Rulers use ‘racial sensitivity’ programs to attack working class

Vol. 84/No. 42 - October 26, 2020
Top, strikers at International Flavors and Fragrances, in Memphis, Tennessee, June 2023. Unionists often raised slogan of 1968 strike by Black sanitation workers: “I am a man.” Bottom, Birmingham, Alabama, May 1963: Youth at civil rights protest are attacked by water hoses on orders of Police Chief Bull Connor.

Under the false flag of pushing back racism, many government agencies, bosses at some of the largest corporations and school administrators are imposing mandatory “racial sensitivity” programs to shame, silence and intimidate workers who they say are all marked by…


US gov’t steps up executions, kills 7th prisoner in 3 months

Vol. 84/No. 41 - October 19, 2020
Lisa Brown, mother of Christopher Vialva, speaks at anti-death-penalty rally Sept. 24 at federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, hours before her son was executed. Poster shows his picture.

The U.S. government executed Christopher Vialva Sept. 24, the seventh federal inmate to be put to death since mid-July. These are the first federal executions to occur after a 17-year hiatus, and the most in a single year since before…


‘Militant’ fights yet another Florida prison impoundment

Vol. 84/No. 41 - October 19, 2020

Florida prison officials are at it again. On Oct. 3 the Militant received notice from Florida State Prison in Raiford that they had impounded issue no. 38. The reason? Because of the article on pages 1 and 2 titled “Join…


New Hong Kong protests defy cops, repression

Vol. 84/No. 41 - October 19, 2020

Despite a severe crackdown by 6,000 police, justified by authorities using harsh COVID-19 restrictions, thousands of protesters fighting for political rights and against control from Beijing took to the streets in Hong Kong Oct. 1. The date is celebrated as…


Should I hold my nose and vote for the ‘lesser evil’?

Vol. 84/No. 41 - October 19, 2020

“I’d rather vote for something I want and not get it than vote for something I don’t want and get it,” Eugene V. Debs, the presidential candidate for the Socialist Party and supporter of the 1917 Russian Revolution, told working…


Workers in UK discuss how to fight gov’t, boss attacks on jobs

Vol. 84/No. 41 - October 19, 2020
Striking bookstore, cafeteria workers at Tate and Tate Modern Galleries in London, Aug. 28, protest bosses’ plans to cut 313 of their jobs. Claiming to end nonexistent “zombie jobs,” U.K. gov’t is dumping burden of shutdowns onto millions of workers to fend for themselves.

MANCHESTER, England — Announcing plans he called a “jobs protection and wages subsidy scheme,” Sept. 24, U.K. Chancellor Rishi Sunak laid out a program that will actually allow bosses to continue dumping the burden of a deepening economic and social…


Protests continue across Belarus despite government attacks, arrests

Vol. 84/No. 41 - October 19, 2020
Mass march in Minsk Oct. 4 demands fall of Lukashenko gov’t, free the political prisoners.

Over 100,000 protesters marched in the Belarus capital of Minsk Oct. 4, demanding the resignation of Alexander Lukashenko, the autocratic president who has ruled for 26 years. Protests have rocked the country since he claimed to have won another term…


‘Trump-Biden debate shows workers need our own party’

Vol. 84/No. 41 - October 19, 2020
Congress keeps “arguing about the stimulus package and doesn’t act because they don’t go home to children who are hungry,” LaTia Killingsworth, right, told SWP presidential candidate Alyson Kennedy in Forest Park, Georgia, Oct. 1. Kennedy explained workers need to organize to fight to defend jobs, wages and job safety. Killingsworth endorsed the SWP campaign

MADISON, Tenn. — “We watched the Trump-Biden presidential debate,” Allison Kultaeva told Socialist Workers Party presidential candidate Alyson Kennedy, as she was campaigning in this Nashville suburb Oct. 3. “It was terrible! I’m so happy to find out there’s a…


Laws protect cops in lack of charges over Taylor killing

Vol. 84/No. 41 - October 19, 2020

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — After a grand jury here failed to indict the cops who killed Breonna Taylor, a Jefferson Circuit Court judge ordered the release of parts of the recording of the jury’s proceedings. Taylor, a 26-year-old African American medical…


For a shorter workweek with no cut in pay to stop job cuts!

Vol. 84/No. 41 - October 19, 2020

This statement was issued by Alyson Kennedy, Socialist Workers Party candidate for president, Oct. 7. In the hands of the Democrats and Republicans, the two parties of ruling capitalist families, billions of dollars in government handouts have flowed into the…