BROOKLYN, NY, February 26 — “The hardest part of this is the indifference from the College. They said nothing. I’ve served my food here for years…some of the regulars who work for the college don’t even make eye contact and avoid me.” These are some of the words from a worker and friend of Kingsborough Community College’s antiracist club, Common Ground, whose halal food cart at KCC’s front gate was recently defaced by racists. 

Amidst ongoing genocide in Gaza, and hours before the U.S. imperialists expanded bombings simultaneously in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen, racists spray-painted “Kill Palestinians” and crossed out the word “halal” on the front of the cart. As soon as the worker discovered his cart was defaced, he called the campus Public Safety. When Public Safety told the worker that the cart was technically outside their jurisdiction, and the NYPD didn’t have any units to assign yet, the worker contacted a member of Common Ground. 

Students and faculty in Common Ground, and members of the international communist revolutionary Progressive Labor Party, spread the word immediately. Within an hour of the call, we were at the campus gates inspecting the halal cart. Even though our campus is still on winter break, part of building a campus student-faculty-worker alliance includes conditioning ourselves and our base to respond rapidly to racist and sexist attacks and demonstrate multiracial working-class unity.

N-Y-P-D, KKK, C-U-N-Y all the same
Upon arrival, we asked a KCC Public Safety sergeant at the front gate if it was possible any of the surveillance cameras pointing outward captured the attack. The sergeant said it was possible, but the request must come from the NYPD, who had already been called. We waited with our friend for six hours outside in the cold, and eventually, he revealed that this hadn’t been the first attack; they suddenly began after October 7. In one attack, his entire generator was stolen. With KCC on a dead-end street with little traffic, there is no question these sudden racist attacks aren’t a coincidence!

The NYPD did not respond that day, but instead called the worker and instructed him to file a report at the precinct the next day.

The next day at the precinct, the police told the worker filing a report was impossible, and that he should have called 911 and waited by the cart. Several hours later, upon arrival at the cart, the police stated they couldn’t read the writing at all. When the worker asked whom then the written word “kill” may refer to, they told him “Don’t worry about it” and assured him it wasn’t “necessarily a hate crime.” When the worker asked why “halal” was painted over and no other words, they shrugged and said it would be downgraded as vandalism with no surveillance requested and left.

After multiple people called and reported to the precinct, the NYPD finally sent a detective who concluded it was a hate crime. After launching a joint investigation with the New York State police and stating they obtained surveillance video from multiple cameras, two weeks later, they have no new updates. Our demands are for a timely and thorough investigation, for KCC’s administration to publicly acknowledge the racist attack just outside campus the same way they typically report crimes near campus, and raise money to repair the cart.

Building PLP for antiracism and revolution 
Under capitalism, workers don’t have state power and we’re forced to use -with struggle- the bosses’ institutions for things we sometimes need, like police reports. PLP members in Common Ground are sharpening this contradiction by struggling to make working-class student leadership primary over-relying on the police and growing our CHALLENGE network. 
We are also welcoming another new member joining PLP this past week; this is how we build the antiracist movement that will lead us to ultimate victory: a workers’ dictatorship, where there would be no police or bosses, and the armed working class would immediately investigate anti-worker attacks!

Gearing up for fightback and May Day!
These latest racist attacks are the ongoing consequence of the CUNY administration’s racism against students and adjunct faculty, and U.S. imperialism. But as racism is essential to the functioning of capitalism, antiracism is the key to destroying it. 

Common Ground is recruiting multiracial and strong women leaders who are providing leadership for this semester.  While genocide, imperialist war, and racist attacks surround us, fighting to smash this racist, sexist, imperialist system with communism is the order of the day. JOIN US!