It’s Right to Rebel! Get Organized for an Actual Revolution!

Baltimore Uprising: Our Fight Has Just Begun

May 4, 2015 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

On April 12, Baltimore police chased Freddie Gray—a 25-year-old Black man—for the “crime” of making eye contact with a cop. They threw him down and hog-tied him. Then they threw him into a police van. They callously ignored his cries for help and then his deadly silence as he lay paralyzed and suffocating. And somewhere between the brutal arrest of Freddie Gray and whatever happened in the police van itself, the pigs murdered the young man.

Days of protest, resistance, and rebellion followed the death of Freddie Gray. Then, on May 1, Baltimore’s chief prosecutor, Marilyn Mosby, brought a range of charges against six cops for their role in the arrest, injury, and death of Freddie Gray.

People were shocked when this indictment was announced. And why was that? Because time after time, down through the years, the police have carried out murders like this and have not even been indicted. This is what happened in the case of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, shot with his hands up. This is what happened in the case of Eric Garner, the father choked to death in New York City. This is what happened to Andy Lopez, the 13-year-old Latino boy killed for having a toy gun in Santa Rosa, California, in 2013. This is what seems to be happening in the case of Tamir Rice, the 12-year-old boy in Cleveland killed by police for the “crime” of playing with a toy gun, as the months drag by with no indictment.

There is satisfaction at the fact that this indictment came down. But there are questions—questions that people have, and questions that need to be asked. Why were the police indicted, what will happen next, and what must be done to not just indict but to send these killer cops to jail? Then there’s another set of questions: Why did a young man, committing no crime whatsoever, get murdered by police? Why does this keep happening? And what must be done to finally put an end to it?

Let’s get into it.

What the People Accomplished

What made the difference is, first, that after days of demonstrations and agitation, on Monday, April 27, Black people in Baltimore rose up in rebellion. They made it unmistakably clear that they had had enough, and they were no longer asking but DEMANDING that justice be done. They dared to put it on the line.

For this they were attacked—both physically by the pigs and then through words by politicians and media. Obama and the Baltimore mayor both called the youth and others who rose up “thugs,” a racist code-word meant to demonize them, and to set them up for murder. The governor of Maryland sent in the National Guard to terrorize and intimidate, and the powers-that-be clamped down with a curfew. Congressmen, too many preachers in the neighborhood, and the talking heads on TV all lashed out against the so-called “violence” of the uprisers—while they covered up the violence that this system brings down on the people, here and all over the world, in a million different ways. Everyone was told, 24-7, that there was almost certainly not going to be a charge announced on Friday, May 1, the day that they had at first promised information.

But then a funny thing happened. People all over the country began supporting the rebellion. They called out Obama and the mayor for demonizing these youth. They began to point to the institutionalized violence that is life in Black America. And they too rose up, taking the streets and getting arrested—and not just in Baltimore, but all over, from New York to Oakland. Students and middle-class people of all nationalities, as well as people from the ‘hoods, got out there and they would not play by the rules. The whole world was taking notice. People, lots of people, began talking about how this police murder has to STOP and that the stuff giving rise to this has to be identified and uprooted, and that this whole program of mass incarceration has to be over. People—everyday people and new-generation rebels both—were saying this is a system, and that this system was never designed to give justice to Black people. And they weren’t like “well, what are you gonna do about it,” but more like “and we won’t tolerate that shit any more.” Some were talking about revolution, even as different people meant different things when they said it.

All this gave further heart and encouragement to the oppressed basic people of Baltimore, who kept up the fight. Now the commentators changed their tune. They began to talk in worried tones about what was going to happen on Friday if there were no indictment. One city councilperson went so far as to say that Baltimore would burn if there were no indictment. With all that looming—the prospect of wider and fiercer rebellion from those that society has cast off... of growing and (perhaps) increasingly militant support from students and young people all over the country (and beyond)... of increasing questioning of the system itself and what it has done and is doing to Black people... and in the face of all that this taken together would mean for the international standing of the real thugs who run this system if something jumped off... suddenly they found out that, lo and behold, they COULD indict some pigs.

So let’s be clear: Without the struggle, then the uprising, and then the support from all over... without the sharp questions being raised in the minds of millions... there would almost certainly have been no indictment. To put it plainly, the whole uprising around the unjust, brutal, and callous murder of Freddie Gray—the anger illuminated in the streets Monday night and the growing wave of protest in support coming in the following days—FORCED this indictment. It wasn’t some “heroic” DA operating on her own—forces very high up made a calculation that they were going to have do something... for now... to cool things out.

But let’s also be clear on this—an indictment is only an indictment. It is not a conviction and it is not punishment. Take the case of Trayvon Martin, whose mother Sabrina Fulton was in Baltimore showing support for the struggle. They indicted the vigilante who killed Trayvon—but then, when they took him to trial, the same prosecutors who indicted him forgot how to prosecute him—and Trayvon’s killer was not even a cop! And if you want a graphic, horrific example of that, let’s take the case of Rekia Boyd, an unarmed 22-year-old Black woman killed by a cop in Chicago in 2012 as she hung out with friends (none of whom were armed). After three years, when the murdering cop finally came to trial, the judge dismissed all charges and this pig went free, as his family and fellow pigs slapped his back in glee. And this acquittal happened on the very day that people in Baltimore rose up! So, no, we should not forget that these killer cops MUST be convicted and imprisoned for what they did for there to be justice—and that will take continued and repeated and very fierce struggle from the people.

Fight the Power, and Transform the People, for Revolution!

But there’s a deeper point. The horror that happened to Freddie Gray happens to many others, and will keep happening so long as this system exists. And it is part of a larger horror, a program that has been inflicted on African-Americans over the past 40 years that has a definite genocidal element, thrust, and direction to it. Elsewhere in this issue we get into what that system is, why this keeps happening, and the revolution that we need to and can make to change all that. (See Why Do Murders by Police Go On, Over and Over Again? And What Must Be Done to END THIS Once and For All?, "Yes, it is a system -- but what is that system?", and "Yes, this society was NOT designed to give Justice to Black and Latino people. But why is that so—And what must be done about it?")

As we say in that article:

Revolution is not just a catchword. It means something, something real. As we have said:

An actual revolution is a lot more than a protest. An actual revolution requires that millions of people get involved, in an organized way, in a determined fight to dismantle this state apparatus and system and replace it with a completely different state apparatus and system, a whole different way of organizing society, with completely different objectives and ways of life for the people. Fighting the power today has to help build and develop and organize the fight for the whole thing, for an actual revolution. Otherwise we’ll be protesting the same abuses generations from now!

There is no getting around it: it will be a massive struggle, full of sacrifice, to make such a revolution. But this “completely different state apparatus and system” would represent the interests of the masses and back them up in changing all of society, emancipating all of humanity. The revolution we are talking about could easily solve the problem of police murder, for instance, on Day One—with an ethos in the ranks of its security forces in which those forces would rather sacrifice their own lives than endanger one of the masses and in which that force would overall be directed at protecting the masses in struggling to overcome exploitation and oppression, and NOT (as it is today) directed at reinforcing those horrors. Some problems would take longer—but the point is, the road would now be cleared to doing that. The ignorance in which this system keeps people chained would be shattered; the scientific method, as it has been further developed by Bob Avakian, would be right there for people to take up and apply and use to transform the world. And all of society would be able to breathe.

We need to work right now to prepare for this revolution and to bring it closer. We have to build on what was achieved in the past two weeks. We have to continue to fight for justice for Freddie, not relying on them and their lying politicians for one minute. We have to continue to fight against the persecution of the freedom fighters, including those who may have been arrested for violating the outrageous, repressive curfew. And we have to mobilize masses to back these pigs up this summer on the streets. Distributing whistles to everyone in the neighborhood and having everyone from shorties to grandmas blowing them would be a big step! We need to continue to spread this and deepen this spirit all over—in the streets, yes, but also very much on campus and in schools and beyond. Get the poster from revcom.us of some of the people murdered by police way out there, all the time—let people know the reality of this. Encourage people of conscience to get out there and back them up when they take stands.

Most important of all is to build this as part of getting ready for the revolution we actually need to get free. Let the Revolution Clubs be way out there, fighting all night and wrangling all day over what really is the problem and what actually is the solution, and recruiting people to “get organized for an actual revolution”—be part of the thousands today who are influencing millions and getting ready for—and pushing closer to—the day when millions can be led in the all-out struggle for power. Let this be a summer where people learn about Bob Avakian—where they watch his video BA Speaks: REVOLUTION—NOTHING LESS! and watch as well the video of his Dialogue with Cornel West... and wear the “Revolution—Nothing Less!” T-shirt as part of spreading the word about, influence of, and all-round spirit of revolution. Let them learn about the scientific understanding of how to change society, about Bob Avakian’s new synthesis of communism and the Party he leads, the Revolutionary Communist Party.

Let’s go: our fight has just begun.

 

 

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