Letters of August 10

To End Racist Crimes, End Capitalism

The shooting in Dallas, Texas, on July 7 is an event the working class should take very seriously. The shooter, Micah Johnson, was apparently avenging the assassination of two Black men that same week by white police. Johnson wanted to kill white cops as a response to racism. We disagree with isolated attacks against police and white workers. While isolated attacks express a certain level of rage, they never build a movement. We are building a mass communist movement for armed revolution.  Our movement understands the political necessity for mass revolutionary violence against capitalism and imperialism, and is not afraid to call for it and use it against our class enemies.
Yet, Obama, who spoke of the serious “problem in the U.S. justice system,” brought little light to the politics of what happened. He spoke only of the U.S. bosses’ fear of radicalization of Black people in the U.S. Meanwhile, Obama leads a country where Black workers are murdered everyday, one way or another—quickly by outright murder by police, or in wars for profit, or more slowly by rotten healthcare and schools and housing.
We fight against racism, but we don’t lead a fight against white people. We know that all white workers are not racist. Those who are racist buy into the bosses’ lies, against their own class interest. Racism is fundamental to capitalism. Capitalism requires the exploitation and domination of billions of workers around the world. It divides workers to the profit of the exploiting bosses and their politicians. We build multi-racial unity to fight against racism because all workers are hurt when one worker is hurt. We expose racism and struggle to win them to fight for their class. Furthermore, racism is not only a question of color. It is political, cultural and economic.
We fight racism alongside Black, Latin, Asian, Muslim, indigenous, immigrant, and white workers—all who are the victims of capitalism. Black workers are the first victims of racism, and are in a decisive position to lead the fight to expose racism as one of the strongest tools in the bosses’ arsenal against the working class. Race itself a social construct of capitalism and imperialism to justify its domination and its exploitation, and has no scientific merit. We know that there are millions of white workers today who live under similar conditions as Black and Latin workers. And we know that there are Black bosses who exploit Black workers just as viciously as white bosses do—that is the nature of capitalism. Historically, white workers have also given leadership against racism and for revolution—like the first working class rebellion against capitalism, the Paris Commune of 1871.
If we build deep ties in the working class and win workers, students and soldiers to PLP’s revolutionary outlook, that fusillade can transform itself into a mass fightback among workers—not fighting for the crumbs of the capitalist system, but fighting to build a new society that smashes the racist profit motive and unites our class around the world under the red flag of revolutionary communism. We call on all those who fight against racism to join us in the revolutionary communist fight to end the inequalities invented by capitalism.
Communism is the only alternative to the injustices of capitalism. Communism will end all forms of discrimination, racist and sexist in particular, on which capitalism thrives in order to maximize profits. Our international Progressive Labor Party continues to organize workers of all “colors” and “nationalities” for communist revolution. Workers of the world have only one color—red, one flag—the red flag, and one nation—the world!

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Baton Rouge: Black Woman Stands with Communists
I would like to clarify some details in the article (7/27) titled “Women Lead in Baton Rouge.” The protest was inspiring because it was not entirely due to the speech that a Black woman PL’er made. Our chants inspired and emboldened a local Black woman who had been going to all the protests leading up to that day. She gave a speech that incited and inspired the crowd off the church parking lot and into the streets.
This brave woman who had brought her son to the protest, met with the Party afterwards and agreed to distribute CHALLENGE; she is now a friend of the Party. There were attacks and accusations online from the rotten and racist Nation of Islam misleaders and Internet warriors accusing “outside agitators” of inspiring workers to march and be “violent.” Such accusations are used to divide workers. We commend the fact that she stood up to them, fought for the PL’ers that she had just met, and led the crowd to protest.
Her actions illustrate that Black Workers, especially Black women workers, are the key revolutionary force against capitalism. She was from a multiracial family and knew that the very same racist police that had murdered other young men would not hesitate to murder her young son. She saw through the passivity being pushed by the misleaders who only impede the class struggle. In her speech, she said she is tired of being pent up and passive. Upon her call for the action of taking the street, the working class, Black, white, women, and men. Without her, that march may never have happened.
Later, the phone call we received about the pigs getting ready to move in and attack the protest came from a contact that we had just met a few minutes earlier. She saw the attack getting ready to happen and called us because she was worried about our safety. She had just met us, we were from out of town, and she trusted us enough to not only give us her number, but to periodically check in and give us warnings about what the cops were doing.
The final point that needs to be made is that it primarily was women at the front of the march leading the whole rally and taking the streets. Due to the mass incarceration in Louisiana, with some towns having an arrest rate as high as 70 percent, many men are hesitant of protesting since they have arrests on their record and could get incarcerated. The mass incarceration of the Black working class is profitable, and functions as modern day shackles to inhibit protests against exploitation and injustice.
Participating on the ground of Baton Rouge and how the bosses are using the Nation of Islam and Black Lives Matter to push racism and passivity onto the working class illustrated the urgency of developing our ties there.
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Communist Training in Cleveland
The trip to Cleveland was most outstanding summer project (see page 4). Despite our small collective, we used communist centralism [the governing system that enables us to collectively investigate, evaluate, and execute the practice that’s in the best interest of the international working class] to bring communist politics and culture to workers.
I’m proud of our collective decision to focus on the workers and youth at Cudell Commons, the site of the racist kkkop murder of 12-year-old Black child Tamir Rice. This decision reminded me that we truly are a Marxist-Leninist party; that we know that building revolution involves creating roots in the working class, not just in protests.
These summer projects are key for our development as leaders of PLP and of the international working class. It’s encouraging to know all the comrades involved are going to return to their local PLPs clubs as more effective and passionate communist organizers.
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
PL Chant Leads Protesters
The project in Cleveland showed me how communism could work. There was a combination of bold action against the RNC and community building in the Tamir Rice neighborhood.
The bold action included chants like “Republicans Democrats all the same, Racist Terror is the name of the game.”  The very next day, another group was using this chant. A group was “walling off Trump” with large banners. We joined the protesters, chanting boldly. Dozens took our lead with our chants.
The real action for me when we “occupied” the gazebo memorializing Tamir Rice. We talked to friends and neighbors of the Rice family. Working together as a collective makes me want to come back here!
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‘Revolutionary Experience’ at RNC
This has been quite a revolutionary experience! The first day, we called out racist Republicans at a “Forum on Poverty in America” hosted by a CNN moderator at Cleveland State University.
Among the racists verbally attacked by the Party was Jack Kemp (Housing Secretary under former president George H. W. Bush in the 90s) and a representative from Trump campaign.  
Getting the CHALLENGE out does count, as the workers I got the paper to participated at the study group. Challenge is an ideological way out of this hell called capitalism with its racism, sexism, and imperialist war. When the party comes back to visit Cleveland, count me in!
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