Summer Project: ‘Committed to fighting this racist system’

This summer project centered around two major events: 1) a march in protest of the murder of Shantel Davis by police detective Phil Atkins in 2012 and 2) the imprisonment of Justin Rodwell and the legal attacks on him and his brothers for resisting police terror. These two struggles encapsulated what the party is all about and were an opportunity to demonstrate our politics in practice to everyone at the SP.
The march was a powerful experience; it connected the murder of Kyam Livingston to Alex Flores (LA) to Shantel Davis. Families of all three spoke about losing their loved ones is something no one should ever have to experience. But under capitalism these racist killings are the order of the day. We took the streets! It was a show of resistance against the bosses and their enforcers and also an unapologetic expression of the party’s politics. Many gave speeches about how we need to unite to fight this capitalist system that creates these police who kill us. This had a profound effect not only on the PL’ers and friends present but also on the workers who marched, chanted, and raised their fists with us.

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Letters of July 20

Ecuador: strike vs. capitalist crisis
On June 13 here in Quito, Ecuador, a mobilization began towards the capital in response to the call of the Conaie Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CCINE) for a national strike against the neoliberal government of Guillermo Lasso. The strike and march on the capitol have been triggered by rising fuel prices and transportation costs, unemployment, massive layoffs, and budget cuts for health and education. Added to this is an escalation of violence by the uniformed officers towards the population, even going so far as to sign a cooperation agreement with the U.S. A bill presented in the United States Senate recently called again, “to Strengthen ties of the Association between the United States and Ecuador,” but with the U.S. in charge.

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Letters of April 14

Fighting LA’s racist housing crisis
On March 25, I attended a rally in support of homeless residents who were being “swept” and displaced from Echo Park, located in Los Angeles. The sweeps were conducted by city workers, backed up by a massive Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) presence. Hundreds of people, including neighborhood residents, protested and marched for hours to demand a stop to the sweeps and permanent housing for everyone. The LAPD penned in and arrested 182 people after they sat down in the street. Two news reporters were also charged and National Lawyers’ Guild legal observers were detained, before being released.
There are hundreds of homeless encampments across the City of Los Angeles and Los Angeles County. The 2020 official Point in Time Count for LA County (likely an undercount) was 66,436. Recently, the Los Angeles Times newspaper even compared LA to the encampments described in Grapes of Wrath, the John Steinbeck novel about the great migration from the “Dust Bowl” to California in the 1930s.

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