In Cincinnati in July, Samuel DuBose, a 43-year-old Black man, is shot dead after being pulled over for not having a front license tag on his car. In July, police in Seneca, South Carolina kill a white youth, 19-year-old Zachary Hammond, during a minor drug bust. Daniel Robert Avila, a 55-year-old Latino, is shot dead by a San Diego deputy in August after extending his arm at police during a confrontation. In July 2014, Jeanetta Riley, 35, a pregnant, homeless Native American woman with a history of mental problems, is gunned down by police in Sandpoint, Idaho after she refuses to drop a knife.
The sickening list goes on and on—men, women, children, of every color and nationality. And we can be sure that all or nearly all of them came from the ranks of the poorest part of America’s working class.
The police are out of control in America, and no one is safe. Yet many of the people have learned a different lesson from their experience and from the news media. A nationwide poll in mid-July found that nearly three-quarters of Black respondents consider police violence to be an extremely or very serious problem, while less than 20 percent of whites feel the same. Most whites polled felt race has little to do with how the police decide to use deadly force, while most Blacks felt police were more likely to use deadly force against Blacks than whites.
Given the country’s history, it’s not surprising that official violence falls disproportionately on people of color. But most people have been deceived into thinking that the campaign of police terror is all about race. In fact, it is aimed at the poorest workers, who today are of every color and nationality. Over the last 50 years, labor-replacing technology has steadily wiped out the jobs in America and impoverished tens of millions. A new section of the working class has been created that has little or no place in the economy. They share a common poverty regardless of color. Sooner or later they could unite and rebel against their conditions and demand a society that serves their needs, and so from the view of America’s wealthy capitalist rulers, this section has to be divided and controlled by force. Thus the stage is being set for an open, fascist police state.
The campaign of terror is designed to prevent the people from uniting in a fight for their interests. The rulers’ aim is to get the majority of the people to accept unlimited violence against a part of our people. Once this idea is accepted, then the police state can be imposed on everyone.
At the same time, our rulers know that the police crackdown is an embarrassment to them in the international arena. They need a police state, but without the extremes. Thus we see the president and other officials appearing to speak out against it. But the working class must follow its own course. The question today for the workers is, how do we move toward a whole new society, free of poverty and repression? We must fight every instance of police terror, and fight together as one people, one working class. We cannot allow them to pick us off group by group and one by one.
