NYPD GESTAPO ATTACK ON MILLION YOUTH MARCH MUST BE CONDEMNED
By Carl Dix
Revolutionary Worker #974, September 20, 1998
The cowardly assault by New York City Mayor Giuliani and his Pig Department (NYPD) on the Million Youth March must be condemned and opposed. Helicopters buzzing the rally at roof-top level and cops in riot gear rushing the stage. Pigs marauding through apartments in Brooklyn like stormtroopers, shoving guns in people's faces as they conduct house searches for march organizers. Threats to arrest Khallid Muhammad for "inciting to riot." Mayor "Adolph" feels all this showed admirable restraint on the part of the police. The real thing restrained by all this is the rights of the people. And what it showed about the police is their racism, their bullying and their overwhelming fear of 10,000 Black folk coming together to talk about unity and resistance.
Khallid Muhammad's targeting of Jewish people, Koreans or Arabs as enemies of Black people is wrong, straight up. It misdirects and divides people, it is harmful to the cause of liberation, and it lets the real enemy--the system of imperialism--off the hook. But Giuliani and pig chief Howard Safir aren't after Muhammad and other march organizers out of some commitment to racial equality and justice. Let's not forget that Giuliani has built his national political reputation by presiding over and defending escalating police brutality and police murder that especially targets Black and Latino communities and cruel welfare cuts that fall most heavily on women and children of color. The man could give advanced lessons on racism!
Giuliani and Safir are targeting Muhammad and others because he called on people to defend themselves if the police attack them. I'm a revolutionary communist, somebody who's clear that it's going to take mass armed revolution against this capitalist system to end police brutality and all the other indignities people are forced to endure today. I say the people do indeed have a right to defend themselves against the vicious assaults of this system and its pigs.
The Stolen Lives Project of the October 22nd Coalition to Stop Police Brutality, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation has documented 187 people killed by the NYPD between 1992 and 1996. Since the perverse assault on Abner Louima last year, more than 15 people have lost their lives at the hands of NY's swinest. Most of these victims were unarmed.
Giuliani and company feel they can unleash their pigs to brutalize and even murder people, yet they consider it criminal for anyone to even talk about people having a right to defend themselves! We in the Revolutionary Communist Party say people have the right to defend themselves and need to be building a revolutionary movement that can take on all the attacks the system is bringing down today.
Anyone who stands for justice and against the oppression of Black people should feel moved to condemn the pre-planned assault the cops launched on the Million Youth March. The key issue here is not Khallid Muhammad but the police-state program that "Adolph" Giuliani is a fitting front man for. How far they go in bringing this program down on the people will have everything to do with how strongly we unite and stand in resistance to it.
A very important way to resist today is to take to the streets on October 22nd--the National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation. Join with people of different races and nationalities, victims of police brutality, youth who're tired of being scapegoated, grassroots people, ministers, lawyers and others on that day. Together we will take to the streets and wear black in solidarity with the protests and in memory of the victims of police brutality. We must fight together to bring an end to this officially sanctioned brutality.
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