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THE RACIST TULSA MASSACRE—
PART 2: SOME IMPORTANT QUESTIONS
AND A DEFINITE CONCLUSION

With the 100th anniversary this year of the Tulsa massacre in 1921, in which armed mobs of racist white people, including many police, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, slaughtered hundreds of Black people, terrorized thousands, and burned down a thriving Black community, with its churches, hospitals, homes, schools, libraries, and businesses—these questions cry out:

How many politicians at the time, of either the Republican or Democratic Party, condemned this racist massacre?

In the face of this massacre, and everything it was part of and concentrated, how many of these politicians did not continue proclaiming: “This is the greatest country in the world”?

The answers are obvious.

And how about now:

In spite of everything that has been brought to light about the reality of this country and its actual history, how many of these ruling class politicians today do not keep on calling this “the greatest country in the world”?

This answer, too, should be obvious.

And here is the obvious, definite conclusion: This system is guilty of the most monstrous crimes—and so are its representatives, functionaries, and enforcers, including those who say things like, “Yes, we have the ‘original sin’ of slavery, and we still have problems like systemic racism, but this is the greatest country in the world, and we are working to become a ‘more perfect union.’”

BULLSHIT!

Your system has always committed, and right now is committing, horrendous crimes against humanity and war crimes against masses of people here and the masses of humanity everywhere. 

And, as I said in Part 1 (The Tulsa Massacre: The Most Profound Lesson): This system will never stop doing this—it can never stop—so long as it is in power and in effect. That is a lesson that we need to firmly grasp—and act on!

And:

The question is not whether this system of capitalism-imperialism needs to go, but how soon it can be swept away by the revolutionary struggle of millions of people who are sickened and outraged by the reality that things like the Tulsa massacre are not some kind of “exception” but the “rule”—a concentration of what this system is all about and how it treats masses of people not only in this country but all over the world.1

 


1. The Tulsa Massacre: The Most Profound Lesson, by Bob Avakian is available at revcom.us.  [back]