Over a year ago, the fascist governor of Texas began sending waves of buses filled with migrants to Chicago (of the 40,000 dropped off here about 30 percent are children). The migrants were forced to sleep on the floors of police stations, outside in tents, in airport hallways, packed into overcrowded shelters. In the dead of winter, they were housed for days in city “warming” buses with no facilities, forced to use outdoor portable toilets. All this after many had walked for months and made the deadly trek through the Darien Gap. Most were from Venezuela, some were from Haiti, Colombia, and Peru. All are seeking asylum. All are from countries that the U.S. has major responsibility for making their home countries unlivable. 

The South Shore neighborhood in Chicago is one of the epicenters of a debate that has broken out all over the city. An overwhelmingly poor Black neighborhood, South Shore has seen an influx of immigrants. THE REVCOM CORPS For The Emancipation Of Humanity has an organizing center here, and we have seen lots of people, even those who have been supportive of the revolution, repeating anti-immigrant resentment about how “they” are taking resources that should go to people born here. When Bob Avakian’s social media dispatch #73 came out, “Black People Hating on Immigrants. Nonsense, and worse, from people who should know better,” we knew we had to make a big deal out in the area! We called for a public discussion of this on September 8, and started getting the word out.

Our first outing—just postering with the title of #73—stirred up a lot of controversy! One of the Revcom Corps members reported: 

We were only able to be out for like 30 minutes at one intersection of South Shore but were able to quickly surface the backward thinking this dispatch is speaking to. We had just put up the second poster and a Black man in a car waiting at the light said, “they hate on us too.” A Black woman came up to us and said “I find that insulting.” And I asked her: But is it true? She said, “I love migrants but we've suffered and I don't think it's fair these migrants are getting all these social services.” I went to the flyer of the dispatch and narrowed in on the sentence, “Do you really want to be like the rabid white racists?” To which she doubled down and said I don't want that [the flyer], even though her friend took it. Another Black man at the bus stop made the same point about how unfair it is for migrants to be getting resources, and we're out here in the streets. I showed him the same sentence from BA, and he replied, “I’m not racist.” I said you sure sound like those racists who attacked Black migrants moving up North. I said the same country that enslaved Black people is destroying the livelihood of all these migrants. Quit getting played. He doubled down and said, “I’ll support anyone who goes after these migrants.” I said “like Trump?” He said, “fuck Donald Trump but if he's gonna do something about these migrants I'll get behind him."

Clearly this dispatch touched a nerve! In summing this up, it was important to return to how Bob Avakian (BA) unfolds the argument in #73. There is the provocation of the first part of the title, which is identifying a major problem right now. He sharply calls this out as “nonsense and worse.” But there is also BA’s profound understanding of the experience of Black people in this country and their revolutionary potential. There is the leading edge challenge of “Do you really want to be like the rabid white racists?” which we should not soften one bit! But there is also the question he asks next: “Or, do you want to put an end to this madness—that you, and the immigrants, are being put through?” lifting people's sights and directing them to the revolution we need against this system to get ALL of us free. As BA put it at the end of #73:

All the outrage that people feel, and all the hope and striving for a better way, needs to be dedicated to and focused on working to bring about that emancipating revolution.

In this spirit, over the last week we have gone out every day getting this dispatch out, signing people up to follow @BobAvakianOfficial, and calling people to come September 8. We went out to two predominantly Black high schools on the South Side. We’ve marched around South Shore, and Hyde Park (a mixed neighborhood with a lot of middle class Black people), and took this out to the beaches on the South Side. We also took this out to a mainly Mexican neighborhood, where there has both been some friction with Black people and also been a lot of hatred against recent immigrants from Venezuela (once again, from people who should definitely know better!). Everywhere we go we are turning heads and stirring up controversy. 

At one high school, we had parents and administrators in our face (and calling the cops on us), and an audience of a hundred students listening to what we were saying. Some were ripping up the flyer and agitating against us, others were just caught up in the scene trying to figure out what they thought, while still others were agreeing with us and stuck around to talk more and follow @BobAvakianOfficial. This is the kind of scene we need more of—opening up the controversy around things that people feel deeply, revealing the existing polarization of opinion, and changing that polarization in a revolutionary direction through mass debate.

In our experience so far, the people who are most passionate in response are full of backward reactionary thinking. What we quoted and described above gives a sense of most of what we’re getting in response. There’s also widespread ignorance about who these immigrants are and why they come here, and of the role of U.S. imperialism in forcing immigrants to leave their homelands. 

Within the intensity of this, some people are coming forward to draw a line and take a better stand. One high school student who followed @BobAvakianOfficial told us she argues all the time with family and friends about this. She said, “We're all in the same boat" and should unite. Another grouping of high school students who supported our message said, “Too many are hating on migrants whether they want to admit it or not.” They said some of their teachers (at this predominantly Black school) opposed a walkout they did for Palestine and also talk shit about immigrants. We showed them the question: “Do you want to put an end to this madness—that you, and the immigrants, are being put through?” They said they wanted to be part of that, and followed both the BA social media account and the Chicago REVCOM CORPS account. 

Moving now to give people with these better sentiments ways to build this upcoming program is one way they can meaningfully contribute right now to the revolution, while they learn more about it. And when you are out debating with others, you can learn a whole lot more than in normal times!

In all this, we are fighting to change the terms of how people are thinking about this and repolarize for revolution. As a leading comrade put it, “We are right now in an ideological war for the minds and hearts of the masses against all manner of pervasive reactionary thinking. The stakes could not be higher as autumn looms.” He also pointed out that in this particular battle, we have some things going for us. Above all, we have BA and the powerful (and artful) argumentation, and undeniable truth, in dispatch #73. When people read this—and even more if they listen to it and hear from BA himself—it will have the potential to provoke, challenge, and inspire people. The more we put this right in front of people, and the more we’re able to wield it and reset terms with it in the face of the immigrant-haters—and not chase after and concede to the terms that others are setting—the more we’ll be able to not just win an argument on one point or another, but bring people forward for revolution.

There is also the fact that while people are mainly passionate in the wrong way right now, that passion means we’ve reached deep down, and it is a favorable factor for opening up debate and deep engagement. We have seen this over the last week, and this needs to be opened on a much bigger scale. We are getting back to all the ties that the revcoms have in South Shore and throughout the city to mobilize them for this. We need to reach out to all the journalists, community activists, and clergy who have spoken out on this question. We need to plaster the city with posters of BA’s dispatch #73 and the September 8 meeting.

We cannot overstate the strategic importance of this battle, in this moment. The question of Black people hating on immigrants concentrates whether oppressed people should be trying to get “in” on this system, on the backs of other oppressed people, or whether they will consciously fight for a whole different world. A long-time Black comrade in THE REVCOM CORPS For The Emancipation Of Humanity (and a veteran of the criminal INjustice system), put it this way: Black people competing with immigrants for “resources” and fighting over crumbs is like “fighting over who gets to scrape the bottom of the barrel.” And even claiming “we own the bottom of the barrel!” 

In the same discussion of this dispatch #73 from BA, another REVCOM CORPS member drew on these paragraphs from BA, and we all agreed that this has to become a watchword of what we are fighting for:

Instead of being played to hate on and fight against each other, all the people who are oppressed, exploited, misused, abused, tormented and terrorized under this system—and all people who really care about justice—need to unite to rise up against, and put an end to, this system that is the cause of all this madness, injustice and atrocity.

We are living in a time when it is possible to carry out a revolution that can put an end to this system, and bring into being a radically different and much better system where the fundamental needs and the highest aspirations of people for an emancipating, uplifting way to live can become a reality. All the outrage that people feel, and all the hope and striving for a better way, needs to be dedicated to and focused on working to bring about that emancipating revolution.