Revolution Club Chicago responds to police murder of Maurice Granton Jr.
We Need to Fight the Power, and
Transform the People, for Revolution
June 9, 2018 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
On June 6, Chicago police carried out another act of terror and murder, shooting Maurice Granton Jr. in the back as he was RUNNING AWAY from them. People came up yelling in anguish in the face of the murdering pigs, and the pigs massed up to threaten them. Maurice was taken to the hospital, but was either already dead or died very soon after. Then, in the hospital waiting room, the family and friends of Maurice continued to be dehumanized and traumatized. They were made to wait for hours with no information released about whether he was dead or alive and then they were FORCED OUT of the waiting room and the hospital because they were demanding information! Some of his family who were at the hospital said they only found out he had died when the news started reporting it. Maurice, nicknamed “House Party” among his friends and loved ones, was only 24 years old, and the father of two young daughters.
The pigs are saying Maurice had a gun and they put out a 30-second video to criminalize him and justify murdering him, claiming it shows him sitting down holding a gun before the pigs even came up on him. Again, THEY SHOT HIM IN THE BACK AS HE WAS RUNNING AWAY. Everything about this shows the wanton and arbitrary murder carried out by these pigs for no reason other than to terrorize the masses. Everything about this cries out the need for revolution, for overthrowing this system and replacing it with one where, as Bob Avakian, the leader of the revolution, says, “[I]f we had state power and we were faced with a similar situation, we would sooner have one of our own people’s police killed than go wantonly murder one of the masses. That’s what you’re supposed to do if you’re actually trying to be a servant of the people. You go there and you put your own life on the line, rather than just wantonly murder one of the people.” (from BAsics 2:16)
Editor’s note: Tyisha Miller was a 19-year-old African-American woman shot dead by Riverside, California police in 1998. Miller had been passed out in her car, resulting from a seizure, when police claimed that she suddenly awoke and had a gun; they fired 23 times at her, hitting her at least 12 times, and murdering her. Bob Avakian addressed this.
If you can’t handle this situation differently than this, then get the fuck out of the way. Not only out of the way of this situation, but get off the earth. Get out of the way of the masses of people. Because, you know, we could have handled this situation any number of ways that would have resulted in a much better outcome. And frankly, if we had state power and we were faced with a similar situation, we would sooner have one of our own people’s police killed than go wantonly murder one of the masses. That’s what you’re supposed to do if you’re actually trying to be a servant of the people. You go there and you put your own life on the line, rather than just wantonly murder one of the people. Fuck all this “serve and protect” bullshit! If they were there to serve and protect, they would have found any way but the way they did it to handle this scene. They could have and would have found a solution that was much better than this. This is the way the proletariat, when it’s been in power has handled—and would again handle—this kind of thing, valuing the lives of the masses of people. As opposed to the bourgeoisie in power, where the role of their police is to terrorize the masses, including wantonly murdering them, murdering them without provocation, without necessity, because exactly the more arbitrary the terror is, the more broadly it affects the masses. And that’s one of the reasons why they like to engage in, and have as one of their main functions to engage in, wanton and arbitrary terror against the masses of people.
Bob Avakian, BAsics 2:16
The Revolution Club Chicago put out a call for volunteers to join in going out to the street where Maurice was killed, to do what is said in the strategy for revolution, HOW WE CAN WIN—How We Can Really Make Revolution:
We need to Fight the Power, and Transform the People, for Revolution—protest and resist the injustices and atrocities of this system, and win people to defy and repudiate this putrid system and its ways of thinking, and to take up the outlook and values, and the strategy and program of the revolution, build up the forces for this revolution, and defeat the attempts of the ruling powers to crush the revolution and its leadership. With every “jolt” in society—every crisis, every new outrage, where many people question and resist what they normally accept—we need to seize on this to advance the revolution and expand its organized forces. We need to oppose and disrupt the moves of the ruling powers to isolate, “encircle,” brutalize, mass incarcerate and murderously repress the people who have the hardest life under this system and who most need this revolution. We need to “encircle” them—by bringing forth wave upon wave of people rising up in determined opposition to this system.
A number of people responded, including three people who have stepped into the revolution in the last few weeks, and met up with the Revolution Club outside the train station near where Maurice was killed. As we were getting there and beginning to talk to people, we heard rumors that there was something going on, and later heard that a friend of Maurice’s had just been shot in violence among the masses.
The Revolution Club team posted up and agitated over the bullhorn about the outrage of the pigs murdering Maurice and about the way this system has people fighting each other, and how this is the same shit they do to people all over the world. We drew out how this is all only because of how THIS SYSTEM works and how there is a battle plan and leadership and organization to overthrow this system at the soonest possible time and replace it with a new socialist republic, and NOW IS THE TIME to go to work on shaping the conditions that would make that possible, hundreds and thousands getting organized now and influencing millions for revolution.
Everyone on the Revolution Club team was heartbroken at the murder of Maurice and serious about connecting people up with this revolution. We continually used HOW WE CAN WIN as orientation for the team—with some people before we went out, with others wielding it as we were out together, and then again with everyone afterwards when we summed up together. And we were getting it out to people and using it in our agitation and conversations.
Some of Maurice’s friends and family began to gather near where we were as the time got closer for the vigil to start around the corner. We joined together with them and some people spoke out powerfully, expressing their pain and fury. Then we all went over to the vigil that was organized by some activists and organizations that are part of trying to reform the police.
After their press conference and the release of balloons in honor of Maurice, the Revolution Club team grouped up all together and a spokesperson delivered a message to the vigil: that we were there with them against this intolerable murder, that this will not end without a revolution to overthrow this system, that we are preparing and getting organized now to get in position where millions could be led to do that, and that everyone there can and needs to be part of doing that. People clapped in response to that message and then some came up to find out more.
After the vigil, people were hanging out together for awhile and we stuck around to be there with them and talk further with people. The pigs were passing by periodically and a lawyer volunteer who had come to the vigil was hanging around too, conscious of the fact that the police might try to do something to people after the media and organizations were gone.
When everything was done, the Revolution Club team went a little ways away and sat down together to sum up. A couple of the new people on the team commented that they were glad we decided to stick around longer and stay with people and talk to people, that it was important to let people know we were really there with them and not just leaving when the news cameras leave.
One person was pretty emotional and talked about how this brought back memories of when his cousin was killed by the police. He was also observing that a number of the young people out at the vigil who were friends of Maurice were not that serious. He commented that our approach has to be to leave aside the people who aren’t serious right now, and push forward with the ones who are—and he pointed out that when he was teamed up with one of the Revolution Club members talking with people, they had met someone he thought was more serious and that the Revolution Club member has a way to get back to her.
At the end of the night, we made sure everyone was up on the importance of the upcoming Sunday showing of the film of Bob Avakian’s speech, THE TRUMP/PENCE REGIME MUST GO! In The Name of Humanity, We REFUSE To Accept a Fascist America, A Better World IS Possible, making plans with people for themselves to be there but also to spread the word and work to get others there too.
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