Now, the workers’ anger confirms a) the shallowness of identity politics as a tool to divide us, and b) reforms don’t work.
Instead, workers need to join PLP. Smashing the racist, fascist police terror that robbed Tyre’s life is a pillar of our Party’s work.
A Black cop is still a kkkop
The protest was led by the liberal reformers in the city of Newark and had more local government officials than workers present. This can only be explained by the historical contradiction of this period–where identities are primary to the capitalist ruling class to divide and exploit workers and squash rebellion more intensely. Tyre Nichols, Carl Dorsey, Manuel Esteban Paez Terán or Tortuguita, and Keenan Anderson are victims of the liberal fascist state ruled by Black and Latin politicians and cops.
“See, us Black people are suffering everywhere,” one woman said. Monique Rodwell, mother of the Rodwell-Spivey brothers, assaulted by police in 2020 and friends of PLP replied, “it’s not just Black people; it’s poor people.” Another educator with us noted, “the protests stopped once Biden got in office. He’s the same one that introduced the 1994 Crime Bill.” This is someone that has been in our base for years and a former student of a comrade in Newark.
We were not strong enough in numbers to provide leadership at this rally but we do plan to organize a worker-led response to the murder of Tyre and the rise of liberal fascism in the near future. When liberal fascists are forced to face the rage of the working class and manage to get away, we as communists cannot stop organizing. For every Tyre there are masses of workers killed by racist police terror around the world that don’t make the headlines. Fighting for Alex Flores, for Shantel Davis, Raymond Chaluisant we didn’t stop. And we won’t stop until masses of workers around the world see that police brutality is as vital to capitalism, as communist revolution is to workers!
Liberal fascism unleashes killer kkkop gangs
In the aftermath of the George Floyd worldwide movement led by Black workers, liberal fascist mayors and politicians misled workers with the most revolutionary potential, funneling our class’ rage into the ballot box, while also unleashing a viscious wave of racist police terror.
Black mayors from Atlanta, Washington, DC, and Newark painted Black Lives Matter slogans on the same streets where they send their killer kkkop special units to spill workers’ blood. These units–from the Jump Out Boys in Newark that killed Carl Dorsey and threatened the Rodwell Spivey family to the Executioners in Los Angeles to the Memphis Scorpion Unit that killed Tyre Nichols – are essentially a kkkop murder inc., a persistent nationwide element using corruption and intimidation tactics to cement their control over the Black and Latin working class communities they cannot profit without.
Like Newark, Memphis is a model for Big fascists to pour in their finance capital. For Bank of America, Citigroup, and JPMorgan Chase, extracting superprofits from the guaranteed racist super-exploitation and super-neglect of a majority Black and Latin workforce is a winning formula! These parasites are the largest beneficiaries of extra payments, commonly known as a “Black Tax,” placed on such municipalities forced to take loans to close gaps in budgets unmet by taxing such low wages (Bloomberg, 09/29/22). Tennessee, the state where Memphis is located, is on par with the lowest minimum wage across the U.S. $7.25.
The answer of fascist U.S. President Jim Crow Joe Biden has been to betray workers by riding the wave of workers’ anger into office. Once elected, Biden assured finance capitalists that there would be no effort to defund the police (itself a liberal reform) under his administration.
Today, U.S. police forces represent the third largest military expenditure globally; as former New York City mayor Bloomberg called it, the NYPD is one of the world’s largest armies. Expect the Biden administration to opportunistically milk the Nichols tragedy to stoke their political momentum for the 2024 election. As we go to press, Kamala Harris–a former prosecutor who sent hundreds of workers to prison– hopes we will forget that when announcing that she will attend Tyre’s funeral.
Fight fascism with communism
Under capitalism, there can be no justice for workers against racist killer kkkops. Their job is to serve and protect the ruling class, especially the Big Fascists–the liberal politicians and finance capitalists. For decades, these Big Fascists have wielded the lethal power of the police with near impunity to clear cities of Black and Latin workers for gentrification. At the same time, these liberal fascists push reforms to keep workers invested in the system–from voting to hiring more Black and Latin cops. Tyre Nichols brutal slaying shows that neither works. Only with organized worker fightback with international communist leadership like PLP will we finally realize communism and smash racist police terror once and for all.
On the same day that the first Black woman police chief, Cerelyn Davis, fired the five Memphis cops, the Newark police force under Black Mayor Ras Baraka’s leadership walked away scott-free for murdering another Black worker, Carl Dorsey, in 2020. Politicians at the rally praised Davis, the murderer-in-chief, for swiftly penalizing the cops that killed Tyre. When agents of the capitalist state are disciplined, our class must beware that this is not a victory but a sign of developing fascism.
However, locking a few cops up will never smash racist police terror. Only when workers recognize capitalism as the sham it is and commit to building an internationalist, communist, worker-led state will racism, sexism, and exploitation be eradicated from the face of the earth.
NEWARK, NJ, January 30—Workers across the U.S. are taking to the streets to rally against the murder of Tyre Nichols after the release of bodycam footage showed Nichols's brutal, deadly beating by Black Memphis cops. Progressive Labor Party members (PLP) joined a rally in Newark in solidarity with Tyre Nichols and the countless names of workers slain by this murderous system. This latest murder confirms a trend of Black-led liberal fascism where we see cities with a Black democratic ruling class government are becoming the new faces of terror against our class.
