An Open Letter in Defense of the Revolutionary Communist Party
October 20, 2014 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
October 12, 2014
‘‘Not the least formidable of the obstacles blocking the path to Freedom is the anti-Communist hysteria in our country which is deliberately kept alive by the defenders of the status-quo as a barrier to rational thinking on important social questions’’
Dear Sisters, Brothers, Colleagues, Comrades,
From Ferguson and the Mike Brown rallies, I’m wondering why so much time and money is spent on attempting to quash criticism of capitalism? Put the kibosh on folks who challenge us to think for ourselves and do something about the mayhem that is the capitalist world in which we live? Even more importantly, as Malcolm X warned, how we get tricked into seeing the perpetrator as the victim and the victim as the perpetrator--intentionally or mistakenly--from government stamps and coins to religious tracts, think about it!!!
In 1996, Carl Dix of the RCP co-founded the October 22nd Coalition to Stop Police Brutality, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation at a time when few recognized the national epidemic of police murder. It is currently in its 19th year and is to be a high point of Ferguson October, 2014 (October 10-13). At a Center for Constitutional Rights emergency march on Washington against police brutality, it was the Stolen Lives Project banner, listing more than one thousand names of victims of police murder, the first effort to document and combat deaths at the hands of law enforcement that drew me to the selfless workers and victimized families. In 2002, when others were scrambling for a response to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the RCP launched “Not in Our Name” (NION), and brought out more than 100,000 people across the country to “Pledge Resistance” to the U.S. War on the World. A campaign that attacked what Martin Luther King, Jr. called the “Triple Evils,” racism, materialism, and war.
As Martin Luther King. Jr. noted in his historic 1967 Riverside Church speech, “Time to Break Silence,” “Cowardice asks the question, is it safe? Expediency ask the question, is it politic? Vanity asks the question, is it popular? But, conscience asks the question, is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but one must take it because it is right.” (www.thekingcenter.org/blog/mlk-quote-week-conscience-asks-question)
Today, we say stop red baiting… get on with stopping mass incarceration, police terror, repression and the criminalization a generation. Don’t be distracted by the bullshit. We salute the RCP for its consistent, far-sighted, courageous leadership and urge all to join the much needed NATIONAL MONTH OF RESISTANCE TO MASS INCARCERATION, POLICE TERROR, REPRESSION AND THE CRIMINALIZATION OF A GENERATION, on OCTOBER 22ND NO SCHOOL! NO WORK! NO MORE! WEAR BLACK, BLACK LIVES MATTER!
In struggle,
s/EFIA NWANGAZA
Efia Nwangaza, Member
National Stop Mass Incarceration Network Steering Committee
Founder and Director
Malcolm X Center / WMXP – 95.5fm Community Radio
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