HARLEM, NEW YORK, January 9— In a neighborhood of mostly Black and immigrant workers, the antiracist chants rang down 125th Street and Broadway:
Racism Means We Got To Fight Back!,
Deportations Mean We Got To Fight Back!
Bibi, Bratton, Donald Trump —
Throw Those Racist in the Dump!
Thirty multiracial workers and students, women and men, marched against anti-Muslim racism with homemade signs and posters emblazoned, “REFUGEES WELCOME HERE.” On the bullhorn, a Black woman worker said that no Muslim worker had ever evicted her or denied her food stamps—but the bosses had. These capitalist terrorists are the same super-rich businessmen and politicians building the latest wave of anti-Muslim racism!
A member of the Modern Language Association read a statement against anti-Muslim racism recently passed at its convention. Others attacked the gutter racists emboldened by politicians like Donald Trump. Everyone spoke of the importance of uniting all workers to fight back against every form of racism.
This event was organized by members and friends of the revolutionary communist Progressive Labor Party, various churches, Jewish Voices for Peace, the Professional Staff Congress (the educational workers’ union at CUNY), the United Federation of Teachers, the Yonkers Federation of Teachers, and the American Postal Workers Union, among others.  We distributed more than 800 internationalist, antiracist leaflets and hundreds of CHALLENGEs.
Turn Up for Communism
Following the rally, we chanted and marched to a nearby New York State government building. All along the route, workers raised fists and took multiple leaflets and CHALLENGEs. When we approached a crowd of Black workers gathered around a sidewalk table of music vendors, they turned down the music to focus on our chants. Simultaneously, they erupted with raised fists and chanted along with us!
The building we targeted houses the offices of the liberal Democratic Congressman, Hillary Clinton supporter, and all-around racist viper, Charles Rangel. A self-proclaimed champion of Black and immigrant workers, Rangel was censured on 11 counts of tax evasion and other violations. When he isn’t cheating on his taxes or vacationing at his villa in the Dominican Republic, Rangel is busy preaching to workers about sacrifice and service to U.S. imperialism and openly calling for a military draft (CHALLENGE, 7/18/12, 1/30/13). For years, Rangel sold out Harlem’s Black workers to promote Columbia University’s expansion. The University rewarded his dedication to racist gentrification with a scholarship in his name that recruits Black, Latin and immigrant workers to diversify the face of U.S. capitalism.
Expose the Liberal Bosses, Join PLP!
In response to the New York City cops, who warned us not to use our bullhorn at the busy intersection, a church minister spoke deliberately, one sentence at a time, so everyone in the crowd could loudly repeat what he had said. He denounced Rangel and all liberal politicians as bigger dangers than Trump; while pretending to serve the working class, they actually do the bidding of ExxonMobil and Citigroup. The capitalist rulers and their liberal puppets attack Trump only because they desperately need the loyalty of Black and immigrant workers to slaughter and be slaughtered in the coming global wars of U.S. imperialism.
Students and workers in the Progressive Labor Party also spoke, putting racism and imperialism into class terms. Racism, be it directed against Muslim, Black, Latin or immigrant workers, hurts us all. It enables the bosses to super-exploit certain groups with even lower pay and worse living and working conditions, while dividing workers who share the same interests.
Following up on the minister’s point, PL’ers noted the sharpening rivalry between the U.S. bosses and Russian and Chinese imperialists in the Middle East and the South China Sea—with liberals like Hillary Clinton leading the charge. The PL’ers concluded by calling for workers in all countries to join and help build a mass, international PLP of millions that can smash capitalism and its racist borders and imperialist wars with communist revolution. Today’s event was a glimpse of the unity we need to build a communist world run by and for the working class. With the contact information gathered today, our diverse group of PL’ers and friends will strengthen this vital work.

BROOKLYN, December 21 — Many words can describe the 29 demonstrations, one a month for two and a half years, for justice for Kyam Livingston, a Black woman worker murdered by the capitalist bosses and their cops’ medical disregard. But the ones that give the most hope are, “If we don’t get it—shut it down!” These words are powerful. They can be heard at our rallies against police terror, anti-Muslim racism and racist deportations. They remind us that workers have the power to change and run the world—and that all of our struggles are connected.
‘Shut the Whole Damn System Down’
But the bosses don’t want us to shut it down. The system is designed to keep workers busy and distracted from our need for militant fightback and communist revolution. The bosses tell us to go to court, talk to politicians, or start petitions—“proper channels” that never accomplish anything. They do not want us to fight back, because they know that is where our real power lies. When workers strike, when people refuse to buy into the rulers’ lies, when we shut down the wheels of capitalist murder—that is when real change begins to happen.
The latest Kyam rally gave us more proof of this. Fighters, both new and old in the struggle, many of them members or friends of Progressive Labor Party, spoke on Kyam Livingston’s street corner before we stopped traffic. We chanted, held signs and released balloons in her honor. This time we escalated the fight by marching down the street and yelling, “Justice for Kyam Livingston, killed in a Brooklyn cell!” The militancy of our multiracial group excited people, and we handed out 250 CHALLENGEs and even more leaflets. People stopped to listen and take CHALLENGE. Those in stores came out to talk to us and donate money. Some thanked us for standing up for the working class; some even joined the demonstration. When the working class unites against racist terror, we can see our power and potential to smash the brutal capitalist system.
Prison System Oppresses Women
As always, the police stood across the street, laughing and talking indifferently—until Kyam’s mother, Anita, called them out with sharp words. She said that when one cop is hurt, the whole city pays attention, but when working people are injured or murdered by these lackeys of capitalism, the media look the other way. One speaker stressed that a system so unequal does not deserve to exist. Capitalism feeds off the backs of working people who go to work every day, only to die next to the rat droppings and roaches in Brooklyn Central Booking.
Our fight is also a fight against sexism. Kyam was left to die when complaining of stomach pain. Like her, there are billions of women worldwide who are denied vital healthcare services and ignored in health emergencies. Some 507 maternal deaths occur every day worldwide because healthcare services for women are often last on the list of necessary resources (United Nations, 12/3/15).
Kyam’s death was tragic but not exceptional. According to criminal justice researcher Tammy Anderson’s The Incarcerated Woman (2002), women prisoners “still receive fewer health care services” than their male counterparts. Women inmates have reported prison medical professionals who are “under skilled, often withhold medical care, and show little care or concern for them or their needs...despite their greater medical needs, women inmates receive fewer services and inferior care.” This criminal neglect is worse yet for Black, Latin, and immigrant women. The pervasive mistreatment of incarcerated women, be it in immigration detention centers or prison, reflects the sexist exploitation and division that is essential to capitalism.
Someday We Shall Rule the Earth
At the end of the rally, Anita distributed candles and balloons and asked everyone to release them into the air. With tears in her eyes, she looked up and said, “This is another Christmas that I am spending without you. Merry Christmas, Kyam.”
The working class can and will have better. Our class will win with working-class women leaders like Kyam and those in PLP, whose leadership grows out of their experience of the day-to-day fight against sexism and racism. As “They Shall Rule the Earth,” a song in PLP’s album Revolution, reminds us: “The working women of all shores, working night and day, often for no pay—in your liberation, men will too find salvation. Someday they shall rule the earth.”
The struggle for justice for Kyam Livingston and all the other victims of police terror is a struggle for the working class. These are long and hard battles, but it is the constancy and commitment of those who come every month, wherever the battle lines are, that can and will lead to a better world. Struggles like this one are schools for communist revolution.
Dare to struggle–dare to win.

NEW YORK CITY—In November, the news said that Muslim terrorists killed hundreds of people in Paris. For the next days and weeks, the bosses’ media sounding the same racist alarm. As a club of the revolutionary communist Progressive Labor Party, we have been organizing interfaith friendship dinners with the local Muslim community for 15 years, since 9/11, to fight racist anti-Muslim propaganda. This year’s interfaith dinner came one day after the Paris shootings, and we wondered how it would go. 
We carried out our usual work to ensure a successful dinner. Typically, about 70 workers attend this event. This year? Ninety! Normally, most of the attendees are our Muslim guests, with about a third of the workers coming from our congregation and other friendly groups. But this year, we saw an outpouring from our church. Workers responded to our ideas of building unity in the international working class against imperialism and racist terror.
At first, the atmosphere was a bit muted because of the shootings and the response of the racist capitalist media. But as soon as everyone started socializing, the room warmed up!
All Partake the Same Bread: Working-Class Unity
Our senior minister welcomed all of us and offered a prayer for the terrible events in France, Lebanon, and Syria. Then the Imam of our local mosque led another prayer. We broke bread together and talked. Each table was integrated with Muslims, Christians, Jews and atheists.  
As the meal ended, speeches began. The mosque’s president spoke first, saying that Muslims are just like everyone else. They worry about their children, their home life and their jobs. It was painful to hear these words; the racism of capitalist society makes it necessary to say the obvious.
Other workers talked about our obligations to stand up for each other, irrespective of religion. A visiting worker, whose church organizes against racist police terror and for workers’ rights, connected many seemingly separate international events, and shared a plan for action.
He explained that the biggest cause of terrorism is U.S. imperialism. He related the current racist oppression of Muslims to the historic, centuries-old racism against Black, Latin, Asian, and immigrant workers. By fighting to unify and organize the international working class, he stated, we can become part of the solution.
After that talk, there was palpable joy from our friends and guests. More workers spoke about various aspects of our common struggle, animating and transforming the tenor of the evening. A great weight was lifted from the shoulders of those present—a coming together.
Building Antiracist, Revolutionary Devotion
Over 15 years of building friendships and holding these dinners, our communist group within the church has built a real community. PL’ers and their friends from church have protested the oppressive surveillance of mosques by the local police department, and have been invited to many Iftars (the break-the-fast meals during the month of Ramadan).
At our most recent dinner, despite our different religious beliefs, immigration status and national origin, we shared a clarity about the source of working-class division: the tiny minority of the ultra-wealthy, the capitalist class, who profit from imperialist war and maintain power with racism, sexism and nationalism. We discussed and debated working-class revolution, the need to seize state power, and the egalitarian essence of communism.
While this particular event is a beacon of our church work, we must continue to move forward each day.
To this we are committed.
We are sharpening the political struggle in our club to distribute greater numbers of CHALLENGE to workers in our church and in the mosque. We will struggle with more workers to attend our study groups, take an active role in our Party, and plan more unifying events. Little by little, the clouds are parting and the sun is starting to shine. Stay tuned for updates, comrades!

New York City, January 13—The New Year began with a round of sexist, racist home raids and deportations of undocumented immigrants, mainly mothers and children from Central America. The Obama administration has kept its promise of terrorizing Latin workers. Immigration Customs Enforcement has arrested hundreds of immigrants, all subject to deportation, mostly in North Carolina, Georgia, Texas and California, but also in New Jersey and New York.
Best Defense: Stay on the Offense Against Capitalism
Members of the immigrant rights organization in which Progressive Labor Party members are active, as well as large numbers of undocumented workers in this working-class neighborhood, are alarmed. The organization gave workshops informing immigrants of their legal “rights” if ICE confronts them. There was also talk of finding sanctuary in churches for immigrants at risk of deportation. We in PLP are supporting these measures.
But its reformist outlook limits the organization. It is downplaying this surge in deportations as “normal” ICE activity. It relies on good lawyers in deportation hearings and tries to get local laws passed to protect immigrants. While PLP is not opposed to good lawyers, these approaches are at best illusory and at worst a liberal attempt to pacify the working class in the face of growing capitalist oppression and racist division.
Our club continues to be active in anti-racist fightback. We are organizing events and bringing communist analysis to our friends in the immigrant organization. Our comments have been applauded at two big meetings. We have called for demands that can put the working class on the offensive: no deportations, immediate acceptance of Syrian war refugees, open borders for all workers and amnesty now for all immigrants in the U.S., with no restrictions. We want fightback that will include all workers: “Black, Latin, Asian, white, same enemy, same fight.” We will never accept racist state terror as “normal.”
Citizen and immigrant workers must unite to fight these racist deportations. Being a citizen worker in the capitalists’ most powerful imperialist nation is no protection, either. Just look at the workers in Flint, Michigan--56 percent Black, 35 percent white—whose fecal-colored water with high lead content saves the bosses money (see page 3). Capitalist state terror comes in many forms, but it hurts all workers.
What Is to Be Done?
So what does communist leadership within mass organizations mean today? To strengthen the working class, communists must:
★ Develop workers’ understanding of how imperialist rivalry and constant war is related to attacks on immigrants worldwide (see next issue);
★ Relate deportations to racist surge of police killings of Black workers and youth to anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant attacks;
★ Expose how the capitalist ruling class and its media seize on “fear of terrorism” to blame immigrants and Syrian refugees for the entry of terrorists into the U.S. and Europe while obscuring the criminal, racist and fascist nature of capitalism;
★ Denounce the capitalist governments, from Europe to the US., that are closing borders and leaving refugees to their deaths. This is capitalist murder.
★ Fight like hell to build a multiracial movement to organize and win people to communism. Study alone cannot teach us what we need to learn. Fighting back in our community centers, jobs, schools, military and streets can be school for communism.
Workers will continue to find ways to cross borders and to be a source of cheap labor in the U.S. They cross these fake borders because capitalism has displaced families with inter-imperialist wars and un-natural disasters, all in pursuit of maximum profit.
Not all immigrants are unwelcome, however. The bosses will continue to welcome technologists and scientists who can help U.S. imperialism project its power worldwide and remain on top. There might be a guest worker program to allow temporary immigrants to work in agriculture, food packing and other industries, but without any of the so-called labor rights currently held by citizen workers in the U.S. Another focus will be on immigrant youth who can join the military as ground troops in the next big imperialist war.
Our club wrote a leaflet to distribute in the neighborhood, and we are organizing a march. The working class needs communist revolution. As the leaflet concludes, “The only way the international working class can destroy racism, fascism and imperialist war is to make revolution so the working class can take power and build communist society based on egalitarianism. Only the international working class can destroy the brutal, capitalist system.” Join our Party!