10 Days, 6 Outrages: What This Says About AmeriKKKa

April 23, 2018 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

April 3: University of Chicago Police shoot a Black/Asian student who is clearly having a mental health crisis and then charge him with assault. April 5: A young Black man convicted of burglary and theft is also found guilty of murder and sentenced to 30 years in prison for the death of his friend who was murdered by the police. April 5: Cops fire more than 30 shots into a car in a Walmart parking lot, killing a 26-year-old Black man. April 12: Two Black men are arrested in Starbucks for “not ordering anything.” April 12: A white racist shoots at a Black youth asking for directions. April 13: Cambridge pigs beat Black Harvard student who is standing in the street, naked and mentally disoriented.

These are not aberrations, isolated incidents. It is a basic fact that whether it is in the news or not, police murder of Black people, racist vigilante attacks, blatant discrimination goes on all the time. But this is not happening just because of individual racist cops, judges, store managers, or neighbors—and it won’t be stopped by “diversity training.” There is a bigger pattern here that reveals something deeper and built into the capitalist-imperialist system we live under.

There has been righteous anger and protests at these incidents. Many are sick and tired of hearing about such outrages happening over and over and over again. And people need to ask themselves: What kind of society, what kind of government, what kind of ruling class unleashes this, sanctions this, and does nothing to stop this?

This situation is utterly needless. But it IS necessary to this system. White supremacy has been a part of the DNA of Amerikkka from day one. As Bob Avakian has said, “There would be no United States as we know it today without slavery. That is a simple and basic truth.” (BAsics 1:1) And now the workings and policies of this white supremacist system are in the hands of all-but-open fascist—Trump, who continues to demonize Black people and institute all kinds of moves to unleash the police even more and heighten repression. This is the overall situation in which these police murders, white vigilantism, and freelance racist actions are taking place.

From the cops whose job is to repress, brutalize, and murder—to keep Black people under control. To the white racist “neighbors,” business owners, managers, and others—who act as freelance enforcers of white supremacy, intent on maintaining the privilege of white people and enforcing the oppression and discrimination of Black people in all different parts in society. To the armed KKKers who Trump calls “good people.” To the less overt, but still racist acts carried out in the name of “safety,” “protecting my business,” or getting a good education for my kids, maintaining “law and order,” etc. This is 2018, but this can be compared to the bounty men who hunted down escaped slaves, the “good Southern families” who carried out the most brutal measures to keep the slaves “in their place,” the KKK nightriders who accosted Black men and lynched them in the forests, and the respectable people who tsked and turned their heads.

A different kind of society—without all this—is possible. But it is not going to happen by trying to reform this system, by simply trying to “change people’s thinking.” If we want to know how to put an END to all this, once and for all, we have to get at the root of why this shit keeps happening. We have to understand how these things keep happening because of the very nature of this system.

It will take a revolution to get beyond not only these horrors, but all of the unnecessary madness plaguing humanity—a real revolution aimed at getting rid of this system and bringing into being a whole different economic and political system aimed at emancipating all of humanity. There must be an uncompromising struggle against racist white vigilantism and the police murder of Black people—as an important part of preparing the time for when the people can make revolution to get rid of this goddamn system. Bob Avakian has said:

There will never be a revolutionary movement in this country that doesn’t fully unleash and give expression to the sometimes openly expressed, sometimes expressed in partial ways, sometimes expressed in wrong ways, but deeply, deeply felt desire to be rid of these long centuries of oppression [of Black people]. There’s never gonna be a revolution in this country, and there never should be, that doesn’t make that one key foundation of what it’s all about. (BAsics 3:19)

Because of the struggle of millions of people, some things have changed. We don’t have straight up legal segregation and the KKK is not just running amok lynching people. But we still have the same system with new ways of enforcing white supremacy. And the oppression of Black people is manifested in a thousand different ways—not only in open violence and blatant discrimination but revealed in all social indicators like incarceration rates, health, education, income, social services, etc. For example, maternal and infant mortality rates among Black people are twice as high compared to the rates among white people—and segregation and unequal treatment in housing continue and are even intensifying in many ways.

A revolution to get rid of this system and to bring into being a whole new, liberating society IS possible. With the leadership of Bob Avakian, there is a truly scientific way to understand the roots of this oppression, the forces that keep it going, and the way to overcome it—as part of overcoming and abolishing all other forms of exploitation and oppression and destructive conflicts among the people, and emancipating humanity. This is the new communism of Bob Avakian (BA).

So every time, when another outrage happens—when there’s yet another police murder of an unarmed Black man, yet another racist vigilante attack, yet another incident of blatant discrimination—get mad. But don’t just get mad. We need to fight the power, build the movement for revolution, and as we do that, get into BA to understand how we can put an end to this shit once and for all.

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