Black August: Why Fight for Black Freedom is Key to Fight for Socialism

Lital and Edward are joined by Jack and Brian from Chicago JBA to discuss why DSA must put the fight for black liberation front-and-center to advance working-class struggle today. We take up the age-old question "Why is DSA so white?" and make a pitch for a concrete plan to fight racist cop terror with the call to open police archives, as opposed to both colorblind economism and BLM liberalism.

You can find the website of the Open Police Archives campaign here. They are @opa_now on X and @openpolicearchives on Instagram. They also have a YouTube page. The Chicago OPA Committee will be meeting this Saturday, August 15 at the Woodson Regional Library (9525 S Halstead) at 3:30pm. If you're in Chicago or the Midwest and can't attend in-person, there's also a Zoom call you can join. Find more information on the cases the OPA campaign is taking up, endorse the campaign and for all updated event information, check the OPA website.

The Chicago branch of Just Break Already will be having it's first ever in-person get together on August 22nd. Register here if you'd like to attend!

You can find all of our petitions, resolutions, statements, and everything else we've been up to at the Just Break Already linktree. Follow us on X and Instagram! We also have a YouTube page where we upload these episodes, too. Leave us a comment, we ready all of 'em! Share the show, subscribe wherever you get podcasts and leave us a review to help boost Gimme a Break! If you'd like to join us to debate the way forward in DSA, our DMs are always open. Send us one!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:06

The time for the bottom of the football. The term for cover, the ruthless brutalization and disregard for the lives of the prisoners here and throughout the United States. What has happened here? With the sound before the fury of those who are oppressed.

SPEAKER_01 0:25

Hello and welcome to another episode of Gimme a Break, the podcast of the Just Break Already Caucus in the DSA. I'm your host, Lee Tal, and I'm joined by my co-host Edward.

SPEAKER_04 0:36

Hello.

SPEAKER_01 0:37

And the audio you heard at the beginning is of L. D. Barkley reading the Declaration to the People of America, written by the inmates of Attica Prison. In September 1971, prisoners in Attica, New York took control of the prison they were being held in to protest the abysmal conditions they were subjected to. After a four-day standoff, Liberal Governor Nelson Rockefeller sent in armed cops and prison officers to take back control, resulting in a massacre that left 29 prisoners dead, including Barclay. Highlighting struggles like that of the Attica prisoners and other black freedom fighters is central to Black August, an annual commemoration which focuses on Black resistance against racist repression in the U.S. and beyond. And today the U.S. ruling class is out for blood and has made major moves to strike at the oppressed black population in this country, a key example being Trump's racist DEI purge that saw major layoffs of the largely black federal workforce. Yet the response from DSA and the rest of the left has been basically silenced. Cop killings continue unabated, from one-year-old Cohen Wiley in Mississippi to most recently Corey Ruiz in Madison, Wisconsin. These have been met with barely any protest. And while everybody on DSA Twitter argues over whether or not to advocate abolishing the police, the reality is nearly nothing is happening on the left to defend black people now or fight to break down the racial divisions dividing white and black to drive forward black or working class struggle today. So today's episode is focused on the DSA's role in all this and why socialists must put the fight for black freedom front and center to unite the working class and strengthen its struggles. And to discuss this, we're joined by comrades Brian and Jack from the Chicago JBA. So welcome, Brian and Jack.

SPEAKER_05 2:39

Yeah, hi. This is Brian, and I'm happy to be here to be able to discuss these issues.

SPEAKER_03 2:45

Hi, I'm Jack, and I'm happy to be here and talk about these issues as well.

SPEAKER_04 2:50

DSA recently adopted a revised version of its Workers Deserve More program, which, among other things, calls to quote unquote finish reconstruction. It says under that heading that DSA wants to, quote, end the legacies of slavery and colonialism, reinforce anti-discrimination laws, honor all treaties and tribal sovereignty, enact reparations and massively invest in good jobs, quality housing, infrastructure in neglected minority communities. End quote. The latter has been pretty controversial. Francesca Hong, who is a DSA running for governor in Wisconsin, says she doesn't agree with that part in particular. Chicago, of course, has one of the most notorious police departments in the country. The cases of Laquan MacDonald, Adam Toledo, countless others who have been brutalized and killed by the Chicago cops. There are six DSAers on the city council. Chicago has one of the largest DSA chapters and about 3,000 members. We have a quote-unquote progressive mayor. There's powerful unions in this city with ties to the DSA, like the Chicago Teachers Union. What's the reality behind all this talk about finishing Reconstruction and ending mass incarceration and police immunity?

SPEAKER_05 4:10

Well, I think the question of finishing Reconstruction, I mean, it's an admirable sentiment. The Civil War smashed chattel slavery in this country over 150 years ago, and Reconstruction was the most democratic period in this country for black people as a whole. But uh this was done by a rising American capitalist class. They were historically progressive at that time and uh truly revolutionary. Smashing chattel slavery after 250 years or so was a truly revolutionary act. But right now the system of capitalism is in decay, and uh the capitalist system relies on racial oppression and particularly on the forcible segregation of black people for the most part at the bottom of society. To achieve the liberation of black people, the whole capitalist system has got to go. Right.

SPEAKER_01 5:13

And the question of like finishing reconstruction, it's a correct impulse to want to fight for that. But I think the question is how, and how do you actually get black freedom in this country? And what are the obstacles to doing that?

SPEAKER_03 5:27

The reality about ending mass incarceration and all these other things that were mentioned is that it's gonna require mobilizing the working class for confrontations with the capitalist class, right, to secure any of these things. And the reality is that DSA can't wage this fight, it can't even begin to take leadership while it's tied to the Democratic Party, which has, on the one hand, been faithful enforcers and managers and party presiding over segregation in cities for decades, but is also deeply discredited and unpopular with the working class. That's a really big barrier. On the other hand, there's just hostility, I think, to working class politics in the DSA, right? In Chicago, a couple months ago, we raised a resolution to defend Iran. And one of the criticisms of this resolution was this call to mobilize the working class to defend Iran was part of this failed dead-end strategy. There's hostility to working class-oriented politics in DSA. As long as this remains the case, these calls for ending mass incarceration uh and finishing reconstruction are just empty.

SPEAKER_01 6:38

Yeah, I think when Edward was talking about uh Francesca Hong, for example, she was on TV and she made clear that she's not down with the abolishing the police or any of these things on the in the new DSA program. She's not exceptional for that. She's running as a Democrat for governor. And I think in the past she did say she was for defunding the police at least. But now she's running. So now she's like seen the light and sees the need for, quote, practical solutions. But you've seen this with every DSA Democrat candidate. Like when they're running and when they take office, they basically sing a very different tune on the police. Notoriously in New York, Mamdanny went so far as to apologize to the police for saying they were racist, which is just an obvious statement of fact that they're racist and that they like, I mean, racist, like police brutality is one of the key manifestations of black oppression in this country, and everyone knows it. I think there's a real contradiction where you have these words in the DSA program that sound pretty radical, um, but there's such a gulf between that and what they're actually doing in reality, which is not dismantling racist oppression or anything. It's actually pushing people back into the system that upholds racist segregation and mass incarceration and cop terror. It seems like you have two polls in the DSA on black oppression. On the one hand, you have those who want to get away from anything that doesn't have to do with quote affordability and which sees specifically talking about black oppression as the kind of quote woke politics that's gonna lose elections for Dems that they support. That's Hong, that's Mam Dani, that's AOC, and all their defenders on the DSA right who really want to junk anything having to do with special oppression because that hurts their ability to get elected in the country writ large. On the other hand, you have, you know, those in the DSA and the left, honestly, too, that really cling to liberal politics of BLM and want to repeat abstract arguments about fighting for black freedom that's in the DSA program, while at the same time supporting Democratic Party politicians and building their campaigns. One of the most prominent Black DSAers is Black Red Guard. Um he's a self-proclaimed Maoist, but he campaigns for Black Democrats like Corey Bush, who just lost very badly her election. Then you also have the Marxist Unity Group, which I think they're the ones who wrote the part about finishing Reconstruction in the program. Um, they push Dems like Chris Robb and say that he's a fighter coming from the quote black radical tradition, because he signed a letter once saying Mumia Abu Jamal should be released from prison. So let's take on both these arguments. What is the problem with just talking about, quote, affordability and economic issues? How do we connect the black struggle to the working class struggle? Why is reviving wokeness and BLM like a dead end? And of course, why can't you fight for black liberation, fight to finish the Civil War, and at the same time support uh Democrats?

SPEAKER_05 10:11

Every time you advance black rights, you have to take on the capitalist state, which has entrenched interests in maintaining black oppression. The question of affordability at bottom is a question of the balance of class forces. As long as there's small isolated groups uh going begging hat in hand for a few crumbs, the capitalists aren't going to do anything to give more money or any more rights. What needs to happen is the working class needs to be shown in practice that fusing the struggle for black freedom and the struggle for working class gains benefits both black people and the working class. Because every one of these struggles comes up against the concrete realities of racist capitalist America. How come there's not free health care in uh the United States for the working class? Well, because if there was free health care, they'd have to give it to black people. That's the reality. Whether you're talking about health care or education or uh transportation or whatever, the race question looms very large for everyone in this country. So you have to confront both. And the DSA simply does not have a program that addresses the needs of black people. Like the core concerns of, for example, segregation, police brutality. What the uh what the DSA has sought to do on the one hand is trying to revive the same old liberal politics that have failed. That is, they want to feed uh black people the same old tablum that if you support uh quote unquote uh progressive politicians, then uh things are going to get better. Here in Chicago, we have a uh progressive uh quote unquote mayor, Brandon Johnson. A couple of months after he was elected with a lot of uh union support, what happened? His police uh shot up Dexter Reed out on the West Side, 96 shots in 41 seconds, killing this young black man. These are all questions which have to be addressed, and they have to be addressed by mobilizing the power of the working class in alliance with uh the struggles of uh black people.

SPEAKER_01 12:41

Yeah, maybe uh you could speak a little more about with affordability or why wages are so low, inflation, health care, education, all these questions that affect working people. Why is it you actually have to address black oppression in order to improve those conditions for everyone, for all workers? Why is it that we're not gonna get Medicare for all if it's not part of a fight against racial oppression in America?

SPEAKER_05 13:11

Well, black oppression historically in this country has been the key means that the capitalists have used since the time of the Civil War in order to keep the working class divided and weak. And it's uh both of the capitalist parties that have done that. Of course, the uh Democratic Party was the party of slavery, uh the party of Jim Crow segregation. But the question of the forcible segregation of black people in the worst jobs, the worst housing, the worst education and health care, as long as there's somebody down on the bottom, that's a means to keep the uh status of the entire working class lower. And so, in order to win the advances that are so desperately necessary for the working class, you have to fight against things like the segregation of black people. You have to fight against segregated schools and segregated housing, because uh as long as that that exists, uh the struggles of the working class can only go but so far. And the DSA thus far has not addressed this at all. They have a few nice phrases in their program, but in terms of concrete action, it hasn't happened.

SPEAKER_01 14:30

Yeah, maybe one of you guys wants to talk a little bit more like how this has played out concretely. The Michigan election, for example, has been um in the news a lot where the DSA supported, quote, progressive Democrats like Saeed. In Detroit, there was, you know, a big UAW strike a few years ago. And this issue of not raising special oppression, not raising black oppression in the context of that strike was argued by the leader of that union, Sean Fain, that it this would be divisive and to just focus on the economic questions and wages. Maybe that's an example. Um, one of you guys who are involved in that can can discuss a little more. How does this actually play out concretely in the course of struggles to actually improve the conditions of of the working class in a place like Detroit, Michigan?

SPEAKER_05 15:30

Well, Detroit, Michigan, like the rest of America, is quite segregated. I mean, uh, the core of the uh Southeast Michigan working class, uh, the black population lives in Detroit and it's surrounded by uh a doughnut of uh mostly white suburbs. And uh the uh the bosses have been able to use that as uh a means to whipsaw different uh sectors of the uh the workforce one against the other. But uh what was necessary during that strike was to raise the question of fighting not just for bread and butter issues, which is fine. Uh the issues that were raised in that strike was the question, of course, a pay raise and ending tiers. Tears are when uh certain sectors of the uh the workforce are kept at lower wages and lower benefits for, in the case of the UAW, for many, many years. And uh that was one thing, but also a question of fighting for reindustrialization of Michigan and fighting for black liberation. And that was something that the striking workers actually recognized that it was important to link all those fights together because they've seen what the destruction of the uh industrial heartland has meant, and they've seen how the race question uh has played into that. They've seen how the bosses have used that in order to divide the workforce. So uh the Spartacus League put forward uh the question of uh reindustrialization and fighting for black liberation. We did, in fact, uh get a good hearing on uh on those issues. And so that's what's key to uh a broader struggle, mobilizing the working class in defense of black rights as well.

SPEAKER_04 17:29

There's also been an ongoing discussion about racism in DSA and why DSA is so white. Y'all are both members of South Side Branch in Chicago, which seems like it's the smallest branch in Chicago, DSA. And it also seems like it doesn't have very many black members, which is something considering that the South Side is almost entirely black. Why do you think DSA doesn't have many black members in general?

SPEAKER_03 17:55

Even with this national program that's come out, I think actual on the ground, what is DSA doing to advance the struggle? It's nothing. Here in Chicago, I'm sure we'll talk more about the multiracial organizing committee. It's been very confused. There's not really much going on besides your standard support Democrats, support black democrats type kind of politics. There's not really anything being done to reach black people in the city. I don't think that the organization really understands or recognizes like the centrality of the black question in American politics, the attitude of a lot of people when you go to meetings. This is just another facet of oppression in society, equal in importance to a lot of others. It ranges from that kind of dismissal to economism, as we've been discussing, wanting to focus on affordability issues. I think that's a lot of why there are not a lot of black people in DSA. There's not anything that calls to them. Why would a black person join DSA?

SPEAKER_05 18:58

Yeah, the bottom line is that the DSA does not have a program that addresses the core concerns of black people, whether it's police brutality or uh segregation. DSA comes from a very bad tradition on this. That is a hundred years ago, or actually a little bit more than a hundred years ago, Eugene Debs, who was uh the leader of uh the Socialist Party here in the United States, and actually he was a revolutionary, but like the DSA, he did not recognize the strategic nature of the fight for black liberation in terms of the fight for uh a socialist society. While uh Debs was totally free from prejudice on a personal level, he still wrote that quote unquote, we have nothing special to offer the Negro. Now, the way that plays out today is what we've been talking about. That is uh the DSA just talks about affordability and reviving the uh the old liberal uh strategies that have failed for the past score of decades. So what is needed is a program that addresses these core concerns. And uh that is one of the things that uh we are fighting for uh within uh the DSA, for a uh program that addresses the question of police brutality, for example.

SPEAKER_01 20:31

I feel a lot of pressure often to defend Debs because he is so uh used by the DSA and Democrats. Bernie Sanders has Debs on his desk and Mam Dani. So for us, I feel like Debs, he was opposed to both parties of capitalism, Democrats and Republicans. And uh and it's important you said this, Brian, you know, he was a revolutionary, he was for that, but he was, which was also the problem of the socialist party pushing colorblindness, that this was not a special question that needed to be taken head on. But I think with the DSA, I guess there's just a kind of a contradiction because it's not that they don't talk about racial oppressions. They have stuff about abolishing police, abolishing prisons, all this kind of stuff. But there's a real contradiction. It's kind of a lot of words and then what they actually push on the ground and in reality really has nothing to do with any of that. Black issues have to be at the center of any movement in this country against Trump for socialism, anything. It's got to be at the center. But any fight against Black oppression is gonna be impotent, futile if it's liberal, if it's a liberal Democratic Party aligned movement. Um, what we've seen like with the BLM, which was a real mass movement, but it was defeated. Nobody is mobilizing in the streets. Against cop terror, against any of these things. Why would black people join the DSA if the DSA is not actually doing anything to fight against this? And when they do, it's the same liberal politics that have very clearly led to defeat. I think that's also another component here. The role that demoralization coming off of BLM has also played in there being a real divide between the left and black masses. I think a lot of people on the DSA would probably agree in the abstract that the DSA should fight for black liberation. And a lot of young people in the DSA first got political during the George Floyd protests six years ago. And plenty of them ended up in DSA. The Marxist Unity Group, they originated the demand to finish reconstruction in the DSA platform. Yeah. They hold book clubs. They're doing a book club on black reconstruction by Du Bois. There's another DSA left caucus called Springs of Revolution. They just did an event for writing letters for political prisoners. It's good that they're doing that. But generally, there's a lot of discussion about black liberation on the DSA left that is just totally abstract and at the end of the day, always ends up being subordinate to electing Democrats. At last year's national convention, Jack was actually a delegate and you submitted a resolution for the convention for opening police archives. And JBA supports the campaign to open the police archives, all police archives, as a concrete step forward for rebuilding black struggle today. So maybe, Jack, you can speak more to that campaign and why we support it and what reception the resolution got before the convention, but also why it's still like very important to fight for this today.

SPEAKER_03 23:59

Open Police Archives, it's a united front campaign whose point of unity is around opening all police archives to public scrutiny. The point of it is to mobilize the broadest possible forces behind the fight against black oppression while exposing liberals who claim to defend black people but are unwilling to confront police to do so. We understand that the working class has to be like the tip of the spear in this fight. And so the campaign seeks to rebuild the movement on this basis. It has strengths in addition to this. It offers a demand that can be fought for today. This isn't like some far-off like post-revolutionary or revolutionary demand. Like this is something any principled socialist could reasonably fight for, despite any disagreements they may have with our politics. So I think it's really useful in that sense. As far as reception at the convention, I think in general, honestly, people were not super interested in the convention and having a lot of like political conversation. There was a lot of like wrangling votes for various things that were on the agenda, you know, whose delegates are you going to vote for this or that election? I think part of why the campaign, talking to people, flyering, you didn't get a lot of reception. There's certainly a lot of people that pay lip service to and want to fight for black liberation, but I don't know that they understand the centrality of the issue and why it needs to be rebuilt on a class struggle basis.

SPEAKER_05 25:33

Class struggle basis.

SPEAKER_03 25:35

Breaking them from BLM, it's a struggle. It's been a struggle. BLM is ultimately a continuation of the same kind of liberal politics and liberal strategy that has been dominating the movement since like the civil rights movement. It's really central that socialists provide a working class alternative because otherwise the movement is only going to remain demoralized and impotent. There were some real gains made during the civil rights movement. It ended formal segregation as one. I mean, it's a good thing, but ultimately conditions for black people haven't changed like much since then, right? Our cities are still segregated today. The country is still segregated today. Conditions for black people remain completely repulsive, terrible. It's a consequence of these like liberal politics, not understanding racism as like an issue rooted in like capitalist society, class society, but rather problems in people's minds or whatever.

SPEAKER_01 26:32

Right. Like just a question of prejudice.

SPEAKER_03 26:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 26:35

Yeah. Any principled socialists should be able to support this uh open police archives campaign. It's not even a question of principled socialists. It's simple human decency to support the demand to open police archives. As of a couple of days ago, uh 737 people have been killed by the police in uh the United States this year. The families, they want to know what happened to uh their loved ones. I work on the Open Police Archives campaign here in Chicago, and we're working with uh a woman down in uh the South Suburbs, a black woman whose 17-year-old daughter was uh killed by the Dalton Town cops. And uh her daughter, there was an altercation, the cop jumped into her daughter's car on the passenger side. The daughter was sitting on the driver's side, and uh the uh the cops put six bullets into the daughter's side and one into the daughter's head. And her mother said, I want to know what happened to my daughter, but they won't even release the uh the video camera uh footage, the body cam footage. It's just absolutely heartrending and horrible. And this happens over and over and over and over and over again in this country every every single day. So it's not only is it a crime what the police do, but it's a crime that uh people who are ostensibly in favor of uh black freedom and in favor of ending police brutality don't come out and support uh demands and campaigns such as this.

SPEAKER_01 28:20

Right, which is like abolish the police. Okay, well, why don't we start somewhere with like opening all the police archives, which exposes all of their barbarism and torture, and which is really a red line for the politicians because Democratic Party politicians represent that system. The question of opening these archives is like Brian just spoke to, is a very felt need, a very concrete thing that could be mobilized and fought for, which the DSA so far has had zero interest in the leadership, has had no interest in doing that. They can have this program, it can raise all these radical things. But if you're not actually taking any concrete steps or measures to actually make a dent in this system, it doesn't actually mean anything. Brian and Jack are also members of the Chicago DSA's multiracial organizing committee, and you guys have done some work there, including around the Open Police Archives campaign. So yeah, maybe um, Brian, you can explain what uh the multiracial organizing committee is and what what our experiences have been there so far.

SPEAKER_05 29:37

Yes, this MROC, the Multiracial Organizing Committee, has had a couple of meetings here in Chicago that uh Jack and I have gone to. And uh at one of them, uh Jack and I both raised uh this question of opening the police archives. We got a lot of support for that demand uh during our interventions, but that has not as yet translated into any action on behalf of DSA. DSA hasn't done anything about it yet, and this multiracial organizing committee is really just getting off the ground. So hopefully we will be able to push that forward in the future and really pose the question. Oh, because we've actually got uh a number of uh people who support uh that demand and want to see some action on it.

SPEAKER_03 30:37

It's definitely just getting off the ground. There's certainly a lot of ambition in Chicago with this multiracial organizing committee to do something to address the fact that DSA isn't doing anything about the black question and it's majority white. The meetings don't usually have like a lot of coherence behind them. There isn't like a centralized strategy that's really coalesced, it's really moving in the direction of supporting black Democrats. There's another thing that happened, which I think was noteworthy, at the last Chicago chapter convention, which is that the multiracial organizing committee body was established as a real working group. It was no longer just like a side thing. But one of the the points of establishing it was that it would be exclusively for BIPOC people. I think it speaks to the direction that MROC is going in. And really the problems with the orientation toward identity politics. This is a barrier. Closing off meetings and and to anybody who isn't black or brown, you're cutting off people. Most of the organization is white, and I'm sure there's a lot of people in that body who want to fight for against black oppression, but they're being arbitrarily excluded from the fight within the uh within the MROC based on not their politics by any means. And so it remains to be seen kind of like what impact OPA will have. I think there's certainly a vacuum in the multiracial organizing committee for a program, for something to take up, but it's a question of do people want to do OPA or do they want to do something else?

SPEAKER_01 32:21

Yeah. Yeah, I also think why would black people join the DSA if even the multiracial organizing committee is doing its own thing and it's not the organization as a whole is gonna take up this fight.

SPEAKER_06 32:33

Right.

SPEAKER_01 32:34

Why would you join an organization that's not gonna do that? And also if its main activities on this question is to get black democrats elected, why would you join DSA? You can just be part of the Democratic Party coalition group, which there's a lot of already.

SPEAKER_02 32:53

What do you guys see your role in this committee? What are you trying to do?

SPEAKER_05 33:00

Well, I think this racial exclusivity thing is just really poisonous. The capitalists do a good enough job of uh keeping people separated. What we need to do is bring people together. Bring people together in a fight for justice for black people, a fight to advance uh the cause of uh the working class. I mean, so for this uh Emrah committee, I actually uh put in a bid to be elected as the membership engagement coordinator. The first thing I'm gonna do is raise this question of BIPOC exclusive membership in Emrah. I mean, give me a give me a break. Jesus. Oh, did I just say give me a break?

SPEAKER_02 33:46

Yeah, good job.

SPEAKER_06 33:50

We'll give our guests a Kit Kat bar every time they say it.

SPEAKER_05 33:59

Uh Lennon, yes, he was, who was uh uh the leader of the Bolsheviks, who actually forced the American Communist Party to take up the uh the fight for black freedom. Yeah. He was white.

SPEAKER_06 34:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 34:14

The civil rights workers who gave their lives in the South during the 60s, or the communists who gave their lives in the South during the 1930s, a lot of them were white as well. So that's one thing we have to recognize that this is a fight for all of us. We have to unify the struggles of black people and the working class, not not divide them. And of course, we have to get into the black community. Like you were saying, the overwhelming majority of DSA in Chicago is white. Their branches are centered on the north side. The South Side branch hold their meetings in Bridgeport, which, granted, it's a few blocks south of downtown. However, it's also historically the place where both mayor daily's live. And the the South Side is overwhelmingly black. The west side is overwhelmingly black. You know, the cadres in the DSA have to go into the black community and start fighting on these issues, whether it's uh police brutality or housing discrimination or health care. These issues have to be addressed, and not just for people up on the north side.

SPEAKER_01 35:28

Yeah. So you're trying to make the multiracial organizing committee actually multiracial.

SPEAKER_05 35:34

Multiracial.

SPEAKER_01 35:37

So that sounds like a good task, and you're trying to engage the membership on these concrete uh struggles that are happening right now. That's the way to build trust and support in the black community is to actually get in there and fight on their side in these battles.

SPEAKER_05 35:57

Well, there's been all this canvassing for all the various Democratic Party politicians that the DSA has done. But I don't think uh I've ever seen any request for people to go into the black community and set up a table to canvas for uh anybody. If you're gonna win uh black people to the cause of socialism, you have to get in there and wage some battles.

SPEAKER_01 36:21

Yeah, but canvas for the right people. Not the Democrats, yeah. Yeah. I think they go together. The struggles for class independence is totally tied to fighting to advance black rights.

SPEAKER_04 36:37

We've been on sort of a Chicago kick today, but uh L'Ital, maybe you wanted to speak to what this question looks like in NYC DSA, as you know, and hopefully all of our listeners have heard it. We recently did an episode on Mom Dani's attempt to privatize public housing in New York, which is really the only kind of affordable housing left in New York City. It's a blatant attack on the black and brown masses there.

SPEAKER_01 37:03

JBA in New York, we've been involved in the fight against the privatization of the projects. Um it's been Mam Dani, who's been the actually the main force pushing this right now. There was a recent petition that was put out by uh MUG members, I believe. It's important because it's the first time that I know that DSAs have really waged any raised any kind of a fight against Mam Dani and also his housing person, Steel Weaver's privatization plans, specifically against the demolition of the Fulton Elliott houses in Chelsea, which the courts just recently gave a green light to go ahead with the demolition. The tenants do not want it demolished and they want to save their homes. This is really just gonna displace and ruin what's left of stable housing for the majority of black and brown residents in these projects and elderly too. So the petition that they did is called Socialists Must Protect Public Housing, not demolish it, stop the demolition of Fulton Elliott. It's a kind of a truism. Obviously, if you're a socialist, you should be for public housing and not for privatizing it. Of course, the petition doesn't talk about the role of the Democratic Party, which has actually been the main force for decades that's been destroying public housing, and that Mamdani, as a Democrat, is in continuity with that program. And he's the one who's going to see it through. The attempts to destroy public housing has been tried by many Democrats. De Blasio, the particular current stuff about Pact RAD, and I think these the Fulton Elity houses too, that started under Bill de Blasio, who is also a Democratic Party mayor. So Mamdani's really just like sealing the deal on this. So while the petition really doesn't mention the role of the Democratic Party, it is really an important crack in this wall of support to Mamdani as a quote socialist. So we've signed JBA's in New York City have signed the petition. The petition also notes that people in public housing don't trust the DSA, which is kind of like no shit. You know, if you're pushing privatization and taking away their homes and you're saying that's socialism, people are going to be like, like, what the fuck? Who wants that? You know? So it's obviously true. There isn't any uh trust there. So then the question is, how do you actually build that trust and show that you're actually not against the interests of those who live in the projects? Um, I think the key thing though is how do you take something from being a paper statement, which it is right now, and actually fighting for it inside the DSA and mobilize DSAers in real numbers to join the movement because there is a lot going on right now, current struggles by tenants in the projects and by tenants against uh privatization, TAP. There's Defend the Projects Committee. This was all mentioned in our previous podcast on this question, but there is a lot going on right now on this question. It's really good. It's important that there is this petition and that for once the DSA's inside DSA are actually trying to get support for this fight against privatization and the demolition of these houses. But getting signatures is one thing. How do we actually make a real fight against what Mamdani is doing? New York City DSA leadership in particular is super anti-democratic, and they've really just been a break on anything that is any kind of challenge to Mamdani. But this situation is pretty outrageous. There are a number of DSAs who feel pretty outraged by the situation. So I think it's an important first step. Mamdani's making very clear as every second goes by what side he's on, and it's real estate and private interests. There does need to be a real pressure and movement that is able to stop this. And it's not impossible at all. That's what we're trying to do coming off of this petition is to try to actually make it real and have a real fight against this in New York.

SPEAKER_04 41:15

Going back to the theme of Black August, opening the police archives, are there any cases or fights, Jack and Brian, you'd like to highlight that are ongoing here in Chicago or that people can get involved with? How can people get involved with the Chicago Oakbook Committee?

SPEAKER_05 41:29

Well, the uh Chicago Oak Book Committee is actually holding a meeting coming up in at the uh uh Carter G. Woodson Library at 95th and Halstead on August 15th. That's a Saturday, and that's gonna be at uh 3 30 p.m. And we're gonna discuss uh the work that we're going to be doing going forward into the fall. So, for example, we've been trying to bring some of the people we work with, the uh the families of the victims of police brutality. Also, as you may know, Chicago is the torture capital of the United States. So some guys who spent decades in prison after they were tortured and uh sent sent to uh sent to prison and are now out. Uh we're trying to bring them to uh speak in front of trade unions. And we've been able to do this with the UAW and the Chicago Teachers Union, and we have a plan to do that again in the fall. So that's one of the things we're going to be talking about. Also, on August 28th, it's the anniversary of Emmett Till's murder. Every year there is a commemoration in the Burr Oak Cemetery, which is uh just southwest of uh Chicago, where he is buried. And Opa is going to be there memorialize and celebrate and organize the struggle to go forward in honor of uh Emmettil and his courageous family. Wow, so is that the kind of thing that uh DSA would go to, or you guys gonna try see if we will certainly try to get DSA to come out for that.

SPEAKER_01 43:24

Yeah, that would be good. The JBA will be there representing for sure.

SPEAKER_03 43:28

You can also find like a lot more information about the stuff we're doing and the case we're supporting at our website, opennow.org. We also have Twitter, we have uh Instagram, hopefully those will be linked in the show notes.

SPEAKER_04 43:42

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 43:43

And yeah, we post there about commemorating or having statements in memoriam for the various victims of police violence over the years. We post about the different actions that we're going to, so definitely check that out to kind of stay in the loop.

SPEAKER_01 44:00

The Emmett Till Memorial and all that, that's on the website you're saying? If people want to check out, it will be. It will be.

SPEAKER_04 44:06

Yes, it will be. Thank you both for joining us today. That concludes this episode of Give Me a Break. You can follow all the work of the JBA by checking out our Linktree at linktree.com slash DSA underscore just break already, where we post all of our statements, resolutions, petitions, and everything else we've been up to lately. We've also added the link to the petition we are promoting right now, which Letal spoke to earlier. So if you're in in NYC DSA, make sure you sign on. If you're in Chicago DSA and you're part of the Multiracial Organizing Committee, you should also definitely vote for Brian for membership engagement coordinator. You can follow JBA on X at Clean Break Now and on Instagram at DSA underscore just break already. We also upload all of these episodes of Give Me a Break to YouTube, which is YouTube.com slash DSA underscore just break already. If you're in DSA and would like to join us for an episode to debate the way forward, you can shoot us DM. Our DMs are always open, and we will see you all next time.

SPEAKER_06 45:06

Bye.

SPEAKER_05 45:07

Thank you. Bye.