POLICE BRUTALITY, REPRESSION AND THE CRIMINALIZATION OF A GENERATION MUST BE STOPPED!

by Carl Dix, Revolutionary Communist Party, USA

October 22, the National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality is the day for people to come together and say NO MORE—to police brutality, to immigration raids, to a whole generation being treated like criminals. It has become a day when people across the country take to the streets to call for all this official brutality and repression to STOP. A day when those who suffer this directly have a platform to speak out about how the authorities are coming down on them. And a day when allies from many different walks of life are rallied to stand with them. We in the Revolutionary Communist Party stand with the people coming out on October 22nd and raising this demand, and we call on everyone else to do so as well.

This year, there needs to be a particularly powerful outpouring.

We must take to the streets in massive numbers on October 22. Because brutal murdering cops are stealing the lives of our people and never get punished for their crimes. Think of Sean Bell, gunned down in a hail of 50 police bullets just hours before his wedding. Think of Kathryn Johnson, a 92-year-old grandmother in Atlanta, gunned down by cops who claimed they were after drug dealers. And many, many more people have been killed by those who are sworn to protect and serve. Think of the more than 3000 deaths at the hands of police in the US since 1990 that have been documented by the Stolen Lives Project. Most of these victims were young and Black or Latino. THIS MUST BE STOPPED!

Think of what it means when cops, courts, prosecutors--the whole damned criminal injustice system--treat our youth like criminals, guilty till proven innocent, if they survive to prove their innocence. When cops patrol the halls of the schools in many big cities and brutalize and bully students every day. When more than 2.3 million people, most of them Black or Latino, rot in the prisons and jails of this country. When cops taser a student for daring to question a politician speaking at his university. ALL THIS MUST BE STOPPED!

What does it mean when the immigration police (ICE) raid homes in the middle of the night or drag people away from work during the day, jailing people and breaking up families for the crime of being driven by global capitalism-imperialism to this country in search of work and survival? THESE RAIDS MUST BE STOPPED!

What does it mean when six young Black men in Jena, Louisiana, are hit with criminal charges that could put them away for more than 20 years? Their crime—standing up to white supremacy. They protested a whites-only tree and the lynch nooses that were hung in it. These youth are heroes, not criminals. And they must be supported. WE MUST FREE THE JENA 6!

People are beginning to stand up and to resist. It was very powerful when tens of thousands marched in Jena, Louisiana, on September 20—you got a sense that the people were starting something aimed at not only freeing the Jena 6 but taking on the white supremacy this system has built into its very fabric. There were protests in cities across the country on May First, when tens of thousands marched against attacks on immigrants. There have been outpourings against police murders in New York City, Chicago, Oakland and other places over the last year. And this movement of people standing up has to get stronger. And become part of a revolutionary movement. In that spirit, we call on everyone who sees this injustice for what it is to bring all this resistance together on October 22 and declare to friends, foes and those still standing on the sidelines: we refuse to take this and we are going to unite the people, both the ones directly under this threat and reality and all who are willing to stand with them, to fight till we bring all this to a halt.

On this day, we unite with the demand of the October 22nd Coalition--STOP POLICE BRUTALITY, REPRESSION AND THE CRIMINALIZATION OF A GENERATION! And we call on people who've had all they can stomach of the misery and degradation people are forced to endure all over the world to get with the revolution. The capitalist system is the source of all these problems, and it will take nothing less than revolution to end them once and for all.

We can, and must, change the way people here and around the world are forced to live. There is no need for a system that runs on exploitation. No need for a system that relegates whole sections of people into lives of hustling to get by, getting carted off to prison or being stuck on a treadmill of low-wage, dead-end jobs. No need for a system which requires the repression of whole nationalities of people. No need for a system which carries out brutality, murder and mass imprisonment to enforce its rule.

When people protested in Jena, and against attacks on immigrants, people of different nationalities and from all walks of life began to stand with them. In these developments you can see the seeds of a better society we could bring into being, one where people worked together to produce what was needed and solve problems instead of being divided and fighting against each other. And you can also see the seeds that could grow into a powerful revolutionary movement aimed at getting rid of all the exploitation and oppression this system brings down on people. There IS another way. We can bring a far, far better world into being through revolution. Get with the revolution and be a part of making this vision real.

The challenge is clear. Police brutality and police murder is wrong. The case of the Jena 6 is a concentration of the criminalization of a generation, and they must be freed. Immigration raids are unjust. We have to put aside all the divisions the system puts down on us, come together and declare that we will accept this official brutality no longer. And we must talk about and get to the bottom of what’s causing all this and build a movement that can end this misery and degradation once and for all. As part of doing this, all who see these injustices for what they are must act together on October 22.

STOP POLICE BRUTALITY, REPRESSION AND THE CRIMINALIZATION OF A GENERATION!

WEAR BLACK, FIGHT BACK!

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