Students slam Minga surveillance

Minga is a digital hall pass system that has just been started at my high school in Chicago. It forces you to type in your ID to get a pass and it starts a timer for five minutes and you have to return to log back in before the time runs out or it pings a security guard to go look for you. It limits the number of times you can use the bathroom during the day. It is sexist because there is not enough time or number of visits for girls on their period. It doesn’t solve any problems for teachers or the school. It just causes more problems for the kids and teachers. It uses money that Chicago Public Schools (CPS) doesn’t really have to get us used to the “clock in, clock out” mentality and the surveillance state. 

The money could be better spent on extracurriculars like sports or art. 

The students have done lots of organizing against Minga. There was a walkout on the first day that it went live. The first wave had 30 students, then the second wave had 15-20 students.  We’ve also started a petition against it and some of us have made anti-Minga merch and other anti-Minga art. Students have researched the company and made google docs that we all are sharing with each other, explaining the possible harm. We tried putting those concerns into a Q&A to the principal and school leadership and they shut us down and said our concerns weren’t valid or real. Teachers don’t like it either. It is a useless system that nobody asked for.  Hopefully this information will be helpful to any other teachers or students who see surveillance software like Minga being introduced in their school. We need to fight back against these sexist and repressive systems. 
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We used CHALLENGE to analyze the world

After more than two months without an in-person meeting due to inclement weather, our Study Group was finally able to gather again this Sunday, March 22. With the arrival of spring and its pleasant temperatures, we met at our usual location with 17 predominantly Spanish-speaking PL’ers and friends.

This was a particularly meaningful study group. We were joined by a Latin woman leader from the mutual aid club, who brought with her two new women workers — recently immigrated from Colombia — along with their children, all attending our study group for the first time.

We began with a warm welcome, introductions, and brief presentations. Our comrade, accompanied by our two new friends, then read aloud the excellent editorial from our newspaper CHALLENGE, which focused on the war against Iran. This was followed by a rich discussion in which we examined the root causes of the war and the motivations behind the attacks carried out by Israel and the United States.

Some comrades offered thoughtful and in-depth analyses, while others contributed perspectives that, though not fully aligned with our party’s line, were valuable nonetheless. Overall, everyone present came away with a clearer understanding that this war is part of the broader global crisis of capitalism and the decline of U.S. imperial power — increasingly challenged by China and, to a lesser extent, Russia — as these imperialist powers compete for control over resources and spheres of influence, particularly oil.

We discussed how Venezuela came first: with the effective kidnapping of Nicolás Maduro, the United States secured control over its oil. Not satisfied, the attack on Iran followed, using the same justifications initially deployed against Venezuela — that these governments were dictatorships oppressing their people and therefore had to be removed. In time, however, it became clear that the true motive was oil, and in the case of the Middle East, control over critical global trade routes as well.

The broader aim is to prevent rivals like Russia and China from gaining access to these vital resources and strategic corridors. We also discussed how the escalation of these conflicts could lead to a third world war, with unimaginable consequences — especially for the international working class.

Three comrades gave a clear voice to our shared conclusion: under capitalism, the working class will always suffer. No ruling class, on any side, will meet our growing needs. Under this brutal system, poverty, exploitation, hunger, misery, lack of healthcare, and mass death are not accidents — they are the norm. It is the children of the working class who are sent to serve as cannon fodder in endless wars.

Only under a communist society — with workers’ power and under the leadership of our PLP — will our class be able to meet its needs. To achieve this, we must make a revolution and seize power. That is why it is essential to build our party into a mass revolutionary organization and to transform the next inevitable world war into a struggle for communism.

At this moment, our newspaper CHALLENGE is a crucial tool for spreading our political line, alongside our work in community organizations, churches, schools, and workplaces. Through these efforts, we aim to grow our ranks by inviting more people into our Study Groups.

We also discussed May Day and the importance of bringing as many friends and community members as possible to join us on Saturday, May 2. As we do every year, we will march proudly with our red flags — full of energy, commitment, and solidarity — raising our revolutionary and communist slogans.

One important self-criticism and takeaway from this study group: our two new friends said very little throughout the meeting. When asked for feedback afterward, they shared that the editorial was informative but a lot to absorb, and that they would like the opportunity to read the paper and ease into the study groups gradually. They expressed genuine interest in learning more about communism and what we fight for, and they hope to attend future sessions to deepen their understanding of our line. This was a valuable reminder that as we grow, we must create space for workers who are joining us at every level of political development.
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Stomp out sexism!

Recently, it has been revealed that the late labor misleader, Cesar Chavez, was a serial rapist, having raped multiple women with at least two of them reporting that Chavez’s abuse of them started when they were teenage girls. Dolores Huerta, Chavez’s biggest ally, revealed that she too been raped by Chavez and had two children by him, admitting that she didn’t say anything because she didn’t want to discredit the United Farm Workers movement.

The revelations of Chavez’s transgressions reminded me of the plights that women in similar movements had to endure. The Black Panther Party, despite a large percentage of its members being women, were subjected to physical, emotional, and sexual abuse by prominent male members who felt resentful of having to take orders from female leaderships. Marlene Cummins, who was a leader in the Australian chapter of the Black Panther Party in the 70s, spoke of her experiences with physical and sexual violence in her 2014 documentary, Black Panther Woman. Cummins recalled that the victims couldn’t report due to lack of support in those days. Sexism is a big issue that can hinder potential revolutionary movements if not addressed and dealt with accordingly.

I think it’s important to acknowledge that while members of these movements achieved great things, they were also human, full of contradictions, and susceptible to the bad ideas of capitalism. I say all of this not to justify sexist behavior in these movements, but to point out how the ruling class loves to create a cult of personality surrounding these men. They are mythologized in the media, while their transgressions are whitewashed.

The accounts of these women and their experiences remind me of how important it is for the Progressive Labor Party to continue the practice of democratic centralism, which encourages collective accountability by disciplining anti-social behaviors, and promotes speaking up, being open to receiving and giving criticisms not in a harsh way, but in a reflective way that helps our movement grow, unlike bourgeois democracy, which protects sexist abusers like Cesar Chavez, Eldridge Cleaver, Jeffrey Epstein, and countless others.  It is not enough to be anti-sexist.

We must actively address and stomp out sexist behaviors.
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