Points of Orientation on the Recent Vicious Crimes in Washington, DC
May 25, 2015 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
1) Capitalism—a society which openly upholds the values of dog-eat-dog—is riddled with vicious and sometimes horrifying criminal acts carried out by individuals in the grip of this ideology. That is part of why we have to get beyond this society and its relations and values.
2) All nationalities of people carry out these crimes, against their own people and against other nationalities. Yet when Black people commit, or are accused of carrying out these crimes against white people, then it is made the cause of national outrage, wall-to-wall coverage, and calls for greater punishment. The system is using these instances to whip up and reinforce racism, and to attempt to dehumanize and demonize ALL Black people.
3) It is worthwhile to remember some previous examples of this kind of thing: Carol Stuart’s husband killed her and blamed her death on a “Black carjacker”; Susan Smith killed her children and also blamed it a Black carjacker; and in the case of the Central Park 5, five young men—four Black and one Latino—spent decades in prison before they were exonerated. In each of these cases, the system whipped people into hysteria against the Black supposed culprits; in each of these cases, it was only later that it came to light that these were NOT the actual criminals (and in the first two cases, it came to light that the white accusers had actually committed the crimes!). In “Propaganda Instruments of the Ruling Class... And the Railroad of the Central Park 5,” an excerpt from BA Speaks: REVOLUTION—NOTHING LESS!, Bob Avakian breaks down how this works.
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