come here to escape violence in search of a safer place to educate their children. Instead they are facing homelessness and a racist overcrowded and under-resourced public school system. Neither Democrat Adams, who cut hundreds of millions in school funding (NYCLU, 8/26/22), nor any Republicans have a plan in place to manage the volume of migrant children who need to attend school in September.
Fight for communism
The PL’er finished her speech by calling for migrants to fight for communism, the only system where our class and our children can receive the quality of life they deserve, where workers, not racist capitalist servants,will run society to meet all of our class needs. Shortly after we concluded our speeches, we marched and chanted all the way back to the intersection where we began. We quickly dispersed and got into the cars we arrived in, concluding our successful and militant action.
We left knowing that our action left a powerful impact. In this volatile period of crisis, growing fascism, and sharpening attacks against our class, these are just one of the many actions that will serve to train workers to build the multiracial, disciplined working class army needed to lead us towards communist revolution. Our Party demonstrated that while our forces were small we are the fighting, disciplined Party capable of leading our class to communist victory. Onward!