CHICAGO, IL, June 7—“Ummm, it looks like there’s a room full of people behind you?”  The head boss of the local health system sounded surprised and nervous when they saw the numerous supporters who came to the online meeting with U.S. kidney leaders. Getting rid of racist kidney lab tests had proven to be no easy task!

This meeting was supposed to be just the two leaders of our antiracism group and U.S. kidney leadership to explain the struggle in medicine to change decades of racism in biology. The head boss was not expecting us to bring the whole group! We had to show that the number of people determined to remove biologic racism from medicine was large and ready to act outside the usual standards of academia and business.

A brief history of biologic racism
Capitalism and racism go hand in hand, and at this stage of capitalism are so intertwined that it is impossible to imagine one existing without the other. Because the economic benefits of slavery were so great, the U.S. ruling class (especially slave owners) created and codified the idea of race and racism into laws. As historian Lerone Bennett describes in The Road Not Taken (link), the development of racism in the U.S. can be traced through laws deliberately created to separate and control workers. He notes that when Black and white workers united in an uprising against their masters in 1676 in Virginia (Bacon’s rebellion), the laws separating workers by race were dramatically strengthened. To justify their brutal system, they couldn’t tell the truth: “we need free labor to become rich and it is easy to identify the enslaved workers by the color of their skin.”  Racist thinking thus permeated every facet of life including the science of medicine.

And so biologic racism was born. The ideas that there are biologic or genetic differences between races, and that the white race is superior, are lies. Biologic racism was used to justify slavery. Thomas Jefferson said that Black workers had “a difference of structure in the pulmonary apparatus.” This falsehood was used to justify slavery because such forced labor was a way to “vitalize the blood” of supposedly deficient Black workers.

The false idea of biologic racial differences persists despite the fact that the human genome studies show that there are more genetic similarities between racial categories than differences. Antiracist doctors and other health workers including Progressive Labor Party (PLP) members are leading struggles against this biologic racism.

The fight against biologic racism in kidney tests
A PLP member developed a lecture on biologic racism for her coworkers and students. The ensuing discussions led to a proposal to get their hospital to remove race from analyzing laboratory tests for kidney disease. The Covid-19 pandemic put everything on pause--until the George Floyd uprisings by workers against his murder by the kkkops! The ripple effect of militant antiracist struggle moved people at the hospital to form a multiracial antiracism committee that was led by the PLP member.

Race has been included as a component of kidney testing in the United States since 1999. The data to support such inclusion was weak and the biologic claim to support the idea—that Black people have more muscle mass—is racist. Still, this is the way that kidney function has been calculated for over two decades and has resulted in Black patients being diagnosed with kidney disease later than whites and judged not eligible for transplant until they were sicker than their white counterparts.

The PLP member guaranteed that the meetings of this antiracist committee would be more collective than usual staff meetings. Every meeting began with a discussion of an article so that the team built a common base of knowledge. They struggled together to come to mutual understanding and agreement so that all committee members could give leadership to the campaign. The team wrote a paper on removing race from kidney tests, gathered signatures in support, gave lectures on the topic, and emailed their coworkers and friends. By the time this group had started collecting signatures, we knew more about how and why race was included in kidney testing than many kidney specialists!

The local hospital committee voted in support of removing race from kidney function, but this decision was then scrapped by kidney specialists who disagreed and/or wanted to wait for national kidney organizations to okay such a change. The hospital leadership called for a meeting with the two chairs of the committee. Secretly we organized to make sure every member of our antiracist committee and coworkers would attend this meeting. When the camera was turned on at the beginning of the meeting to show 20 people in attendance, the bosses were not happy. When they tried to steer the meeting to the topics they wanted to discuss, we did not let the meeting proceed until our questions were answered. We had to be bold and confrontational backed by our 20 committee members. This meeting was a turning point. It showed the strength we had in numbers and our commitment to this change. When the national guidelines changed to be race-neutral one month later, our hospital was one of the first to apply them due to the work we had done.

Throughout this struggle, the PLP member challenged coworkers to understand the connection between racism and capitalism. There were many times the committee was tested by external forces and internal struggles, but PLP training in prior struggles helped advance this antiracist struggle. The antiracism committee is still fighting today and has gone on to succeed in removing race from lung testing, which previously has kept Black mine workers from getting compensation for Black Lung disease.

The fight continues but needs to be broadened and sharpened
The embedded nature of racism in healthcare will not be eliminated by making every medical test race-neutral. The structural racism built into capitalism to keep the working class divided and weakened is a much larger contributor to worse health outcomes for Black and brown workers. White workers suffer because a working class divided by race cannot fight back effectively for the health and health care they need.

The only way to end structural racism is to destroy capitalism. The billionaire bosses will never give up their wealth to create an equal society. They use structural racism and state violence to grow and maintain their wealth by any means necessary. We need to build a mass communist movement to lead a revolution to seize state power, also by any means necessary. Through communist revolution, we can end the structural racism and poverty that keeps the working class sick. Join PLP!

The two stories below are excerpts from the late Walter Linder’s memoir, A Life of Labor and Love. Wally was a founding member of Progressive Labor Party and passed away on January 3, 2022 at the age of 91, after a lifetime of principled struggle on behalf of the international working class. In addition to being a leader for the working class in school and on the job, he served as an editor and contributor to CHALLENGE, and to the Magazine of Progressive Labor Party.
59th Anniversary of the workers’ paper
The first issue of CHALLENGE (Vol. 1, No 1) came out on June 15, 1964. When we sold that first issue of CHALLENGE, most of us had no idea how significant it was AND the role that CHALLENGE would soon play in the fight against capitalism. The headline on page one  was prophetic: Police War on Harlem. Barely four  weeks later, the Harlem Rebellion started after racist KKKop Thomas Gilligan of the New York Police Department (NYPD) shot and killed young James Powell who, with his friends, was trying to cool off from the July heat by spraying water on themselves and a bystander who complained about it and eventually called the police. This killing was the last straw in a long series of racist oppression. The news media called the rebellion a “riot” but it was most definitely a rebellion!  Most of the stores that were attacked were pawnshops that had been looting the residents of Harlem for decades!

The Progressive Labor Movement (PLM), which became the Progressive Labor Party (PLP) in April 1965, put out its most significant (and briefest!!) leaflet:  Wanted for Murder - Gilligan the Cop. Rebels carried the leaflet all over Harlem. The PLM couldn’t print enough of them!!  ALL of the so-called “Black leaders” had the same false message: Go home and Pray ... don’t fight back!!  But the NYC bosses knew exactly who to attack; the Harlem rebels and the PLM. So-called “free speech” went out the window. In essence, martial law was declared.

On a personal note, I sold the first issue of CHALLENGE in three  locations:  The Upper West Side of Manhattan, the Lower East Side of Manhattan, and the Garment District in Manhattan. The PLM held weekly rallies in the Garment District and CHALLENGE was a big help in getting our message out. We sold CHALLENGE on the street to the garment workers and when the boss wasn’t around, we went inside the shops where we could talk more extensively to several workers simultaneously. Unfortunately, most of us (maybe ALL of us) didn’t understand anything about base building so we didn’t get workers’ names. That’s a key lesson for our newer members:  ALWAYS get names so you can stay in touch and follow up with as many people as possible. That’s key to building the Party.

The police and sanitation departments harassed us while we sold CHALLENGE. They gave me quite a few tickets for supposedly “littering.” After my first ticket, the PLM got me a lawyer who taught me what to say at my trial. After my second ticket, I no longer needed a lawyer; I could defend myself and I did so!

CHALLENGE was the only newspaper, magazine, or TV and radio station that told the truth about the Harlem Rebellion, as well as the many other rebellions in Black neighborhoods  throughout the U.S. The summer of 1964 made it very clear who were the sellouts and who supported the working class. Every one of us should do their utmost to ensure that CHALLENGE continues to be a working-class beacon that will help workers to understand the oppressive nature of capitalism AND the only solution to its miseries: COMMUNIST REVOLUTION!

The workers embrace CHALLENGE
In June 1964, the Progressive Labor Movement decided to print an eight-page weekly newspaper; CHALLENGE was born. Our search for a printer led us to an outfit in Trenton, N.J.

After laying down a deposit, the printer looked at the first issue and told us that would be the last one he’d print.

We called up the Harris offset press manufacturer and asked for a list of newspaper printers to whom it had sold web offset presses. That’s how we found the Sun Publishing Co., located in the Chinese community on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. We showed our first issue to the owner, Mr. Chan, and he agreed to print our newspaper. His wife and kids helped with various tasks. Milt Rosen, PLM chairperson, and I packed the papers into boxes for pick-up.

As it happened, later that month the Harlem rebellion erupted, during which the rebels were holding the front page of CHALLENGE as their flag while marching. This prompted the NYPD Red Squad to visit Mr. Chan and warn him that if he continued to print our paper he would be in for trouble. Chan told them he was within his rights to print any newspaper brought to him.

“What about freedom of the press?” he shot back at the cops’ threat. He was not about to abandon his only account. Years later, when Mr. Chan retired, our search for another printer led us to Brooklyn and Ballan Printing, a company that printed many small community and campus papers—and a huge number of pornographic ones that had sprung up since the 1960s. (The Mafia, in collusion with the owners, had coerced the workers into a local union it controlled.) But neither the owners nor the Mafia counted on the workers’ rebelliousness.

The workers read our paper and saw the various exposés we wrote about the lousy working conditions that profit-hungry bosses were pushing on workers throughout the country.

When we went to pick up the paper, the workers showed us the horrible condition of what passed for their bathroom and asked us to write about it. Our editor Luis Castro wrote an exposé for the next issue, which the workers read with enthusiastic approval.J When the bosses saw the article, they went wild. They told us it was all lies and one-sided and challenged us to print their side, “the truth.” We told them that there was only one “truth,” the “workers’ truth,” which made them even crazier. From then on, they scrutinized every issue. Soon afterwards, the owners renovated the bathroom into a halfway decent condition.

The workers attributed that improvement to the article we had written. When a pre-May Day issue came out, we printed the words of the workers’ anthem, “The Internationale.” When we went to pick up that issue, a pressworker suddenly leapt up the two flights of stairs to the top of the huge web press and in a clear, loud voice began singing “The Internationale.”

As the strains of the final words, “the International working class shall be the human race,” drifted across the pressroom, the workers spontaneously burst into applause.

We never found out how this worker knew the song’s melody, but news of the performance soon traveled to the far reaches of Brooklyn. We are now in our [59]th year of publishing CHALLENGE, and have never missed an issue.

The following is part 1 of a report given at the Abolitions Conference (May 6-8) in Washington, DC.

As a Metro transit worker in DC and a member of Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 689 representing over 10,000 bus operators, train operators, mechanics, custodians, landscapers of Metro, and hundreds of paratransit workers, I wanted to share thoughts about building a revolutionary movement in my workplace.

I was a shop steward and executive board member at my bus garage for six years and a member of the Progressive Labor Party, a revolutionary communist organization. We workers have been frustrated for decades in fighting racism, sexism, and exploitation in our industry. The system we face is rigged against us at every turn. That’s why we have to go beyond reform and join and build a revolutionary party that can both strengthen the labor movement day to day while developing the movement and institutions to overthrow the entire capitalist/imperialist system and build a communist world of equality and collectivity.

For many, this idea seems far-fetched. Some feel that capitalism cannot be defeated in the U.S. But never forget that famous comment from Rosa Luxemburg, the German revolutionary: “Before a revolution happens, it is perceived as impossible; after it happens, it is seen as having been inevitable.” Capitalism is an inherently unstable system, generating wars among the imperialists like today’s increasingly volatile conflicts among the U.S./NATO, Russia, and China and economic crises savaging workers’ well being globally. Communism is the solution to all of capitalism’s attacks.

The contradictions of the labor movement
The labor movement in the U.S. has historically embodied the conflict between reform and revolution. The 19th century Chicago Central Labor Council favored the abolition of capitalism and at the same time campaigned for the 8-hour day. The Haymarket Affair, with a general strike and substantial militancy, was attacked by the police, and the leading revolutionary figures of Chicago’s labor movement were executed by the government for fighting against capitalism. But their example inspired the launch of May Day as the international working-class revolutionary holiday a few years later and inspired global revolutions involving billions of workers.

Other parts of the early labor movement also took a revolutionary approach, including the International Workers of the World (IWW), the early Socialist Party, and the Communist Party USA, through its powerful leadership role in the new industrial unions of the 1930s. But then as now, unions function within a capitalist framework and their leaders often refuse to go beyond simple business unionism. We must return to the days of labor militancy and create an open communist presence that points the finger at capitalism as the racist, sexist, killer of workers that it is.

Transit unions and struggle
The ATU is in a period of growth as more workers are joining us to secure collectively bargained contracts through strikes and other labor actions. We communists are trying to use today’s momentum to build communist leadership in the labor movement to abolish capitalism/imperialism with communist revolution.

Unions as creatures of the capitalist system are structurally limited to negotiate the terms of workers’ exploitation. So even if you do that militantly and in an antiracist fashion, if you aren’t also about building a party to destroy capitalism, then all you are doing is trying to get better terms for your exploitation.

Consider, though, both the potential power and limitations of the labor movement. The workers in major industries such as transportation have the power to stop production and the flow of profits to the capitalists and with communist leadership can galvanize the entire working class to seize power from the bosses.

This power has been recognized and feared by the ruling class. They have dealt with this by agreeing, in key industries, to pay higher wages and give better benefits, reducing to some degree union workers’ material interests in class struggle. The ruling class has also passed laws making it harder for unions in this country to strike through no strike clauses and no solidarity (“secondary boycotts”) strike clauses. Similarly, the capitalist system encourages union leadership positions to be paid much more than other workers, and are seen by some self-interested workers as a way to get out of driving a bus or turning a wrench.

Workers’ power has thus been dramatically hurt by the lack of communist leadership. Efforts by the U.S. ruling class to channel workers outrage into the Democratic Party has weakened class consciousness and militancy. Union leaders have largely abandoned serious strikes. When workers demand strikes, the union leadership and politicians undermine these efforts as quickly as possible. Without disciplined communist leadership, such rank-and-file movements get misdirected and sold out. Without a class analysis of companies extracting profit from the workforce, unions can be quick to settle for “good enough” contracts. Without fighting racism and getting involved in larger societal issues, unions can end up supporting the idea of more police to enforce fare evasion. Without a broader analysis of international politics, unions can be won to supporting imperialist war efforts.

Communists are key to reversing union reformism
A determined core of revolutionary fighters can turn this around. They can make unions become leaders of multiracial fight back, a key to abolishing capitalism.

Based on over a decade of organizing at Metro, I know that workers can be won to the analysis that a disciplined party is necessary to overthrow capitalism. In fact, as a result of our Party’s engagement in decades of militant campaigns and strikes (that are the subject of next issue’s part 2 of this article), we have been able to swell the ranks of our Party group in our transit union. Despite the setbacks in the struggle for reform due to conservative union leaders, we have succeeded by painstakingly building the core of an organization at Metro that can respond to the looming crises of capitalism. We will respond with more militancy, more antiracist unity, and more leadership for communist revolution in the U.S. that will crush our exploiting bosses and their state – permanently –with communist workers power.

June 7—As we go to press, wildfires are burning across six Canadian provinces and a territory and they’re still spreading, pouring more smoke throughout the Atlantic Coast as Code Red for air quality spread. The equivalent of 5 million football fields are on fire!

New York City is declared to have the worst air quality in the world today. One calculator suggested breathing in the air here for 24 hours is the same as smoking 22 cigarettes (Daily Mail, 6/7).

For almost 50 years, scientists have warned us about how global warming—climate change—will destroy our lives. But the bosses have slow-walked any reduction in carbon emissions, and now we are choking to death in Canada and the U.S. while the fossil fuel industry merrily takes its profits to the bank.

There are at least three phenomena that are caused by climate change: rising sea levels, heat waves and forest fires. High temperatures, which are typically not seen until the summer months in Canada, are causing dry conditions and allowing forest fires to break out and spread.

Even Canadian Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson said, “It is a simple fact that Canada is experiencing the impacts of climate change, including more frequent and more extreme wildfires, and the amount of forests burned by wildfire is projected to double by 2050 due to our changing climate, causing longer and more intense wildfire seasons, more extreme weather conditions and increased drought.”

A classic case of Nero (the bosses) fiddling while the working-class burns. It’s capitalism that deserves to go up in smoke, not the working class. Our very survival depends on fighting for communism and burning this vicious capitalist system down. The earth belongs to us, and with the working class in power, it will rise on new foundations.