The masses in the streets in cities across the US were enraged by far more than the acquittal of George Zimmerman, killer of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida. As in Brazil, where protests increased after fare hikes were cancelled, they are deeply angry with the system – capitalism – and wide-open to revolutionary communist ideas.
"We weren't surprised by the verdict," we heard again and again. "The whole history of the U.S. is a history of racism."
When we said, "The wage system requires racism," people listened. When we said, "To end racism, we need to get rid of capitalism," there were few who disagreed. And when we said that communist revolution can end racism, many were eager to hear more.

Racism is the "Achilles' Heel" of Capitalism
The Achilles tendon in your heel allows you to run fast and long. Racism allows the capitalists to reap super-profits and to stay in power by dividing the working class. But an injury to the Achilles tendon can put you on the bench. Likewise, racism is one of capitalism's most vulnerable points.
The outrageous levels of unemployment among black workers, the criminalization of black youth, the repressive "gang injunctions" that won't stop the epidemic of shooting deaths… . these manifestations of intensifying racism should not confuse us about the crucial role of black workers and soldiers.
Fact: Black workers in the US are more likely than average to be employed in production, transportation, and material moving occupations. Fact: Black soldiers are 22% of the enlisted people in the US Army, though only 16% of the population of 18-39-year-olds with high school diplomas.
Fact: Military brass complain that "during time of conflict, [black soldiers'] propensity to serve declines dramatically." Racism is the cutting edge of the bosses' sharpening attack on all workers, especially as they prepare for eventual war against their main rivals Russia and China. But black workers and youth remain a key potential revolutionary force, and the bosses know it.
That's why, after the first wave of rebellion following the Zimmerman verdict, liberal organizations rushed to corral the anger of the masses into a "new civil rights" reform struggle for "demands" like federal charges against Zimmerman and an end to racial profiling and mass incarceration. That's why Obama's emotional speech was aimed to win anti-racists back to patriotically feeling "part of America." Mass anti-racist rebellions in Detroit and inside the US military helped to derail the US imperialist war in Vietnam. Mass rebellions today worldwide are temporarily upstaging inter-imperialist conflict.
Struggles like these change us. They expand opportunities to mobilize the masses for communism. "This has opened peoples' minds to something they never thought of—that the whole system has to go," said a young LA comrade. "People aren't afraid of the cops," declared a Red Flag reader who marched in New York City with a group of friends.

"How Will Communism End Racism?"
To uproot racism forever we must destroy its material basis: capitalist profits, markets, money, and wageslavery. But there's much more.
Mobilizing for communism includes struggling to tear down the social and physical walls the bosses have built to divide us. At school, at work, in our neighborhoods and in our homes we must build unbreakable ties among workers, soldiers, and youth based on sharp and principled struggle and criticism/self-criticism. Communists must lead in exposing the bosses' divisive ideas and building communist class solidarity. Racist and sexist jokes are not funny. Putting people down because of age, language or disability is unacceptable. We must seek out and bring out the best in everyone, building the commitment to fight for the world we need and deserve. This process will advance by leaps once the masses have won power and are using it to transform every aspect of life.
Communism will have no gated communities like the one Zimmerman patrolled. The masses mobilized for communism will allocate housing according to need, integrating every community worldwide to destroy the capitalists' invented concepts of nations and race.
Communist education integrated with our communist production for need will allow plenty of time for community events where we can get to know each other better, build communist social relationships, and learn to treat each other with appreciation, respect and love.
Instead of "neighborhood watch" vigilantes like racist wannabe-cop Zimmerman, we'll all look out for one another. If individuals cause trouble – still influenced by capitalist ideology – the whole community will mobilize to deal with them. We will be ruthless with those who intentionally mobilize around racism to disrupt communist society in an effort to bring back capitalism.

Mobilizing the Masses for Communism Now
"I never saw anything like this," said a young adult comrade who attended the Leimert Park rally in LA the night the verdict was announced. "I thought about going to the mic to give a speech, but I didn't think people were ready to hear what I had to say."
We wish he had! We wish we'd helped him plan a speech!
Our comrade was right about the assorted anticommunist black nationalists and small-businessmen who called the rally, but wrong about the masses who poured in as the night wore on, and who eagerly took Red Flag and our leaflet. Other people say, "Yeah, we need to get rid of capitalism, but you need to take people step by step." We disagree. When the masses are in motion is exactly when the struggle over political line must be sharpest.
The steps we need to take now include increasing the circulation of Red Flag and the membership of our Party, along with finding many ways to move our friends into action around communist ideas.
We ask every comrade and every reader to find ways to step up to our historic task.

The Zimmerman verdict exposed important contradictions that threaten to hamstring US imperialism in its long-term preparations for world war.
The US imperialists themselves push the "gun culture." They are the world's biggest arms dealers. Their Army gives out "shoot- 'em-up" video games to children, hoping to enlist them later. The video-game industry is developing the mind-set and skills in young adults for future operators of killer drones and other weapons.
The military needs soldiers who will "stand their ground" and kill other young workers who "look different" in the imperialists' wars for maximum profit. The Texas jury that acquitted Ezekiel Gilbert, who killed a 21-year-old escort for $150 after she wouldn't (illegally) give him sex, acted on the core values of US capitalism. So did Zimmerman.
However, the "gun lobby" has become a political base for Republican politicians who are determined to obstruct everything Obama and the Senate are trying to do on behalf of US imperialism. For example, they threaten to prevent the Comprehensive Immigration Reform that the rulers need as they prepare for world war (as Red Flag has explained). The pro-boss Seattle Times claims that "the single best memorial to Trayvon Martin….is repeal of Florida's Stand Your Ground law." Interesting!
"Stand Your Ground" was originally a project of the viciously anti-worker American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). After Zimmerman killed Trayvon, enough large corporations quit ALEC that the organization itself backed away from Stand Your Ground. Obama's speech questioned whether Stand Your Ground is "really going to be contributing to the kind of peace and security and order that we'd like to see?" Is that the "peace and security and order" imposed by the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense? Mass incarceration of black and latino/a men and women on a scale never before seen in the world, including long-term solitary confinement? Record numbers of deportations, often for minor offenses? Prosecution of whistle-blowers? Force-feeding of hunger strikers indefinitely caged at Guantanamo – even during the Muslim Ramadan fast?
Drone assassinations personally approved by the President, including the murder of a 16-year-old US citizen in Yemen? As the communist Lenin wrote in The State and Revolution, "The state is a special organization of force: it is an organization of violence for the suppression of some class."
For Obama and the capitalist class, "peace and security and order" mean keeping imperialist rivals in check and the working class under control and attack. While racist vigilantes can be useful to them, they realize that Zimmerman, Gilbert and their ilk are provoking the wrath of the masses. What these bosses truly fear is the potential of armed workers overcoming racist divisions to unite in communist revolution. "What class must the proletariat [wage laborers] suppress?" Lenin asked. "Naturally, only the exploiting class, i.e., the bourgeoisie … only to suppress the resistance of the exploiters, and only the proletariat can direct this suppression, can carry it out."
The armed masses, mobilized for communism by industrial workers and soldiers, will liberate ourselves from the capitalists' deadly racist "peace and security and order." Organized as the International Communist Workers' Party, the masses will build a new communist society based on working collectively to meet the needs of everyone, everywhere.