CHICAGO, July 11—Over 50 comrades and friends participating in Progressive Labor Party’s Summer Project took action to blast the racist and sexist “healthcare” system under capitalism. They brought a revolutionary communist vision of health and collective power to the working class of Chicago, during a packed day of CHALLENGE sales, forums, and a bold rally.
Early to Rise, Early to Struggle
Comrades arrived at two different hospitals on the city’s primarily Black and Latin west side at 6:00 am to greet workers and patients with CHALLENGE and fliers as they entered the facilities. In less than an hour, over 400 fliers and CHALLENGEs were sold and several workers gave us their information so PLP could be in touch with them.
The two hospitals, Mount Sinai and Stroger Hospital of Cook County, are the only options available for many Black and undocumented workers and their families. Because of the overwhelming racism of the system, workers and patients alike face poor staffing, long wait times, and cutbacks on essential services. The racist bosses of both facilities have committed a brutal attack on the working class with the decision to completely eliminate pediatric inpatient services. Communists say: a system that won’t guarantee comprehensive healthcare to the working class doesn’t deserve to exist!
Only Communism Will Heal Our Class
The collective next held a study group on the political economy of healthcare at a local university. A physician comrade talked about capitalism’s drive to provide medical services only as a means to ensure the productivity (and thereby profitability) of workers. Healthcare didn’t develop out of the “goodwill” of the bosses. To have workers drop dead in the fields or the factories was simply bad for their bottom line, so they established the minimum services necessary to ensure a steady exploitation of our labor.
We discussed historical examples of communist-influenced healthcare, such as when
communists in China doubled life expectancy in the span of a single generation through massive public health campaigns and breaking down elitist hierarchies in the hospitals and clinics. This
example, and others, reminded everyone how workers can and have made tremendous strides in healthcare when armed with communist politics and organization.
Smash Racist Healthcare
Eager to put theory into practice, comrades and friends returned to Stroger Hospital that same afternoon for a PLP rally. Sharp chants and bold speeches were given from a bullhorn as we held a picket line at the entrances. Even more CHALLENGES and fliers were handed out to workers. Comrades, many of whom were giving their first-ever speeches on a bullhorn, blasted capitalist healthcare and its racist and sexist cutbacks, calling on workers to fight for revolutionary alternatives.
In a matter of minutes, the rally caught the bosses’ attention. Racist kkkops attempted to shut down the picket, saying we were breaking the law by marching on the sidewalk in front of the hospital. PL’ers defied their bogus threats by chanting even louder and holding our ground! Eventually, we forced the cops to back off and our speeches and chants became even bolder and revolutionary. Hundreds of CHALLENGEs were
distributed, and many workers driving past honked in solidarity.
Addiction is a Disease of Capitalism
The day concluded with a forum on the current opioid epidemic in the U.S. Clear connections were made between alienation, pharmaceutical profits, incarceration, and capitalism. A collective analysis determined that capitalism was responsible for the opioid crisis, and that it had no therapeutic solutions to treat the increasing number of workers struggling with addiction. We also discussed the racism of the bosses’ attacks on Black workers struggling with crack addiction in the 1980s, and their more compassionate reporting of the overwhelmingly white workers that are
suffering from this opioid crisis.
Once again, capitalist “solutions” to drug addiction and selling were contrasted with communist approaches. Comprehensive medical treatment, collective struggle, and full access to productive labor and healthy recreation were among some of the more worker-based methods to treating addiction shared within the groups. Many participants shared personal experiences as well as historical examples, stimulating discussion and envisioning a world where destructive drug epidemics are a thing of the past.
Communism is the Antidote to Capitalist Poison
The truth is that capitalism can offer no healthy future for our class. The system bankrupts us, charging enormous fees to treat diseases that it causes, if workers even have access to those treatments. Their pursuit of profit will always come before workers’ needs! No reform will ever change that basic fact. The prescription that PLP gives is to join and build a mass anti-racist, anti-sexist international Party for communist revolution. As a united working class, we can take our health needs into our own hands and send capitalism straight to the morgue!

Brooklyn, July 21—A speaker for the Progressive Labor Party (PLP) chanted, “How do you spell racist? NYPD.” It grew in power as other workers joined in. This was the 4th anniversary of the death of Kyam Livingston, who died in police custody when she was denied medical care. The speaker continued, “Justice for Kyam Livingston, killed in a Brooklyn cell! Until we get rid of this damned capitalist, racist system there is no justice.“
This was our 48th monthly demonstration as about 50 people rallied for Kyam on the corner of Church Avenue and E. 18th Street. We were young and old, men and women, Black, white, Asian and Latin. It was also a day of remembrance for Kyam, who became ill while awaiting arraignment on a minor matter and was refused medical care while she cried in agony for seven hours. Kyam’s mother, Anita Neal, has led this battle for justice. Her fire, her organizational skills, and her unrelenting demands for justice have inspired all of us.
We have been involved in the struggle against racism and other evils of this capitalist system for many years. Giving up was never an option. How to move the struggle forward was the only question. All of the moments we spent together—making plans for the next demonstration, eating together, sharing stories—brought us closer. We became family. We became comrades.
During this campaign to gain justice, respect, and acknowledgement from a brutal, racist system, members of PLP have been making the point that these movements that fight for justice bring people together need to eventually lead to a revolution and a communist world—a world without borders or racism. A world that the workers will organize and control based on worker needs, not capitalist profits.
At the rally, we distributed several hundred leaflets and petitioned for a corner signpost in commemoration of Kyam. The demand is to claim the spot for a working class woman who was murdered through the neglect and cruelty of the racist capitalist “justice” system. Several hundred Challenges were distributed. People on the street got involved in many discussions with us as passersby began to understand that this was the fourth anniversary and that this struggle has been continuous.
One of the members of our committee spoke on behalf of his local church. The church’s Justice Committee has been in this struggle since day one. He said a system that allows such racist outrages should not be allowed to continue. Kyam’s mother spoke of her anguish and how much she misses her daughter. She spoke of how our Justice for Kyam group has been working collectively with no acknowledgement from local politician. She spoke about a small scholarship fund she started for local Junior High School students, and how she wants a signpost with her daughter’s name. But she knows that a signpost will not bring justice—nothing will bring back her daughter. A signpost means the struggle must continue. Let’s fight to win that signpost to remember Kyam and make it a step on the way to a better world.
The collective work of our Justice for Kyam Committee has touched the hearts and fighting spirit of the people of Flatbush. Many times when we were on the street handing out leaflets or collecting petitions, people thanked us for consistently being there and being involved in this effort. Many joined the rallies and took petitions and leaflets to give to their friends. Over the four years of this struggle, hundreds of people have been involved in these rallies
As has been the custom, at the end of the rally Anita gave out balloons and flowers. We marched to the middle of the intersection, stopping traffic. Holding Kyam’s ashes in an urn, Anita made a tearful speech about how much she misses her daughter and about her anger at the system that claims to care but just abuses. As the sky was beginning to darken, orange balloons were released and flooded the sky, as they disappeared upwards.

On June 22, I joined my community organization for a forum on sexism. I did not expect the conversation that was to come, in which a fight to understand sexism also became a fight for multi-racial unity.
The forum began with a total of 35 men on one side of the room and the women on the other. Not sure if the men did this on their own or not, but whatever the case, being a communist man, I felt it my responsibility to sit with the women. The leader of the forum began to dissect what is a woman and what is a man. It soon became two long lists of what men and women ought to be by society’s standards. I tried my best to raise the fact that women are paid less than men as well. Not to the benefit of male workers but to the benefit of this profit system, which is run by both women and men.
Right as I was getting the nod of approval from the audience, the woman leading the group read a quote from feminist Audre Lorde. Unfortunately, I don’t have the quote but I remember that it was about how the fight for equality for women, for the LGBTQ community, and the fight against racism are linked and tied together, which is true.
This is when a lawyer from the organization, a Black man, stated, “I am sorry but we cannot worry about the LGBTQ community or white people’s problems because there are more pressing issues in the Black and brown communities.”
A Black woman felt this was the last straw. She said, “Now I don’t wanna be conflicting.”
I said, “please do.”
She said, “I’ve been to countless rallies and marches and you know who I see there most? White people. There are many white people in this fight against racism. When I was at a rally at Riker’s Island, about to get shot and arrested, guess who was there with me, a bunch of white people. I can’t turn my back on anyone who fights for me.”     
The lawyer jumped back in to say, “let me clarify what I was saying, I don’t mean any disrespect, all I’m saying is I can’t see myself fighting for a people with privileges and wealth when Black people are not free.”
A Latin woman countered with, “We’re all oppressed so what’s the difference?” The facilitator wanted to close the discussion with the privilege theory stating that we all have privilege.
I had my hand up for the longest and she let me give the final closing statement. I said, “Everyone is exploited by the system and the rulers use racism to do it. Dr. King knew it well when he gave a speech about white factory workers demanding livable wages. The boss there replied, ‘Take what I give you, or else I’ll hire a N****r, pay him half and get rid of you.’  The rulers of this system need to oppress us at different levels to maintain their profits.” I continued to say, “The concept of privilege is a way to have us bicker about who’s wounded more, when it’s the rulers of this system who have the privilege and have the money and power to do whatever they want. That’s privilege.”
I got the phone numbers of the women who spoke in favor of multiracial unity. I later invited them out to a movie to watch the James Baldwin documentary, I Am Not Your Negro. Unfortunately, one of them who said she would come had to babysit. She was able, however, to give great feedback on the movie. We’ve stayed in contact, and she is very interested to learn more about our ideas of how we can fight back against racism.

On the fourth of July, the day celebrating the birth of U.S. imperialism, we organized an “Anti-fourth of July” BBQ to educate our base about the dangers of nationalism and to win them to a more international view. The BBQ brought out a significant group of families, friends, and neighbors. It was organized around ideas that came from our base about how to organize events that involve more participation from everyone.
To kick off the BBQ a comrade expressed how nationalism is a threat to all working people because it’s an ideological tool of control. She explained that patriotism gives working people a false sense of identity and belonging to a group that includes their oppressors. U.S. patriotism is always divisive because it promotes racism against the people who are not considered to be “real Americans.” She also mentioned the U.S. is bombing seven different countries, more Americans are incarcerated than anywhere else in the world, and three million immigrants have been deported. Due to the bosses’ propaganda, the working class falsely believes that “their” country is looking out for their best interests, but in fact the bosses’ aims and ambitions drive this system.
What About the Working Class?
We read a short one-page excerpt from historian Howard Zinn that explains how independence from the English meant nothing for slaves, the indigenous, and poor white farmers. It explains how the ruling class uses nationalism to make poor working people fight and die in wars they do not benefit from. The article puts the history in a class perspective and argues that no slave, indigenous or poor person benefited from the victory of the American Revolution—only rich white male property owners did. Slavery continued to exist post-revolution, the indigenous continued to be beaten off their land, and poor white farmers were promised land but got very little or none at all. Today, working people must understand how nationalism is used by the bosses to justify racist attacks and drum up support for imperialist wars.
Need No Borders
In the following small group discussions, we talked about why borders exist, and how only the ruling class benefits from borders. We discussed how nationalism plays into the attacks on immigrants and refugees, who are fleeing countries destroyed by U.S. imperialism. We then talked about the solution to capitalist nationalism—working class internationalism. For their survival, the ruling classes of the world needs the working class divided, so that we are weakened. Organizing the working class on the job and in the factories—breaking the bosses’ racist, sexist, and nationalist divisions—is the only true way to fight the capitalist system and establish power for the working class.
Many in our base added constructive ideas to the discussion. Whenever the working class starts to understand these ideas, it’s one more qualitative step towards a communist future. More participation from our friends and coworkers is key to getting everyone to understand and think about these ideas more critically. Workers can organize to understand this system and smash it.