Letters - 04 August 2010

Oscar Grant: A Brother to Us All

I sometimes wonder if the conversations I have with people at work in transit; the sale of CHALLENGE and discussion of articles; the arguments with hacks at my union meetings; really have any effect on my fellow workers.

I was deeply moved when, a few days after the trial of the cop who murdered Oscar Grant, I received a poem as a text message from a young transit worker in L.A. I think it puts the murder of the 22-year-old black worker in a context we can all understand. And proves to me that workers are listening, are interested in our ideas, are angry at what they witness. 

Here is an excerpt:

100 and One

“You have 100 and One

ways to kill my brother;

With your rabid-dog police force and

your endless wars for capitalist gains.

You have 100 and One

ways to erase him from my sight.

Your son, my brother, Oscar.”

Oscar Grant was murdered New Year’s day 2009, by the BART Transit Police, shot in the back while he lay face down on an Oakland train platform. City officials and the attorneys moved the cop’s trial to Los Angeles because they feared public outrage in the Bay Area.

But there is really no place to hide. Here in Los Angeles, there were demonstrations outside the courthouse and people were not at all surprised when the cop who killed him was convicted only of involuntary manslaughter, a slap on the wrist.

After all, who was Oscar Grant? A young black man who worked in the butcher’s dept. of a market in Oakland; father to a young daughter; a much beloved son.

LA Transit Worker

Arizona to Metro Airport: Same Enemy, Same Fight

For the past month a few airport workers have been involved in an antiracist campaign against the fascist Arizona anti-immigrant law due to go into effect shortly. We have written letters to fascist Arizona Governor Brewer’s office condemning this move toward Apartheid-like conditions which is an anti-working-class racist attack on all workers. We have also written to Obama condemning this law and demanding that there be humane, comprehensive immigration reform which is not linked to getting more military recruits to defend U.S. oil interests. 

This campaign is reformist, but one of its purposes is to show airport workers that any kind of mass anti-racist reform struggle can be turned around and taken back by U.S. bosses because they have state power and we don’t. In the face of Arizona’s fascism and many other states wanting copycat racist anti-Latino measures, it’s important now more than ever that we intensify the entire multiracial international working-class fight for a communist revolution to liberate workers globally from capitalism and its evil helpers, imperialism, racism, and sexism.

Our efforts at the airport have involved immigrants and citizens, with Ethiopian and African-American workers helping to distribute copies of the letters to our fellow airport workers. This is extremely important because there have been a few backlash incidences of racist anti-Latino verbal harassment by airport supervisors. In the metro area racist cops target Latino-looking motorists. Recently the Metro Transit Police carried out a police operation at a train stop in a predominately Latino neighborhood.

This train station serves mostly Latino, African immigrant, and black workers. This is the second busiest train station in the city. There were 16 transit cops harassing mostly Latino workers, asking to see their paid train tickets before they could board trains, making some miss trains and be late to work. The transit cops called this Apartheid-style harassment “saturation,” a military term used as if they are looking for an “enemy,” in this case Latino workers! This is nothing but Apartheid-like racism and all workers must fight this fascism with multiracial unity and a communist revolution against our fascist, racist oppressors from Arizona to Kyrgyzstan to France!

Airport Red