NEWARK, NJ, October 15—A multiracial, multigenerational group of workers in Newark flooded the courthouse as a show of action against racist policing. When Black workers are under attack, what do we do? WE STAND UP, FIGHT BACK! Since June 2021, the Newark Police Department (NPD) has stalked, harassed, terrorized, and arrested members of the Rodwell/Spivey family. After undercover police illegally and brutally stopped and frisked one of their family members, the Rodwell/Spivey brothers and their neighbors bravely stepped in. While Mayor Ras Baraka’s right arm reform organization, People Organizing for Progress (POP) have dragged their feet to aid the family, Progressive Labor Party (PLP) immediately went to meet with and build a defense team for our working class brothers and sisters. The main lesson learned from the Rodwell/Spivey struggle is that liberal politicians and reformists are the main danger. The liberal section of the capitalist class utilizes Black politicians like Ras Baraka to shortchange workers’ quality of life, while laying the groundwork for liberal fascism.  
Real fightback vs performative solidarity
As the terror from the state continues, so does the movement to fight back. At the courthouse, over 30 PL’ers, organizers, and friends attended to give support and call for Justin of the Rodwell Spivey families to be freed and all charges to be dropped. PLP and friends stood outside of the courthouse to give speeches about why they came out. A local high school teacher started off by explaining the importance of leading by example. “As a history teacher I can talk about the importance of understanding the lessons of the past antiracist struggles, but we know that leading by example is the best lesson that any teacher can put together. Our students need to see that the struggle continues and what it looks like to be a part of it.”
A worker for a non profit exposed the hypocrisy of the moment. She pointed out the painted street that read “BLACK LIVES MATTER” and the new Dr. Martin Luther King statue nearby, while Black, white, and Latin cops and politicians terrorize present-day anti-racist fighters. While Baraka and liberal misleaders in POP engage in performative activism, PL’ers practice communist thinking and fight back to smash racism for good.  
State terror against Black workers
On June 1, cops racially profiled a group of Black men while they looked at clothes in a van. After jumping out of a police wagon and attacking one of the men, the police illegally searched and brutally attacked the rest. The brothers, watching from their house, came out to defend them. Had they not done so, the KKKops might have killed them. As antiracist communists, we know when workers fight back, it scares the ruling class. From a young age, educational institutions under capitalism teach us that workers are supposed to revere cops, even when workers see the differences in how they treat and divide workers. In this instance, the police–with the aid of Newark’s Black, liberal Mayor, Ras Baraka–showed how they only serve fascism. In the ensuing days after the attack, the cops stormed into their house with guns drawn while the family was sleeping and crushed insulin belonging to the youngest brother. Days later, NPD set up mobile precinct trucks outside of their house, forced them and any visitors on the block to show identification, and to this day the KKKops continue to survey and occupy the block.
For millions of workers around the world,police terror will always exist as long as capitalism, a system that thrives on the violence of exploitation, exists. Capitalists need viciously racist cops to defend and legitimize its oppressive dictatorship. Thus smashing capitalism is the only viable form of  self defense for our class. Only when workers reject dead end reforms and liberal politicians, and fight directly for communism will we rid ourselves of police terror. Fighting for communism means smashing the exploitative profit and wage system that breeds racist and sexist inequality, sociopathy, and criminality. It means building a world where there is no need for cops, because workers will run all aspects of society to ensure our collective safety and wellbeing. Communism means real justice.
What is the international significance of this case? Like Joe Biden’s Border Patrol attacks immigrants, Baraka’s KKKop attacks in Newark represent what we can expect from liberal capitalist bosses–more death and terror for Black workers.  Like the Scottsboro case in the 1930s, communists must once again lead an international fightback to free the Rodwell/Spivey family and their neighbors from the grip of liberal state terror.
Courts, tool of the bosses
Capitalists use the courts to repress working class fightback. At the court proceedings, young Black men are brought in chained like slaves. While three of the brothers attacked by the cops were released, Justin is still imprisoned in Essex County Detention Center as Covid-19, rodent infestations, and abuse run rampant in NJ jails. All four of the Rodwell/Spivey brothers are being charged with resisting arrest, aggravated assault, obstruction of justice, and assault of an officer as prosecutors try to break the family with delays and withholding of key evidence. Justin has not been able to be home with his two children since June.  
PLP has stood with the Rodwell/Spivey family since they began to fight back over the summer. We will continue to fight until Justin is freed and all of the charges are dropped against the brothers. However, we can’t ignore the contradiction in this campaign. No matter how big or militant a reform movement gets, without a push for communism, workers around the world will never receive justice from the level of state repression we face. However, being part of antiracist fightback is essential for our class to learn how to smash racism and build a world where workers are central.
As one PLP member said at the courthouse after the family thanked them for coming, “This fight isn’t just about your family. Across Newark, and the world, police are constantly terrorizing the working class - especially Black workers. For every one family that fights back, hundreds accept the attacks because of fear. We need to fight back not just to show the ruling class that they can’t terrorize us without retribution, but to give the working class confidence that they can fight back.” Join PLP at the Veteran’s Courthouse, Thursday, November 18 at 9:00 AM!