The Misogynistic, Racist Murders in Atlanta Cry Out for Justice... and, Most of All, REVOLUTION!

March 22, 2021 | revcom.us

 

This week a gunman murdered eight people—six of them immigrant Asian women—supposedly to help him resist “sexual temptation.” This act of mass murder struck further terror into the hearts of Asian people—immigrants and those born here alike—who already faced an escalating wave of bigotry and violence, stoked in large part by the open racism and xenophobia of the fascist Trump/Pence regime. And the view of women as objects of “sexual temptation” that must be controlled—and even outright exterminated—echoed thousands of years of religious shame, blame and violent control over women's bodies and sexuality at the hands of men and patriarchal institutions. For very good reasons, thousands have poured out into vigils and protests against this mass murder, and this must be supported.

But the oppression of women and the mentality of white supremacy are not “once-in-a-while” things in America—they have been deeply woven into the historic fabric and daily life of U.S. society and are integral to the functioning of the capitalist-imperialist system that defines it. They cannot be uprooted by words of sympathy, vows of reform, more policing and prosecutions; nor can they be fundamentally changed by better education, safe spaces, shifting funds from police to mental health workers. The righteous outrage and pain pouring across the country against this mass killing and the hatred of Asian people and women that pervades this society must be “transformed, through struggle, into revolutionary understanding, determination, and organization.”

The uprooting of the oppression of women; of the virulent white supremacy that saturates America; of America’s attempted imperialist domination of the majority of the world; and of the demonization and oppression of immigrants in fact require revolution, nothing less. These contradictions are intensifying, here and around the world.

Again, starkly revealed is the basic truth put forward by Bob Avakian:

Atlanta, Georgia. Saturday, March 20. Photo: AP