From the Revolution Club in Chicago:
Another Day In the ‘Hood—Until...
July 4, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
On Sunday of the July 4th weekend, three members of the Revolution Club pulled into a South Side Chicago neighborhood to catch up with some people about the upcoming anti-4th of July picnic. On a stretch of the block where there are usually a lot of people around, it was empty and police were roaming around in the yard of an abandoned house. The revcoms started blowing whistles, and some people gathered while others nearby hung around watching.
The pigs in the yard turned around at the sound of the whistles and came towards where the revcoms were blowing whistles, walking out of the yard. They were trying to laugh it off and make fun of it, as they were heading back towards their car to leave. People were digging that the whistles were having an effect on the police. The pigs decided not to leave. They sat in their car and one of them started yelling out to the people gathered around that if this kept going, they were going to come down harder on people there.
Some people started telling the revcoms they should stop blowing the whistles so that the pigs will leave. Some started saying if you keep doing this, when you leave they are going to come back and come after us. Others said to keep it up, that these police mess with them all the time, and some who had whistles periodically added in their own whistle-blowing. The revcoms spoke and agitated to people: yes, they will come back, if you stand here and stand up to them, they will try to make you pay for it—because that is the whole point of what their role is: they are here to enforce the conditions they’ve got you in, they are the overseers keeping you on the plantation, they are here to keep you in your place and they want you to bow down, to obey, to run from them. They don’t want you to stand up, they don’t want you to get with the revolution. But there’s no way to freedom without a cost, there’s no way to fight to get rid of this system without going THROUGH THEM. The revolutionaries will stand with you, and every time they hit, we will bring forward more forces for revolution and strengthen the ability of people to fight back, and lead people to fight all the way through to get rid of the whole system these pigs are enforcing.
The pigs had called a sergeant onto the scene and they began gathering up like they were getting ready to move on the revcoms. There were about 20 people around—nobody had left and a couple more had gathered, but people were still weighing where they stood in relation to all this. Then, two guys who are known and respected in the neighborhood walked right up to the revcoms, a few feet away from where the police had lined up in a stand-off, and hugged one of them, calling him by name and thanking him for what the revolutionaries were doing. This changed things. The guys knew very well that they were making themselves a target to the police by stepping forward in this way, but they felt compelled to stand with the revolutionaries in this situation. And in doing so, they set an example for others around. The pigs shifted to making more outright and explicit threats, and at the same time the people around got firmer in their own support for the revcoms and standing with them.
One pig in particular, nicknamed GI Joe by the masses, started saying, “Nobody gets a pass around here anymore,” but at that point, the more they huffed and puffed, the less intimidating they looked. His tough guy posturing just looked more and more ridiculous as he zeroed his frown in on one of the revolutionaries trying to look intimidating and that elementary schoolyard shit wasn’t working. One youth joked afterwards that this pig thought he was Denzel Washington in Training Day (and for those who have seen the movie, all the threats made by Denzel’s character didn’t make the people go along).
Eventually, the pigs had to back off, reduced to oinking and snorting out threats as they left, promising to come back and find any excuse—and no excuse—to retaliate and come down hard on people there. Even while some people were predicting, “Somebody over here is going to go to jail tonight,” there was an air of celebration as the pigs drove off. People came up asking for whistles and Revolution—Nothing Less! t-shirts and put them on right there. Up and down the block people were in conversation with the revolutionaries—talking about how to get organized to stand up against attempts by the pigs to retaliate, and talking about what the revolution is about and what it means to get organized for revolution. People were watching clips of Bob Avakian and getting introduced to the leadership we have for how to fight, how to win, and how to make a revolution that is worth winning, to get to the emancipation of all humanity.
This is promising. But the revcoms know that this can’t be a one-shot feel-good one day thing—the organizing has to be done for real, and people from this neighborhood can’t just hold it down here, they have to be part of spreading this citywide.
The revcoms also know that the pigs will try to make good on their threats. But it is clear, right from the mouths of the pigs themselves, that any arrests in this neighborhood will be in retaliation for people exercising their right to assemble and hear people talk, and the revcoms will stand with the masses in fighting any of these bullshit, illegitimate arrests. In fact, we are going back to the neighborhood this week to make good on people’s requests and desire to get organized, and to stand with them against any attacks for daring to raise their heads.
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