Over 150 people marched and rallied in Clearwater, Florida to support the family of Markeis McGlockton, 28. Markeis, who was black and unarmed, was killed by Michael Drejka in an argument over a parking space on July 19th. The Pinella County Sheriff has refused to charge Drejka, who is white. As in the 2012 murder of Trayvon Martin two hours away, defense is “stand your ground.”
Racist attacks like this are the tip of the deadly iceberg of fascism.
It’s bad enough that racist killer cops make young black men and boys feel like they are walking around with a target on their back. Now every black person in the US has to watch out for some random white person who might call the cops on them for…. Barbecuing in a park. Napping in their dormitory lounge. Using the pool in their hotel. Or worse: some free-lance fascist like Drejka whips out a gun and shoots them.
Many Native American, latino/a, and Muslim workers and youth in the US have similar stories.
This is what Jim Crow looked like. It’s what Apartheid looked like. It’s what fascism looks like today in the US, Europe and elsewhere.
The capitalist rulers egg on the free-lance racists, and then back them up with state power: the cops, the courts, the jails, the laws. Their goal: to terrorize the most oppressed groups of workers and youth – the ones the rulers rightly fear the most – and to divide the broad masses of the oppressed.
“There has always been and will always be a clause somewhere and somehow that is designed to keep us down,” said a Pinella County NAACP leader.
There won’t always be.
Markeis’ father told the crowd, “We’re trying to get a movement on this thing.” Someone called out, “There’s a movement, buddy. There’s a movement.”
Movements like this must make revolution their strategy and communism their goal. The struggle is long and hard. But the masses, led by the working class and united to throw off capitalism’s chains on our minds and our lives, will dig out and destroy the roots of racism. No clause, no cops, no fascist thugs or racist terror will keep us down.
