Washington, D.C., September 23—Thirty angry protesters rallied against racist killer KKKops in front of the U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS), demanding an end to qualified immunity (QI) for these bosses’ stooges in blue. SCOTUS has ruled that government officials are immune to prosecution from civil lawsuits with certain rare exceptions. QI shields cops and other government flunkies from even fake accountability in their frequent attacks on the working class. We said no more! We chanted loudly against these black-clad fascists, including “No good cops in a racist system!” and “No Justice, No Peace, No Racist Police!”  While this fight is useful in helping teach workers about what role police play in class society, it is ultimately a reform that will do nothing to smash the state. With President Donald Trump ramping up fascist military and cop invasions in D.C., juxtaposed  against declining U.S. hegemony here and across the world, much more work is needed.

That’s why Progressive Labor Party (PLP) members joined in this action, stressing the need for communist revolution against capitalism and its racist structures to bring liberation of our class from the violence of the ruling class.

Workers speak out against racist cops

Survivors of police murders of their sons and family came from near and far to protest. LaToya Benton, the mother of 18-year-old Xzavier Hill (murdered by state troopers in Virginia in 2021) led the protesters through the case, and the group marched around the building to file the complaint against QI, calling for “justice in this town.” LaToya has a hard-hitting podcast on “Life after the Impact” and can be found on Facebook.

Members of PLP joined with many of our friends who have been fighting for justice for years in Prince George’s County, Maryland (PG), including Dorothy Elliott (32 years) and Marion Hopkins (26 years). More recent PG cases involved the murders of Leonard Shand and William Green (CHALLENGE, 6/26/23 and 1/23/24). Tawanda Jones and several members of the West Wednesday Coalition in Baltimore (CHALLENGE 4/10/24) were there as well, amplifying their calls for justice for Tyrone West. Another grieving mother drove 6 ½ hours from Ohio to stand in front of the Supreme Court. 

Building a multiracial party to smash the ruling class 

Qualified Immunity – just another tool of the racist capitalists in their quest to terrorize the working class, deepen racist super-exploitation, and thereby maximize profits. All branches of government work for these rapacious capitalists with no accountability to the working class, leaving only the choice of mass revolution to overthrow their system as the solution to these atrocities. From these struggles, let us build a revolutionary party together.

New York, October  4—Uptown Manhattan is mobilizing our forces on Saturday October 4th against the wave of racist terror that is engulfing the US. Not only has Uptown been facing routine Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)raids and heightened fear among workers, but sidewalk vendors too (overwhelmingly immigrant workers) have been enduring increasing attacks from the KKKops and the Sanitation Dept., who routinely confiscate all their wares and saddle them with large fines they cannot afford. Progressive Labor Party (PLP) continues to be at the heart of the struggle, offering both ideological, strategic, and logistical support at every level, and putting forward our revolutionary line that workers need to organize to take state power!

We are navigating political divisions inside our coalition between those who, like us, want to broaden and deepen the struggle, and those who want to limit it to “safe” demands. For example, there are coalition members who want us to avoid “left-sounding” terminology like “workers of the world” or “workers take power.” One went so far as to say we can’t compare—in this largely Dominican neighborhood—conditions in the Dominican Republic to Uptown Manhattan because there are forces inside the coalition who don’t support Haitian workers. We cannot support such racist, reactionary positions! 

The five-fingered fist of A UNITED WORKING CLASS is our ultimate and only weapon against the bosses’ rising fascism and the racist exploitation of capitalism. History teaches us that anything less is suicide for the working class.

MARCH WITH US—UNITE THE HEIGHTS! 

Saturday, October 4: meet at 193rd Street and St. Nicholas, 2 pm. March to 167th Street. (Mitchell Sq).

UNITE, FIGHT BACK! Workers’ struggles have no racist borders!

Avenge the racist detention of Dylan! 

BREAKING: Dylan López-Contreras, believed to be the first NYC student detained by ICE in this latest surge of racist terror, was just denied asylum by the kangaroo bosses’ KKKourts. We must continue to mobilize our forces and fight back! Ultimately, only a communist revolution, led by a revolutionary communist party, can put an end to the capitalists’ 500-year-old reign of terror.

(Stay tuned for the follow-up article next issue.)

The following is an excerpt from PLP’s document, Fighting Racism: A Key Struggle (1982). For the full version, go to https://tinyurl.com/plpfightingracism. Following the Charlie Kirk debacle, the document serves as a good reminder that while race is a made-up concept, racism is very much a real central aspect this profit system. The fight for an antiracist world is inseparable from a communist one. 

The fight against racism is one of the major aspects of the fight for an egalitarian society and should be seen as central to the struggle for communism. Racism is not an “accidental” or “incidental” aspect of capitalism, but an essential one. Nowhere has there been, or will there be, a capitalist society which is non-racist. Capitalist relations of production created historically and maintained everywhere to the present day the material basis of racism. At the same time, racism, closely linked with anti-communism, is a major aspect of bourgeois ideology.

This article raises a four general points:

(1) The fight against racism under capitalism is not “just another reform.”

(2) Capitalism cannot and will not ever eliminate racism, so all non-communist antiracist movements are doomed to failure.

(3) To the extent that capitalist production relations are allowed to exist under the dictatorship of the proletariat, racism will continue to exist even if efforts are made to fight it on an ideological and on an economic level.

(4) To the extent that racism continues to form a part of people’s consciousness, it will be difficult or impossible to build a communist society.

Racism: a central aspect of capitalism

Pre-capitalist societies had many ways of dividing the oppressed classes and creating group hostilities, but the notion of “race” was probably not one of them. The idea of “natural” differences among human groups--in the sense of biological differences—was closely linked to the rise of modern science. In particular, the development of taxonomy (classification of living things) was a product of the rapid overseas expansion of European mercantile capitalism in the 16th and 17th centuries, and a prerequisite for the “scientific” classification of human “types.”

Creating racism to justify exploitation 

At the same time, the rise of capitalism in Europe depended on the forcible incorporation of Africans, Asians, Native Americans and other “people of color” into the sphere of capitalist production relations. The so-called “primitive accumulation of capital” which fueled the development of industry in Europe was nothing but the expropriation of wealth and labor power from non-European societies. At first, the European bourgeoisie justified this rip-off using religion: the Pope divided the world and told the rulers of Spain and Portugal who could do their ripping-off where. But this was not enough--it was necessary to explain why these people were to be ripped off rather than converted, and besides, after the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century, the leading national bourgeoisie of England, Sweden, and Holland didn’t care what the Pope said anyway. So, the idea of distinct “racial” groups, some of which were supposedly inferior to others, came to play the key legitimizing role. This aspect of racism has remained important to the present day because the logic of capitalism has continued to require overseas expansion and increasingly complete incorporation of all people of the world into the capitalist sphere.

The particular pattern of racism in North America-- in many respects the pattern for all subsequent development--emerged mainly in relation to the emergence of a multiracial work force in the British colonies. Black and white laborers were forced by law into qualitatively different relations of production: slaves were not simply “zero-wage” earners, but were not allowed even the “privilege” of selling their own labor power on the market as an increasing proportion of white laborers were forced to do. Meanwhile, Native Americans, who were not strong enough to maintain their own system of production in the face of the European invasion, but strong enough to resist enslavement, were subjected to genocide. Anti-Black racism thus became the main form of racism in the United States.

With the destruction of slave-capitalism, and the rapid industrialization of the United States in the late nineteenth century, the working class became multiracial, and the system of racist capitalism took on its present shape. The concept of race was written into law, and strict segregation of the so-called “races” was enforced with the power of the state at the point of production and in every other sphere of life. “Separate” was never “equal”, anytime or anywhere. Differential in wages paid, in employment patterns and job classifications, in “social wages” such as education and health care, and so forth--the super-exploitation of supposedly “inferior races”--provided additional billions of dollars ripped off from the working class by capitalist bosses.

Nothing natural about ‘races’

At the same time, the actual differences in the lives of persons of different “races”–created by the bosses themselves--were explained by the bosses’ ideologues as supposedly the result of so-called “natural biological hereditary differences” among these so-called “races.” Thus, social inequality was defended as an inevitable “fact of nature.” Workers were kept divided, at each other’s throats, and in some cases were used as the shock-troops to keep down the superexploited minorities. The worker-farmer Populist movement was destroyed by this racism, and the U.S. labor movement seriously set back. In addition, this ideology of racism played the key role in preventing the development of communist consciousness on a mass scale. To the extent that the super-exploitation of minority workers seemed “natural” (as in the “social-Darwinist” mythology) any possibity of a society based on full social equality must have seemed remote indeed. Racism necessarily leads to anti-communism!
Because racism is an integral part of capitalism, serious antiracists should become communists. Only by destroying the system on which it rests can racism be eliminated.

The fight against racism under capitalism

Under capitalism, so-called “liberal” antiracism will inevitably be turned into its opposite. Liberalism means relying on the bourgeois state--cops, legislation and especially the courts--to stop the KKK and other racist-fascist groups. This is a real loser! Liberalism pushes pacifism as well as legalism, disarming the anti-racist struggle. Liberalism rejects the view that racism stems from capitalism, blaming it instead on individual prejudice, and singling out the white worker as the villain. Since white workers, too, are hurt by racism, this is a version of “blaming the victim.” 

Thus liberalism is also idealist: not recognizing the connection between racist ideas and racist segregation/discrimination, it calls for toleration of racist ideas under the slogan of “free speech.” Liberalism promotes nationalism--”to each his own.” Liberalism and the bourgeois notion of “right” lead to a narrow, economist view of the fight against racist wage differential and so forth, calling for the elimination of overt differential (“equal pay for equal work”), or at best, equal access to different job categories. It cannot deal with the historical fact of segregation and the racist lies pushed to defend it: witness the stampede of liberal ideologues who jumped on the “reverse discrimination” racist bandwagon. Liberalism calls for “toleration” of other “races” in spite of their “differences.” It hides the fact that workers of all so-called “races” have far more in common than they have differences, and the fact that the whole concept of “race” is an invention of the bosses.

Only communist ideas and organization can give the leadership which will ensure that anti-racist organizers avoid these pitfalls. And communists must point out that the logic of real antiracism inevitably leads to an openness to communist ideas.

Because racism is an integral part of capitalism, communists must be antiracist organizers. To take and hold power on a communist program will require masses of workers to the idea of a society organized in the interests of the working class as a class and on the basis of full social (not merely legal) equality. Winning people to these ideas involves convincing them at least of the truth and importance of our analysis of racism. In fact, this may prove to be the largest part of this ideological struggle. Thus, waging serious antiracist struggle on all fronts under capitalism is a prerequisite for the building of communism under the dictatorship of the working class, and is a key political task.

Solidarity for Khalil 

I live in the Morningside Heights/Harlem neighborhood of NYC. This morning while returning from a paper pickup I came across a faculty and staff silent protest (many participants were wearing black) against a judge’s decision this morning to allow for the deportation of Khalil Mahmoud, a Columbia student very active as the liaison between last spring’s student encampment on campus and the Administration.

You’ll remember that Khalil was arrested by ICE  while entering  his apartment building lobby with his then pregnant wife. He was bundled off to an ICE prison where he spent months awaiting a court hearing. When it was held he was released. It now appears he is likely to be deported after this morning’s hearing.

The mood of Columbia is tense and intimidating. Last week a comrade and I distributed a CHALLENGE and a leaflet inviting students to start a Progressive Labor Club. Many students averted their eyes and would not take either. It was as if they were under surveillance. This morning at the Faculty demonstration I was told they are. We did distribute 50 leaflets and about thirty CHALLENGES and are trying to set up a regular CHALLENGE distribution here and close by City College of New York.

There were pictures at the demonstration of other ICE victims, including a NYC high school student named Dylan Lopez Contreras,  one known as Mouctar, and another student originally from Guinea named Mamadou Diallo.

I spoke to a few faculty members who pointed out they have been demonstrating since last Spring, and that they invited members of the community to join with them Mondays at noon. I told them about our small group of retirees from my where each Wednesday a group of us, some in wheelchairs, meet at 6 pm with signs and fliers attacking rising fascism and ICE.
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Set an antifascist tone for the year

After a hectic week marked by the United Nations General Assembly, which was attended by numerous delegations from member countries around the world, but without the Palestinian Authority, whose president was denied a visa by the U.S. government that supports and backs the genocide in Gaza, and on the day that Zionist President Benjamin Netanyahu was scheduled to speak, there was a call for a protest against him and against the extermination of the Palestinian people. During this war more than 70,000 innocent people, including more than 20,000 children, have been killed with shrapnel and bombs from the monstrous and criminal Zionist government of Israel. I was part of that protest, in which I walked the entire route, but I didn’t have a single flyer to distribute, nor did I see anyone else doing so, something that our leaders need to analyze, because these are opportunities we have to spread our ideas and make contacts, a criticism that, as a member, I have to make. In any case, it was a great march, massive, enthusiastic, multiracial, where militant slogans were shouted, led by numerous left-wing groups, condemning the genocide of the Zionist and terrorist state of Israel against the Palestinian people and its nazi leader Benjamin Netanyahu.

On the other hand, in the Community Organization where our club does its work, we had two important activities in which friends from our study group and I, representing the PLP club, participated:

The first was in the morning, when various community organizations that form a coalition and some unions held a press conference in front of 100 Gold Street, followed by a small march to City Hall, calling for the passage of a law that would raise the minimum wage for construction workers to $40 an hour. We did this in persistent rain. Then in the afternoon, we held a protest in Foley Square, in which about 3,000 people participated, followed by a march around Federal Plaza, the fascist immigration building where our immigrant brothers and sisters go for their routine appointments and are detained, mistreated, and humiliated by ICE officials sent by the fascist dictator and terrorist Donald Trump. This happened to the Ecuadorian immigrant and her husband, who, in front of their two young children, was mistreated and thrown to the floor by one of those racists when she defended her husband, who was being detained, and her children, an image that went around the world and demonstrates the terror and fear that the fascist commander-in-chief of the US government wants to sow among the population.  We circled the building twice, shouting slogans against ICE and its gendarmes. The first time, we stopped for a minute of silence for the immigrants killed at the hands of the ICE terrorists. I didn’t have any CHALLENGES either.

Finally, our study group, in which twelve people participated, conducted an in-depth analysis of the international situation, the genocide and war in Gaza, and after a homemade meal shared by all, we took to the streets to distribute a flyer with a greeting from our working class to the community, prepared by a very prominent and experienced member of our party club, who is a great example to all of us. The flyers were very well received, and there was even a young man playing volleyball who called a group of his friends and read it aloud to them, which was surprising for the group of us who went out to distribute the flyers.
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UFT retirees adopting left ideas

Dear CHALLENGE: 

At the recent NYC Labor Day parade, the fight against rising fascism was realized by our work in the United Federation of Teachers- retired teachers chapter, making it an issue for the parade.

A resolution passed in the chapter’s final meeting in June ended in a vote of 85% in favor of adopting an anti fascist position. This led to both a union printed poster for members to carry “teachers make fascists tremble”, and, two nights before the parade, a room full of union members drawing up posters by hand and printing posters up using A.I. software which were carried on the labor day event. Over 1000 flyers written by a working group of 15 retired teachers describing the growing impact of fascism and blaming it not just on Trump but the current international crisis of capitalism were distributed along with CHALLENGESs.

This did not occur as a fluke but as the work of a small group of retired members of PLP building a base for many aspects of the party’s line, including the struggle against ICE and deportations, against racism and sexism, and against fascism in our society at large and in the misleadership of the trade unions.

It is time for comrades and friends to bring the revolutionary ideas of the communist Progressive Labor Party into the labor movement forthrightly.
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Bold against Facism

As fascism intensifies, so does the suppression of teacher and student voices. Last year, my boss sent the whole staff an email stating not to discuss politics with students or even with coworkers. We can’t let their attempts stop us from fighting for our class. Two things occurred in my first week back to school that made me realize I need to be more bold. One coworker told me that his family member works for Border Patrol, as if I wouldn’t physically recoil at the very mention. The next day I wore an “Abolish ICE” shirt to work. A couple days later, a different coworker let me know that he is a communist. Since then, I’ve gone out of my way to have more conversations with him and another coworker, including about improving the union culture at our school. Since the start of the school year, I’ve given the paper to four coworkers in total and invited all four to an upcoming anti-ICE protest. I’ve also had political conversations with at least four others. Several students have brought up current events and started conversations about Charlie Kirk, Palestine, and the Supreme Court ruling about racial profiling. One mentioned feeling like the school feels like a jail in part because of the more stringent electronics ban. We need to do much more than just conversations, but these discussions build the groundwork for greater unity and future fightback down the line. 
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Drop everything and RED

CHALLENGE newspapers are incredibly important for sharing communist ideas and stories of fightback around the world. Self-critically, sometimes I don’t read it as often as I would like and should. To help with this issue in our club, a few comrades and I have been doing CHALLENGE D.E.A.R. time together from time to time, and we plan to do so weekly going forward. We D.E.A.R. (drop everything and read) CHALLENGE for 10 minutes and then discuss what we read for 10 minutes. It helps us understand the articles better, make connections to our work on jobs and mass orgs, and brainstorm who in our base would take interest in certain articles. Last time, we invited a base member to join and we hope he will be back for future D.E.A.R sessions.
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Workers’ lives are not expendable

Today I read a statement by the Palestinian Communist Party (https://mltoday.com/statement-of-the-palestinian-communist-party/) which clearly states the point of the October 7 attack by Hamas and others was to bring the “question [of Zionist oppression] to the forefront... through sacrifices, no matter how high the cost.”  I submitted this comment: 

“As a communist member of the Progressive Labor Party, I find a major aspect of this statement to be very disquieting. I agree that the imperialist interests of the U.S. in the fossil fuels and trade routes are behind its backing of Zionists, and that neither the U.S. nor Israel haves any compunction about committing genocide. However, the point of revolutionary struggle is for the working class to seize power from the capitalist/imperialist oppressors. If there is no possibility of winning that struggle at a point in time, and the predictable outcome is the slaughter of those workers, then the uprising has been ill timed and against the interests of the oppressed. More is needed than returning the “question to the forefront... through sacrifices, no matter how high the cost.”  It seems that there was no plan guaranteeing uprisings in the West Bank or among workers in other nations, that there wasn’t even a plan to involve the majority of workers of Gaza or to safeguard them. In fact the dire consequences to 2 million Gazans of death, disease, deformity, displacement and severe emotional trauma will only leave the entire population decimated and less able to fight back. The overthrow of capitalism and imperialism requires a winning strategy, the building of a mass and international class conscious movement, not the conscious sacrifice of workers.”
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