Brooklyn, December 22 — “No justice, no peace, no racist police!” rang out loud and clear on the corner of Church and Nostrand Avenues in Flatbush tonight. Members and friends of Progressive Labor Party broke mayor Bill de Blasio and NYPD commissioner William Bratton’s “ban” on antiracist protests. The City bosses want to honor the cops shot on December 20 by shutting down protests. As speakers pointed out time and again, where was the bosses’ time of mourning and concern for the children of Eric Garner and so many other victims of racist police terror? Passing cars honked in support of the protest. People passing by joined the picket line for a time or two around, chanting and raising their fists in unity against racist murders by the police.

BOSTON, December 23 — The PLP college conference in November advanced the work at one college here. Several students from Roxbury Community College found it to be an “awesome experience” when they discovered that their opinions and values were shared by a diverse, sincere and interesting group of people who called themselves communists. Since then they have been meeting with the Party, getting to know each other better and learning more about capitalism, racism, fascism and communism. 
The experience they had at the bold and disciplined antiracist march and rally in East Harlem opened them to the idea of holding a rally after the Grand Jury decision in Ferguson. Even though they weren’t able to carry it out, just making the plan got them to consider what it means to be leaders of the working class. 
One student attended a recent Boston demonstration demanding justice for Eric Garner. She found it inspiring to see others fighting back against racist police terror. As part of the Pizza and Politics Steering Committee, they are planning to bring a class analysis of racism and fascism into the upcoming college discussion: “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot! I can’t Breathe! Taking a Stand Against Racial Injustice.” They are looking forward to the next opportunity to meet and rally with PLP students from around the country. Currently two of the students are meeting in a PLP study group on political economy.

SEATTLE, December 10 — Protests began in Seattle immediately after the grand jury in Ferguson refused to indict killer cop Darren Wilson for the murder of Mike Brown. That night one hundred cops donning riot gear and brandishing assault rifles came out to meet over one hundred students, teachers and workers who were shutting down intersections in downtown Seattle.
When some demonstrators moved onto Interstate 5, police attacked with tear gas, pepper spray and flash-bang grenades. Protesters on the overhead bridges responded by throwing rocks and firecrackers at police below. The police made some arrests and beat some people, but the workers and students were not deterred. On the national day of action four days later, over 1,000 people took to the streets to oppose racist police violence.
Since this initial outpouring of antiracist rage, demonstrations of varying sizes have been held almost every night. The Seattle Times (ST) editorial board attacked antiracists as a “roaming gang of belligerent hostiles” out to ruin Christmas and scare children. They harshly criticized Mayor Ed Murray for saying he sympathized with those angered by the Brown decision — a statement he immediately rescinded (ST, 12/2). Still, antiracists were not deterred.
On Saturday, December 6th, over 1,200 demonstrators marched from Garfield High School — a predominantly Black school — into downtown where they again committed the great crime of “bringing Westlake Center and Pacific Place mall to a standstill on the busiest shopping days of the year”(ST).
Leaving downtown, protesters formed a human chain shutting down multiple intersections in the trendy Capitol Hill neighborhood. A series of bars and restaurants were targeted because their owners had asked for a greater police presence to attack “Somali gangs” last summer (ST, 12/4). Demonstrators denounced the racist call for police use of profiling that could only lead to violence.”
Every step of the way police have sought to intimidate protesters. On last Sunday’s Dec. 7 march police herded the crowd of one hundred into a dark, largely abandoned street. Once there, the police surrounded the group, creating bike barriers on either side of the street while riot cops holding their batons out sealed the ends.
Marchers were kept there for half an hour while police presumably debated rioting through the crowd as their counterparts in Oakland had the night before. On Monday night one protest leader was attacked, arrested and held overnight by a gang of cops as she walked home from the demonstration alone. Still, antiracists remain resolute.
These marches have made the priorities of the police and the media under capitalism crystal clear. To again quote the Times, to stand up and oppose racism and police brutality is not “building a better world,” but “destroying it.” And police throwing flash-bang grenades into crowds is being “otherwise restrained.” The police line up to protect the banks while the papers call upsetting holiday shopping “violence.” For those who have never seen fascism with its mask off, the last few weeks have been very enlightening.
Meanwhile, on December 5th, the county prosecutor announced that he will not press charges against cop who viciously punched a Black woman while she was handcuffed in the back of his squad car. The victim, Miyekko Durden-Bosley, had her right orbital socket shattered, while the racist cop got a six-month paid vacation (ST, 12/5). Right now workers and students in the streets are only calling for reform, but that won’t change capitalism’s racist nature and the violence it produces. As the face of brutal capitalism is revealed, antiracist protests must be turned into revolutionary action!

Newark, NJ, November 3 — Chanting “Same struggle same fight, workers and clients must unite”, and “The bankers got bailed out, we got sold out,” 125 unionized Essex County welfare workers marched and rallied here today. The workers were joined by the War Against Poverty Coalition (WAPC), the People’s Organization for Progress (POP) and several other organizations to protest the severe racist understaffing of welfare centers throughout Essex County. This is causing a huge backlog of Food Stamp and Medicaid applications. We demand jobs at living wages, restoration of all social service cutbacks, and an end to government subsidies/welfare for corporations.
Speakers included social service workers and one client. The client was laid off along with hundreds of other workers from a New Jersey factory. He spoke passionately about the inability of the understaffed welfare system to provide for the needs of people like himself. He called for welfare workers to unite with their clients, and not be sucked into an anti-client mentality. “Welfare reform” has deliberately promoted this kind of thinking.
Other speakers stressed the need to vote in the upcoming election. But one social services worker called for a revolution of the working people to shake up the foundation of the “1 percent”, calling on workers to “directly pierce the heart of capitalism squarely in the chest and reclaim the rights that have been stripped away from us”.  
Under communism, human needs like health care and food would not be commodities to be sold so that some boss makes a profit. That is because communism would eliminate the commodity exchange system that capitalism requires. Also, capitalism needs unemployment in order to drive down wages, a necessary measure for any boss to stay competitive. Stop-gap programs like Food Stamps are only necessary because of the mass racist unemployment we see under capitalism. Black, Latin, and Asian workers are super-exploited and continue used as a wedge against the white working class.
In the past six years, as a direct result of capitalism’s economic crisis, Food Stamp applications in Essex County and statewide have skyrocketed. Ten percent of New Jersey residents now receive Food Stamps, and thousands of others need help but can’t get it. Also, Medicaid income eligibility levels have gone up as the new Affordable Care Act is rolled out, resulting in thousands of new applicants for benefits in Essex County alone. These applicants for Food Stamp and Medicaid benefits are overwhelmingly Black and Latin residents.
Instead of hiring more staff so that all these new applications can be processed on time, the county bosses, backed by their state overlords, have kept a hiring freeze in place for years! As a result thousands of unfinished applications pile up in local offices, causing needy clients frustration, lack of health care and hunger. Rank-and-file caseworkers catch the brunt of the clients’ anger while the state and county bosses get off scot free!
Meanwhile, Prudential Insurance Co. received more than $200 million in state tax credits from the NJ Economic Development Authority last year alone. This was in return for a “promise” to create a measly 400 jobs, few of which will go to Newark residents. These giveaways to “Pru” bosses are paying half the cost of their new 20-story office tower (The Real Deal, Dec. 2013), clearly visible from the daily long lines at the main Essex County welfare office.
The campaign against racist understaffing in the welfare centers will continue. PLP will bring to participants in this campaign the idea of a communist world without unemployment where everything produced by the working class is shared according to need.