Letters of March 26

Need to Take a Stand Against Racism
At lunch recently, one of my coworkers related some of his experiences working in Saudi Arabia.  He said that he worked for a private employer who employed several hundred workers.  His boss would seize their passports and demanded to be paid whenever they needed their passports to travel to neighboring Dubai or to visit family in India, where many were from.  He said that he experienced many instances of racist discrimination because some Saudis disliked darker-skinned people who were non-Muslim. His brother, who still lives in Saudi Arabia, was in a minor car accident in which the other driver was a native.  The driver beat his brother and fled, and when the police arrived they did nothing to help.  It seems that immigrants are discriminated against all over the world.
This reminds me of another lunchtime conversation in which several coworkers were making disparaging comments about Middle Eastern and Arab immigrants to the U.S.
One said that they manipulate the system by getting LINK cards (gov’t. assistance) while driving expensive cars and owning businesses.  Another worker said she helped a neighbor from the Middle East do his tax return, and that his wife makes tax-free income by cleaning houses; while he is a truck driver.  She stated they were able to buy an expensive house because his employer, who is also from the Middle East, exaggerated his income.  I did not say much to this.
After conveying this discussion to my comrades, they suggested that I should have said that the same false ideas are pushed about black and other dark-skinned workers under capitalism. These racist ideas permeate the working class to keep us divided and to keep the rulers in power.  The main manipulators of the system are a small group of capitalists who profit from exploiting labor power throughout the world.  They are responsible for profiting while workers suffer from poverty, racism and constant wars for world domination. 
I was reminded that in order for the working class to make progress toward achieving a communist future, I should make a plan with my coworkers to take a stand against the racist conditions we face every day on the job, including understaffing, cutbacks and lack of equipment.  This letter represents a first step in that direction.
Red Worker
Seeger Went Only So Far in Opposing Rulers
I believe that the letter/eulogy in the March 12 issue of CHALLENGE is a “bit” too optimistic about Pete Seeger and his “contributions” to the struggle to destroy capitalism. In his late youth and early adulthood, Pete played an active role in many union-organizing campaigns. His overall approach was to “embarrass” the ruling class into seeing the “errors of their ways.” But this strategy has never worked and never will. It is to Seeger’s credit that he recognized the inhuman essence of “free” enterprise.
However, Seeger never went beyond this, even after being blacklisted by the entertainment industry and after the infamous House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) called him to “testify” at one of their circus “hearings.”
I, too, was a fan of Pete Seeger and it was very difficult and very sad when I realized that he had abandoned the fight that helped to inspire me to join the Progressive Labor Movement in 1963 and the Progressive Labor Party in 1965. To understand the depth to which Seeger had sunk, consider the letter in the NY Times shortly after his death.
The letter-writer recounted that Seeger had been invited to perform at the local high school and the right-wing elements in the community attempted to prevent his appearance based on his earlier support for workers and unions as well as his opposition to the War in Vietnam. As things turned out, the crude attempts to prevent Pete from showing up were soundly defeated. However, to the letter-writer’s delight, the evening began with Seeger singing The Star Bangled Banner. Clearly, he wanted to show that he was a “loyal American, just like you and me!”
J Red
CHALLENGE Must Expose Exploitation of White Workers Too
I must make a criticism with regards to something the Progressive Labor Party (PLP) in general and CHALLENGE “did not say” in regards to our sister and brother workers who are white. In the CHALLENGE editorial of February 12, 2014, the editorial says, “These conditions fall mostly on black, Latino, and Asian workers and youth because of the racism intrinsic to capitalism. Without racism, and the divisions and super-exploitation that stem from it, the profit system could not sustain itself.”  While we all can agree 100 percent that nonwhite workers are super-exploited and super-oppressed, what about white workers?
From reading this and other CHALLENGE articles, you would hardly know white workers had any problems under capitalism. This is only going to confuse readers because white workers are also oppressed —political economy clearly illustrates that white workers are oppressed in terms of relative exploitation, while in terms of absolutes nonwhite workers are super-exploited by the bosses. While black and Latino workers’ living standards have deteriorated, white workers standard of living has also fallen.
For example, now new autoworkers work for about $14-an-hour across the board, down from about $30-an hour. Racism has helped lower the wages of already exploited white workers. The Party, i.e CHALLENGE, needs to do a better job in pointing out the plight of white workers, as we want to win them to see fighting racism is crucial and to communist revolution along with our nonwhite sisters and brothers internationally.
As someone who has been living in Indianapolis for seven months, I have seen that whites too have many issues due to the horrors of capitalism. In downtown Indianapolis the majority of homeless workers are white. In many of the suburban schools where I work, white students are being sugarcoated the message “of serving in the military,” but not being told exactly WHO benefits,  (the U.S. bosses) and at what costs to these future soldiers.(Suicides, being maimed, homeless). 
To quote comrade Karl Marx, “Labor in the white skin can never free itself as long as labor in the black skin is branded.”
Indiana Red
CHALLENGE comment: Our comrade is absolutely correct in saying that white workers are exploited by capitalism. No worker is immune from capitalist
exploitation. However, we have repeatedly said in article after article involving workers’ struggles that white workers are hurt by the racist divisions in two ways: in cuts in wages, health insurance, mortgage, foreclosures, among other attacks. Secondly, we’ve always made the point that the racist super-exploitation of black, brown, and immigrant workers is used as a club to threaten white workers’ conditions and drag them down. In fact, we point out that racism divides and weakens the whole working class.
Syria Editorial is Misleading
Comments on the back-page article on Syria (2/12/14 issue)
This impressively sweeping article was very informative about the history of shifting rivalries among various imperialist nations over Syria and the Middle East in general.  The major imperialists (capitalist-ruled nations) were at first Britain and France in the early 20th century, and after World War II the US and the Soviet Union (later Russia, already becoming state capitalist by that time).
We would add, however, that the way of describing the various imperialist ruling classes is unintentionally inconsistent and misleading.  Sometimes the ruling classes are described as “rulers” or “imperialists,” but other times the name of the nation they rule is substituted.  For example, instead of saying (next to last paragraph, column 1), “The French were harsh colonial masters in Syria” this would be better stated as “The French rulers were harsh...”  After all, given that France was, and is, a capitalist society, the French working class was subject to that same harsh rule.
It is important for all readers to realize that such terms as “The French” instead of the “The French rulers” was nothing but a shorthand way of saying the same thing.  But unless it is stated as “rulers” or “imperialists,” or even “capitalists” (a word that doesn’t appear even once in the article), it risks reinforcing the idea – one that we are all taught from birth – that countries that call themselves “democracies” act as a unit.  This idea implies that the responsibility for the actions of any nation’s ruling capitalist class is placed squarely on the shoulders of the workers of that nation, along with those who rule our lives.  We cannot remind readers too often that all nations are divided into classes with opposing interests, even if doing so makes an article longer or more repetitive.
We would also emphasize explicitly a couple of other points that are only implicit in the article as written.  The first point concerns the way that alliances among various rival imperialist rulers of different nations are always temporary and keep shifting as the rulers find their circumstances changing.  Another way of putting it is that there is no honor among thieves, and all alliances are merely ways of satisfying the immediate goals of each capitalist ruling class.
A second point to be emphasized is that the article, perhaps to fit it on one page, omits explanation about the internal class conflicts in Syria or any other country in the Middle East.  What effect these internal class conflicts have had on the successes or failures of the rival imperialists in reaching their goals is left unexplored.  An even more likely reason for this omission is that we have yet to research this area enough, so our knowledge of it is still poor.  It is, however, a vital area to be explored in the future.  We all have a lot to learn.
Two Comrades
Racist Cover-up Proves Cops Murdered Kyam Livingston
Recently-revealed documents prove NYPD cops are lying about the death of Kyam Livingston in custody last July. Kyam Livingston was a Brooklyn mother arrested for allegedly arguing and becoming violent with her grandmother. She died after being held for many hours in a cell at Central Booking, despite suffering from intense stomach pains and diarrhea. Her family has been campaigning against the police cover-up ever since, and holds monthly demonstrations.
According to her fellow inmates, when they brought Livingston’s deteriorating condition to the cops’ attention, one approached the cell and said, “Shut the f**k up, or we’ll lose your papers.” Livingston curled over in intense pain for over seven hours.
The NYPD claims Livingston died in an ambulance en-route to Brooklyn Hospital Center on July 21st. But when the Livingston family’s lawyer wrote to the hospital asking to see the ambulance reports for her, they replied, “We are unable to comply with your request at this time for the following reason(s): We show no treatment at this facility for the dates of service you requested.”
No records? No treatment? If the hospital has no records for Livingston whatsoever, it proves the NYPD lied about getting her medical attention. It suggests the cops didn’t even bother placing any 911 calls, and that she virtually died at Central Booking.
But there’s more. Media reports keep referring to Kyam as a “drunken woman.” But officers first took her to Kings County Hospital after her arrest, and her chart there does not show any blood, urine or breathalyzer tests taken. The second page of that report also featured instructions to officers to “get prompt medical attention if any of the following [symptoms] occur.” The list included “increasing upper abdominal pain.” It is apparent the pigs in command ignored those instructions.
And if Kyam was truly drunk upon arrest, why is her toxicology report negative for all ethanol and basic drugs?
Overall, these reports show there is a massive cover-up going on. More importantly, it shows the racist, sexist mindset that permeates the Ideological State Apparatuses surrounding our lives. The media smeared this woman as drunk, despite no facts to back that up. And even if she was drunk that day, that will never justify how Livingston died. Police officers treated her as if she wasn’t even human, or even deserving of any medical care.
A black woman’s life under capitalism will always be undervalued! It’s about time we put a permanent stop to that, and all forms of exploitation people of color worldwide endure on a daily basis.

Red Journalist