Labor Day evening there was supposedly a call placed to Chicago police claiming that 32 Venezuelan immigrants were brandishing weapons and riding motorcycles taking over an apartment building on Chicago’s south side. Just like a similar story which spread all over the internet about Venezuelan gangs “taking over” an apartment complex in Aurora, Colorado, this too was a complete fabrication. Chicago police who don’t need an excuse to f* with people did not even bother to write an incident report, because there was nothing to report. No 32 Venezuelans, no weapons, nada, zip.
Meantime, this did not stop the Trump-loving Elon Musk, owner of X, from retweeting the BIG LIE about Venezuelan migrants to millions of followers, garnering over 100,000 likes and sending it viral.
Bob Avakian wrote in his social media dispatch REVOLUTION #26 “Crime and Anti-Immigrant Racism”:
Why are these fascists so aggressively spreading racist anti-immigrant hysteria—and why should any decent person get played by this? Who, and what, is really responsible for the terrible situation that people are facing today? Hint: It is not immigrants. It is the system, the ruling class of this system, and the politicians of both ruling class political parties, Democrat as well as Republican.
Elon Musk is a fascist who has been spewing anti-immigrant hysteria for months—“migrants are stealing your votes, assaulting your daughters, invading your apartment building”!!! But, WHY do decent people get played by this? And while they may not count as “decent,” websites like WorldStarHipHop spread this big load of crap about the phony “invasion” and then people who really should know better run with it. Residents in the immediate area of the building said they were getting calls from concerned relatives and friends as if something was terribly wrong.
On the ground, the reality at the apartment building at the center of the story is very interesting. In recent history, the building has been overwhelmingly Black residents. Immigrants mainly from Venezuela have moved into the building after living in a nearby shelter. When the shelter first opened over a year ago, in a long-shuttered school, there was vocal anti-immigrant push back against it. Today, however, far from conflict, the immigrants who have moved into the neighborhood and at this apartment building hang out with the Black residents.
It makes you wonder, why did this building, out of all the apartment complexes, get targeted to create anti-immigrant hysteria?
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Black people hating on immigrants. Nonsense, and worse, from people who should know better.
Sunday, September 8, 4pm
Revcom Corps Organizing Center
1857 E. 71st Street, Chicago
Journalists at the Chicago Tribune wrote about the anti-immigrant sentiment being whipped up by things like Musk’s completely false tweet and interviewed experts who linked it to the coming presidential election. They also interviewed Robert White, 28, who grew up in Chicago and has friends and relatives who have lived in the building. He said there are several dozen migrants who now also live in the building, many with kids. “They get along,” he said. “It’s a group of us. We’re not doing nothing out of the ordinary,” White said. “We’re enjoying ourselves. Sometimes people don’t like to see that. They like to see us fighting.”