BRONX, NY — The family of Ramarley Graham and the working-class community here continue to fight the racist NYPD over the execution of this young man on February 2nd, 2012. The KKKop, Richard Haste, has been indicted on a ridiculous 2nd degree manslaughter charge. The trial is set to begin on September 13th. The last of the weekly vigils for Ramarley will take place on July 19th and all workers and students are encouraged to attend. (The vigils take place at 6:00 PM on East 229th street between White Plains and Barnes, in the Bronx.)

One of the chants that rings out during our weekly vigils and marches is “No Justice, No Peace, No Racist Police!” This chant reflects the incredible anger and vigilance in the community over this racist murder. At the same time, it reflects the optimism that many have that “justice” will be served. As we have rooted ourselves deep in the struggle here, PLP members have probed the notion of “justice” that the community yearns for.  

The sad, racist history suggests that the killer Haste will go free. The courts and “justice” system do not stand apart from the cops in their role as protectors of the capitalist system. They both exist to maintain the racism and exploitation that capitalism demands. After all, the courts have been a stopping-point for millions of young black and Latino youth on their way to prison, victims of the racist War on Drugs. (For more information, see Michelle Alexander’s book, The New Jim Crow). 

 Most brutal, racist cops are never made to pay a price for their actions. In White Plains, NY, the cops who murdered a 68-year-old retired black Marine, Kenneth Chamberlain, Sr., were not even indicted. Even when indictments are handed down, cops are usually acquitted. The community knows this history and has been cautious about raising hopes for a conviction.

PL’ers have been asking this question: Even if Haste is somehow amazingly convicted, will this be “justice?” Will the 47th precinct (where Haste was stationed) close up and stop its notoriously racist practices? Will racist police brutality be a thing of the past? Will cops stop murdering black and Latino youth? Police brutality is the sharp edge of a racist capitalist system. Will racist education, health care and unemployment vanish? 

Of course the answer is NO, and although a conviction would be cheered, the courts will never grant the justice that the working class needs. True justice for Ramarley Graham, Shantel Davis, Tamon Robinson, Kenneth Chamberlain, Sr. and all the victims of racist police will come when the remains of the capitalist system and racism lie smoldering in the dust of communist revolution.

BROOKLYN, NY, June 30 — Thirty marchers took to busy streets of Church Avenue today, chanting “Racist kkkops means you gotta fight back!” and “NYPD, you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide!” This was the third week PL’ers joined with family, friends and neighbors of Shantel Davis in angry protest against the June 14 racist murder of this young woman by an undercover NYPD detective. “Wanted” posters made from the front cover of CHALLENGE (7 /5) were held high throughout the march. When PL’ers brought them to the corner they were grabbed up quickly. Promises were made to bring many more next Saturday. Marchers also eagerly took CHALLENGES, and many came back for more to make sure their friends got them.

Previous marches to the local kkkop precinct travelled along quiet streets with few bystanders along the way. But this time the march along Church Avenue, a very busy commercial street, was greeted by workers in stores and people on the sidewalks joining in our chants and raising fists in the air in solidarity with the marchers. As we approached the precinct, we marched strong into the street, ignoring the kkkops’ attempt to push us into a barricaded pen.

Speeches from local politicians and church leaders asked only for an apology and recognition from NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly. But PLP was there to make it clear that it’s not just a few bad kkkops, that the problem is capitalism and that only fighting for communism can end racist police murder and a system that doesn’t provide jobs or education for the working class. People in the community see the connections between various attacks on the working class, notably to the demonstration held earlier this week at the nearby Downstate Hospital, facing cutbacks and layoffs. One friend of the Davis family, when talking with a PL’er, realized that if the “brotherhood” of kkkops is always protecting each other and covering for murder after murder, then “something much bigger has to change.” PLP will continue to participate in this fight against police attacks on the working class.

On Saturday, July 7, those who have been fighting against the Bronx police murder of Ramarley Graham will be joining the march in Flatbush. Join us.

BROOKLYN, June 28 — “This is my hospital! They can’t close it!” a patient declared to hundreds of picketing SUNY Downstate Medical Center workers. Workers flooded out of the hospital to join patients and community people for a lunchtime rally against threatened massive layoffs and the possible closing of this central Brooklyn hospital.

Speakers addressed the racist nature of these cuts in a mostly black community where people already lack access to care, and spoke of the damage that the layoffs would do to the community’s economic health. It’s no coincidence that the cops’ racist murder on June 14 of 23-year-old Shantel Davis occurred only blocks from here. Inadequate health care, massive unemployment, and police killings all reflect the capitalists’ racist outlook that the lives of black and Latino workers have little or no value.

The Downstate rally was organized by Occupy Wall Street’s Healthcare for the 99%, the First Unitarian Church and workers from three unions inside the hospital: United University Professions (UUP), Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA), and Public Employees Federation (PEF). These workers mobilized friends and coworkers to get the word out. The three unions’ leaders refused to endorse the rally, but all showed up when it was clear that many workers would be there. These misleaders defend the system and work to contain workers’ anger. They refuse to mobilize mass action.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo wants to use Brooklyn as a guinea pig to show his bosses in the finance and insurance industries that he can strip healthcare to the bone while shedding workers from the state payroll. One proposal on the table is to move all inpatient care to downtown Brooklyn’s Long Island College Hospital (LICH), an institution that has been driven into the ground by its wealthy and powerful Manhattan parent network, Continuum Health Partners. After LICH was acquired by Downstate at fire sale prices in 2010, its workers came under control of a newly created private entity. If Cuomo can prove to the big bosses that he can successfully force these cuts on workers, it could boost his possible bid for the U.S. presidency in 2016.

According to one disturbing idea pushed by state politicians and union officials like Phil Smith, UUP’s president, the way to save Downstate is to close LICH. Under capitalism, hospitals are moneymaking entities that compete with each other for insurance dollars. In the face of continual state funding cuts, the heads of various other Brooklyn hospitals would certainly like to see Downstate fold, and to have workers and patients fight with each other. But advocating that workers and patients of other hospitals be left out in the cold is a losing strategy! All hospital workers and patients must unite against all the hospital bosses and their bought-and-paid-for politicians.

Some workers who helped organize the Downstate action were disappointed by the worker turnout. Even so, this was possibly the largest action at Downstate in recent history. It also had the most inter-union, multiracial, and worker-patient-community unity. 

Speakers from Progressive Labor Party tied the fight against school cutbacks, racist police murders, and imperialist wars to the struggle at Downstate. They pointed out that while we must fight each attack against us, our victories will be small and temporary as long as the capitalist ruling class controls the media, the government and the purse strings. Become a regular reader of CHALLENGE to learn how we are aiming to win the ultimate fight against these bloodsuckers!

BOSTON, May 23 — Faculty, staff, and alumni of Roxbury Community College (RCC) demonstrated today at the Boston Globe headquarters, charging the newspaper with reporting racist lies to discredit the only predominantly black, Latino, and immigrant college in Massachusetts. The action was organized by PL’ers and friends. Our signs read: “Boston Globe: Racist Mouthpiece for the 1%” and “Boston Globe: Leading the Charge to Attack Public Education.” Many hundreds of motorists saw our signs and dozens honked in support of our anti-racist message.  

Over the previous two weeks, the Globe had printed several columns, articles, and editorials slamming the college administration for mismanaging financial aid for students, under-reporting crime statistics, and refusing to cooperate with businessmen who wanted to start a job-training program at the college.

While there is truth to some of these charges, the long history of mismanagement at RCC is the fault of bosses much higher up than the college’s president, Terrence Gomes, who is retiring under pressure.  It reflects the racist neglect of working-class students by the capitalist class in Massachusetts and its servants in the state government. Decades of mismanagement and corruption at RCC has damaged generations of students and made the college more vulnerable to cutbacks.  

The timing and manner of the Globe’s attack illustrates how all capitalist media are tools of the same bosses who want to transform the community colleges into job-training centers that serve local corporations.   Driven by the global economic crisis to maximize profits, the capitalists need all their schools, from kindergarten through college, to serve the economy more directly and efficiently.  They need rigid educational tracks to produce a small number of highly skilled professionals, a larger number of workers with narrow skill training, and another large number to fill the ranks of the unemployed and the military.  In line with this plan, some schools will be eliminated and others restructured to give workers less. 

Although most RCC faculty and staff are highly committed to fighting for students’ education, many have illusions about the role of the administration and the college itself. They need to understand the class role of RCC as a capitalist institution that helps to perpetuate racist inequalities.  President Gomes has made close to $200,000 a year to serve the needs of local capitalists. One important part of the president’s job is to maintain social control by pretending to represent the interests of students, faculty, and staff.

Because of liberalism, which obscures class differences, many faculty and staff side with “good” bosses like Gomes. These alliances render workers unable to fight in our own interests. As capitalism descends more and more deeply into crisis, and rulers build fascism to hang onto their power, they rely on liberalism to keep our class divided and weak. 

The liberals will parade before the workers as the “peace” wing of the ruling class and offer themselves as the lesser evil to vote for, as against the more open fascists. The liberals then turn around and enact exactly what the bosses need — president Johnson expanding the war in Vietnam and Obama’s post-election 30,00 troop  increase in Afghanistan, among others.  

When the newspaper articles first appeared, many faculty thought that defending the college and its administration was an anti-racist response. The demonstration at the Boston Globe presented a pro-working class alternative to the liberal line of uniting with the administration.  PL’ers at RCC need to work more consistently to build a unified base for faculty, staff, and students while exposing the dangers of reforms.