NEW YORK CITY, October 10—A multiracial group of antiracists and Progressive Labor Party members helped organize a march today, Indigenous People’s Day at Columbus Circle. The main contradiction in this movement is nationalism versus working-class consciousness. We must reject unity on the basis of the concept of “race” and unite on the multiracial basis of our class, the working class. PLP members within this movement are struggling with friends and fighters to win them to this communist outlook.
Struggle inside the mass organization
The organizing committee was made up of Palestinian, Asian, and Colombian workers,  three of whom have indigenous roots. The initiative arose after an educational activity on ecology and politics in which we decided to focus on the struggle of indigenous workers and at the same time connect it with the environmental destruction.
In the organizing meetings, we addressed the capitalist interests that value nothing more than economic profits and that unleash imperialism, devastating extractivist projects. It was also discussed how so many other workers—indigenous, Black, Latin, Asian, white—suffers from the exploitation of the ruling class and the inhuman and destructive pursuits of capitalism.
New York City invests millions of dollars a year to protect Columbus Circle and the statue from the so-called “discoverer” of America. The country of the U.S. is made possible by the genocide of indigenous workers, enslavement of Black workers, and the servitude of white workers.
Workers here are mobilizing to change the holiday of Columbus Day and recognize it as the Day of the Indigenous People. In other countries, such as those of South America, October 12 is recognized as the International Day of Race or Day of Respect for Cultural Diversity.
But make no mistake—those countries aren’t any less racist against indigenous workers. Workers needs state power, not symbolic empty gestures. Only a communist party, PLP, can achieve that.
A sexist tradition is a sexist tradition
After chanting, we continued with a teach-in for which, despite the rain or thanks to it, we had an audience of 40 people. The first speaker told us about the need to take care of some traditions of indigenous communities as well as the environment. He also emphasized on the importance of connecting with nature and developing a different relationship with “mother earth.” The romanticization of indigenous culture exempts them—wrongly—from criticism and analysis. Today, one such tradition was exposed for its sexism.
During the ride to Randall's Island to join another Indigenous People´s event, each chant was multiracial and international. The march joined a cultural celebration. There, a PL’er who also volunteered for the event, suffered discrimination because she was a woman. The culture of this indigenous community bases this sexist discrimination on sacred and spiritualistic aspects of its tradition. But this is capitalist crap! Under no circumstances do racist and sexist practices of any kind have a basis and reason for being. That is why as a working class we have to continue fighting to abolish capitalism, the source of these divisions.
Workers must own what we produced
When we marched towards the subway station, we kept the doors open so we could have free access to a public service. “Whose streets? Our streets! Whose train? Our train! Whose bus? Our bus!” Public services—actually, all needs—should be free. Under communism, all worker needs would be met by us, the workers.
In addition to chants like “Hey, hey! Ho, ho! This racist system has got to go”,“ Who has the power? We have the power!” there were three short speeches in English and Spanish, one of them by a communist friend who described October 12 as the date that “symbolically constitutes the beginning of a political-military occupation that resulted in extermination of more than 80 million people and the slavery and forced displacement of another hundreds of thousands.”
Communist spirit
The last speech was by a PL’er, who spoke openly of her commitment to "overcome the dark night of capitalism and colonialism" and of the need for communism to solve the environmental crisis and racist discrimination. "We [working class] need to [smash this] profit-driven system so that we can survive as a species," In capitalism, “we are pitted against each other and against the planet that nourishes us ”.
A PL’er shared with us the CHALLENGE editorial (9/8) about the racist treatment of Haitian refugees.  This reminded us that the struggle for liberation and solidarity for our class is the same across the globe. The working class has a natural interest in unity—unity for equity, dignity and respect for our labor power. In every situation, communists struggle to demonstrate their love for the working class. We know that capitalism will be defeated and a communist world will prevail, where workers fight together for their common class interests. PLP is committed to doing that and bringing the best out of every individual with communist spirit.

****
SPEECH FOR INDIGENOUS PEOPLE´S DAY
I join you today as a member of the Progressive Labor Party, as a communist, who is committed to overcoming the dark history of colonialism and capitalism. We need to overcome the oppression of a profit-driven system so that we can survive as a species and so that we can continue with some of the qualities that make us worthy of survival. So much of what made humanity strong and beautiful has been lost to individualism and the placement of profit above everything, and it is killing us. Capitalism is always hungry for more resources to exploit—both from the earth and from us—and cannot tame itself enough to allow us to heal.
The so-called progress of capitalism has marched side by side with death in the form of war, colonization, industrialization, and the destruction of our interconnecting ecosystems and human relations.
Under capitalism, we have been turned against each other, so that our relationships are combative and monetized. [Capitalism has] turned against the planet that nurtures us.  It is good to get rid of the monuments to colonizers and murderers. It is good to have land acknowledgements. But what we need is a transformation, a revolution, that brings a new era without domination.
We cannot go back, only forward, and I have staked my commitment to communism—to a society in which people work together, as family, unifying humanity and restoring balance to a world that has been torn apart. And so in this struggle, I stand with you.
If the best parts of humanity are to survive, we must come together and end the destruction that is capitalism. I stand with you to honor our [working-class] ancestors by building a world that overcomes borders, nurtures the best in each of us, and heals the wounds from which we collectively suffer.
So let us celebrate our [predecessors] while we build toward something better—a world that honors [our class]. The Progressive Labor Party looks to a better future with you.

Alabama strike reveals capitalist corruption 
After visiting Alabama miners and staying in touch with them over the last month and a half, our club has been able to reach out to miners in other countries to connect with them and support them. A few activities are coming up! One, is to celebrate Bolshevik Revolution Day on November 6 at Brighton Beach. We will sell some home-made mead and food to collect funds and support the striking miners in Alabama. Our second goal is to organize an international conference on November 20 to study the history of mining as well as to understand and learn from the miners' experiences. These two events will prepare us for a winter project in Alabama on December 20, where we will support the strike, collaborate at a toy drive and continue building solidarity with the miners.
BlackRock is the largest asset manager in the world and the largest shadow bank. It is the largest stockholder of WarriorMet, the coal company in Alabama where the miners are on strike. Aside from Alabama, this multinational company is involved in the exploitation of mine workers in countries from South America and Africa. At the same time, this corporation fuels war and death around the world by investing in weapons manufacturers, military contractors, and civilian firearms manufacturers in the U.S., Afghanistan and the Middle East.
We, as a Progressive Labor Party club, think that it is important to build internationalism and to draw the connections that one struggle has with another. The world is run by a few companies that control the money and resources and decide the future of the working class.
Our mission is to unveil these capitalists that create war and destruction across the globe and build solidarity among us so that we can overthrow imperialism in and outside of the U.S. We hope you can mark off these dates on your calendar and join us for the events. They will be fun!
*****
Building a base fundamental to struggle and morale
We are Progressive Labor Party (PLP) members that have been organizing with a collective of students, staff, and faculty at the City University of New York (CUNY). During the ongoing pandemic, we have had some modest successes in helping to lead the campaign to build strike readiness against racist austerity. This includes a number of militant caravans to the homes of CUNY presidents, marches through the community, teach-ins and speak-outs, CHALLENGE sales and study groups. We are also active in a collective of rank and file union members who are open to our ideas and agree that students are the key element in building this fightback.
This semester started somewhat slowly for us. It’s been hard to get students to attend events and sometimes our Zoom meetings, usually robust, have ended up small and more low key. We always have big plans, call for mass events, and are good at being bold, but after a few meetings that were not well attended, we wondered if this semester might be one where we just can’t get things going.
Subjectivity is the enemy! That feeling that “things are not going my way,” that our own view on things is what should guide our actions, these are fatal mistakes in the class struggle. The power of the collective is much stronger than subjectivity. Through discussions with other members of our mass organization and insisting that we keep trying, the last few weeks we saw our perseverance pay off. We had an excellent student study group with some of our students where we discussed many important political questions, including the key question of how we can reach more people with PLP’s ideas. We had a well attended student meeting and we helped to lead a student speak-out on campus two weeks ago against CUNY’s racist disorganization. The speak-out was well organized, got front page coverage in a local newspaper, and energized all of us to continue fighting back!
There are important lessons that we can learn from the masses of students and workers.In this period we have learned that relying on our base is key—they were the ones pushing us forward to hold these events. We also learned that our seriousness and dedication builds confidence in us as organizers, and in PLP as a Party that can lead the workers to our ultimate victory. We learned that we need to continue pushing forward, meeting, planning, struggling…and even in what can feel like difficult times, keep going forward!*
*****
Young communists learn from leadership in action
I recently attended my first Party cadre school, which I led along with four other Progressive Labor Party (PLP) members. Being a new and young member of PLP, I was intimidated by the task when first offered. However, it was a valuable experience in many ways. In the months leading up, I coordinated planning meetings with my comrades, and we gradually built our vision for the event. Up until the day of the event, we had only met and discussed virtually—which helped in terms of seeing all the planning notes but lacked the same energy as in-person gatherings.
Our cadre school completely made up for the time apart. With one of our discussion leaders out of state, we led virtual and live discussions based on the theme Communism: Past, Present, and Future. About 40 comrades and friends of  the party participated in discussions and reflected on communism’s distinction from capitalism and socialism. Two of our comrades, who are Metro workers, ended our event with a discussion on an ideal transportation system. One comrade from New York pointed out the ruling class’s tactics to divide workers over financial insecurities for transportation fare.
An older comrade, who introduced me to the Party, commended me and our fellow comrade who led virtually. Despite technical issues and timing, we succeeded in facilitating engaging conversations and using our time to analyze the flaws of the old communist movement and our own actions to fight against the oppressive system of capitalism.
*****

After more than 10,000 refugees from Haiti risked their lives to journey through South American jungles and gang-infested territory to reach the Texas border, they were met by a wave of racist terror. In a throwback to the 18th-century slave catchers, U.S. border patrol agents, mounted on horseback, whipped and kidnapped members of our class—men, women, and children. But this shocking display of inhumanity was nothing new. It was part of a long tradition of liberal atrocities toward immigrant and Black workers. In the United States of Amerikkka, Democrat and Republican rulers alike use racism to divide, exploit, scapegoat, and demonize the most vulnerable workers.
After U.S. President Joe Biden campaigned last year to address “the Trump-created humanitarian crisis at our border” and to stop “denying asylum to people fleeing persecution and violence” (joebiden.com), many were deceived into thinking his administration would be a change from open racist Donald Trump, and that he would welcome immigrants with open arms. The reality exposes the fallacy of “lesser evil” wishful thinking. The fact that liberals are the main danger to the international working class. In fact, Biden is following the same playbook used both by Trump and by Biden’s nightmare Democrat predecessor, Deporter-in-Chief Barack Obama. Like Trump, Biden is cynically exploiting the Covid-19 pandemic and using “Title 42” to authorize his nazi border agents to deny migrants their asylum “rights.” Like Obama, he is expelling migrants en masse—more than 700,000 since February (BuzzFeed, 9/23).
Progressive Labor Party (PLP) fights these racist expulsions and stands in solidarity with workers who are fleeing the instability and destruction caused by capitalism. The international working class must reject all forms of nationalism and borders. The fight to destroy capitalism and imperialist exploitation must be led by Black workers under the banner of the revolutionary communist Progressive Labor Party.
Bosses’racism leads to mass desperate, migrations
Anti-immigrant and anti-Black racism are essential to all capitalist rulers. Since the devastating 2010 earthquake, Haitian bosses have partnered with U.S. and other imperialist thieves in skimming tens of millions of dollars for business “development” while leaving workers in Haiti worse off than ever. This, in turn, has led to the latest mass migration out of Haiti (Current Affairs, November 2016).
In Brazil, the bosses super-exploited these immigrant workers to build stadiums for the 2014 World Cup (Reuters, July 2014). In Chile, they faced racist super-exploitation and terrible poverty; in Venezuela, the collapse of the state capitalist economy caused more of the same. Heading north to the U.S., they had to pass through Mexico under the fake-socialist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who collaborated with the U.S. to keep migrants penned in Mexico while waiting indefinitely for their asylum claims to be processed in the U.S.
Abused, humiliated and rejected, these refugees trekked on from the frying pan into the fire: to the United States, with its horrific history of brutalizing immigrants in general and workers from Haiti in particular.
From Carter to Clinton: racist incarceration
Former U.S. presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan worked hand-in-hand with the arch-criminal Duvalier dictatorship(Papa Doc and Baby Doc, ruthless ex-Presidents of Haiti) They deported asylum seekers back to Haiti, sending many to their torture and death.
In 1991, after Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was ousted in a coup, thousands of fleeing workers were intercepted by the U.S. Coast Guard and penned in an overcrowded camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to await processing. Then President George H.W. Bush ordered the Coast Guard to turn back ships directly to Haiti—a policy denounced as “cruel” by Bill Clinton in his 1992 campaign for president. But after taking office, Clinton reversed course and kept Bush’s policy in place.
He also continued to use Guantánamo Bay for the racist detention of hundreds of refugees from Haiti. His administration justified this racist detention by claiming that they were carriers of the HIV virus, even though the rate of HIV transmission was lower in Haiti than in the U.S.(refugees.org, 9/21).
Obama to Biden: continued racist assault
Under the Obama administration, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton focused on building a favorable climate for business in Haiti. In the name of “free trade,” the U.S. embassy engaged in a joint effort with Haitian elites, factory owners, and big U.S. textile companies to cap the minimum wage in Haiti at 31 cents per hour (COHA.org, 7/11).  
After the 2010 earthquake, the face of the international relief effort was United Nations “special envoy” Bill Clinton, who channeled “relief” efforts to attract foreign investments and profits. At the time, Port-au-Prince lay in ruins. Haitian workers were crowded into filthy tent cities, where thousands died in a cholera epidemic triggered by United Nations “peacekeepers” (pri.org, 10/27/20). As Current Affairs (11/2/16) noted, “the Clinton-led recovery was a disaster.”
Shortly before Obama left office, his Homeland Security Department rounded up thousands of refugees: “Immigration facilities have been so overrun that hundreds of immigrants have been moved to criminal jails, in violation of international norms” (Miami New Times, 12/14/16). Obama’s solution was to ramp up and fast-track deportations to a country then in shambles from Hurricane Matthew and rocked by “violent post election unrest”(Miami New Times, 12/14/16).
Communism = No Borders
In the face of the relentless attacks by Biden and other capitalist bosses, the refugees from Haiti organized migrant caravans to protect themselves from police and gangs, and to take care of one another to the best of their ability.
 As usual, the international working class has turned out in support, with rallies in solidarity throughout the world. At the U.S.-Mexico border, workers from Mexico cooked for the refugees stuck under a bridge in Del Rio, Texas (Mexico Daily News, 9/27). On the U.S. side, community organizations have raised money for them.
As this border crisis continues, we must fight for no deportations—and to build a revolutionary communist party. Borders were created by the capitalists to define which workers were theirs to exploit. But workers have no borders!  We must fight for communism to create a world without nations or exploitation. One class, one world, one Party. Join PLP!

BROOKLYN, NY, October 6—What does winning mean for antiracists in competitive sports within a racist society? That’s the big question in a struggle involving coaches, players, teachers, and parents, including members of Progressive Labor Party (PLP), in the newly integrated John Jay and Millennium High School sports program.
Under capitalism, a system that feeds on inequality and applauds individualism, winning games against rival teams is the be-all and end-all of sports. But communists see winning in a different way. Our victories are defined by antiracism and collectivity. We win by developing people to value the long-term needs of the group over individual achievements.  
At John Jay-Millennium, the girls’ volleyball players and coaches have a special responsibility to help lead and integrate the school as it transitions from two teams—one with mainly Black and Latin players, the other with mostly white and Asian players—to one. This program has a proud history of fighting racist treatment of Black and Latin players by out-of-control school cops. It has also called out the racist funding inequities in the Department of Education’s varsity athletics.
What does antiracist struggle look like on a sports team?
Tryouts for the volleyball team began in August, shortly before the start of the school year. Most of the young women trying out were from Millennium Manhattan school, which in previous years had shared a sports program with the Brooklyn Millennium school at John Jay. When it became clear that John Jay’s Black and Latin students would be left with few spots on the varsity team, antiracism needed to be put front and center.
Though tryouts were extended into the first weeks of school to give more opportunities to students from other John Jay schools, coaches conducted the tryouts as they had in years past.
Less experienced players were sent to a second gym within the building, with the intention of providing targeted support to improve their chances of making the team. But in this case, the result was that most of the Black and Latin athletes went to the second gym, while the head coach remained in the first gym with most of the white and Asian athletes. Many of these students had gained an advantage by playing volleyball on private club teams during the previous year, when public school teams were shut down because of the pandemic. Club volleyball costs serious money, as much as $10,000 per player plus travel expenses—which means that most working class Black and Latin youth don’t have access.
In short, there needed to be a vigorous struggle to discuss and act on the importance of uniting the two programs to create an antiracist, integrated team. Some bold Black players came forward to point out how racist inequities were exposed by the tryouts, and a sharp struggle ensued. What does it mean to have a winning team? Should the most experienced players get all of the meaningful playing time to give the team the best chance to come out on top? Or should the team on the court consistently play more and less experienced players together to advance integration, unity, and the entire squad’s development?  
Make antiracist integration primary over winning
We are up against a segregated and inherently unequal society and public school system. This system is no accident. Capitalism needs racism to survive. It needs to divide white from Black and Latin students and workers so that all can be oppressed and exploited for profit.
Building an antiracist, integrated team on and off the court is one way we can begin to crack the racist divisions the Department of Education
(DOE)trains us all to accept as normal. Since the Black players initiated this struggle, the volleyball team has held multiple discussions about putting antiracism front and center and building team unity. These meetings will continue through the remaining weeks of the season. They are at the core of what we will be most proud of when looking back on this season, whether John Jay Campus wins a championship or not.  
For the first time, players are being asked to evaluate how the team is doing politically as well as athletically. They’re being encouraged to suggest specific strategies for making the team more equitable. The leadership of Black youth—the ones most brutally targeted by this racist systems–is key to this process. A truly integrated team, with more and less experienced players sharing the court together, is happening more consistently. Although fewer Black players than usual tried out for the team due to vaccination requirements and the vaccine hesitancy of many Black families, the team now has as many Black and Latin players as white and Asian players. As they practice volleyball, they’re also practicing antiracist, multiracial unity.    
History of segregated sports teams
The John Jay Campus, a historically Black and Latin school in the heart of a wealthy white neighborhood in Brooklyn, is a model of racist capitalist inequality. It houses three schools that enroll predominantly Black and Latin students from low-income families outside the neighborhood and a fourth school, Millennium Brooklyn, a selective, significantly white high school that has received more funding and resources per student than the other three.
Racist inequalities in sports access were a stunningly obvious feature of the segregated package deal forced by Mayors Michael Bloomberg and Bill de Blasio. The John Jay Campus sports program served 1,859 students, more than 90 percent of them Black or Latin, and was given only nine teams. But the Millennium sports program got 17 teams for only 1,261 students—about half of them from  Millennium High School in Manhattan, which uses John Jay’s gym facilities and is only 25 percent Black and Latin.  
As part of a long-running struggle to integrate the programs and get Black and Latin students their fair share of resources, PLP parents joined with others in designing a sharp antiracist leaflet that rocked the racist status quo. After the killing of George Floyd and the mass protests that followed, the DOE’s blatant racism was too much of an embarrassment even for the shameless school bosses. The two sports teams were integrated–a huge reform victory. But the real work of building antiracist integration is just beginning.
For athletes, coaches, teachers, and parents, the real victory comes every time we stand up to the racist ruling class. Racism isn’t going anywhere as long as we have capitalism. Only under communism, a society where the whole working class will work together for the benefit of all, will racism ever be smashed. In the meantime, all students and workers need to be ready to take action over and over again. If we can make antiracist sports integration the main goal for students, parents, and staff, we will be one step closer to building working-class consciousness and one step closer to smashing capitalism. Stay tuned for more!