We Seek Communist Revolution, Not Vengeance
USA — Amber Guyger, a white cop, barged into the Dallas, Texas, apartment of Botham Jean, a young black man. She shot him dead while he was sitting on his couch eating ice cream. The cop claimed she thought she was in her own apartment one floor below. She got convicted of murder—but sentenced to ONLY 10 years. After the trial, the victim’s brother said he forgave her and then hugged her. The judge (a black woman) gave the killer a bible and another hug.
People are rightly furious. A cop can go into your house and do anything—and get off with a slap on the wrist. And people are slowly seeing that. People like Joshua Brown are looking for justice and getting killed because nothing like justice exists under capitalism.
The discussion on social media and with some friends has been about whether or not this killer cop should be “forgiven.” Why is that even a question?
The judge giving her a bible and a hug (in return for endorsement by the Dallas Police Association) shows that the cops and courts are part of the same system. That applies to black cops and justices as much as anybody else. This has nothing to do with grieving and healing.
The young black woman who lived in the same apartment complex and filmed Guyger after she shot and killed Botham Jean, has been fired from her job and threatened. Joshua Brown—another key witness in the case and in a civil suit against the Dallas police—was murdered. The capitalist state continues to protect its racist police assassins. Christianity tells us to “love your enemy and pray for those who despitefully use you” and to “turn the other cheek.” Mental health professionals advise those who are grieving to forgive as a part of the process of personal healing.
They’re probably right on a personal level. And far be it from us to criticize how Botham Jean’s brother deals with his loss. But hugs and forgiveness are not going to stop cops from killing people. How many people have been killed by cops since then? Who’s hugging their kids?
Jean’s mother said, “Forgiveness for us as Christians is a healing, but there are consequences. It does not mean that everything else we have suffered has to go unnoticed. We’re leaving Dallas this week, but you all must live in Dallas and you all must try to make Dallas a better place.”
We speak from the point of view of the international working class. We will never forgive nor forget a single one of the lives that have been stolen from us by a racist system of class oppression. EVER.
We seek not vengeance but revolution. We’ll wipe out the capitalist system which has stolen the lives of millions—including Botham Jean and Joshua Brown. Our anger must be channeled, not into toxic personal hatred, but into dedication to fight for a world where racist murders are not possible.
We fight for a world where capitalist exploitation, money and the buying and selling of commodities, including our labor, is but a distant memory. And when we eliminate capitalism, we’ll end the material basis of these evils of racism, sexism, homophobia, imperialism and class oppression. We’ll never again have to fear the guns of a racist cop because we’ll live in a communist world without cops where we treat each other like the human family that we are.
Arlington, Texas, USA, September, 2018—Protest against the police murders of Botham Jean and O’Shae Terry
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