¡Mantenla en las calles! 12 Workers and oppressed peoples of the world unite! workers.org Vol. 62, No. 37 Sept. 10, 2020 $1 100 days of Portland protests Anti-racists defy police, fascist terror By Joshua Hanks “fugitive task force” raided his home. The Portland, Ore. task force included U.S. Marshals as well as members of the Washington State This city marked 100 consecutive Dept. of Corrections, Lakewood Police days of anti-racist, anti-police protests Department and Pierce County Sheriff’s on Sept. 5. The protests have shifted Department. away from downtown and into North The military-style assault on Reinoehl Portland— home to police “union” head- stands in sharp contrast to the way police quarters— and to the Portland Police handle right-wing and fascist shooters Bureau’s East Precinct. and mass murderers. Kyle Rittenhouse Police continue to deploy large quanti- murdered two anti-racist protesters in ties of tear gas and use other iron-fisted Kenosha, Wis., on Aug. 25. Dylann Roof tactics that anger residents. They restrict murdered nine people, all Black, in 2015 access to neighborhoods, harass people at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal and occupy their lawns without approval Church in Charleston, S.C. Both were and under threat of retaliation. Residents located, taken alive by police, and given report having to wear gas masks in their food and water as they were arrested. Outside Portland Police Association, Sept. 4. homes or relocate to hotels to escape the This leniency is not granted to untold war zone conditions created by police in numbers of Black and Brown youth who their campaign to “stamp out” the protests. commit far less serious crimes— if any at all— and who face immediate arrest and Fight the right with Fascist attacks warrants for re-arrest if they miss a court While tear gas and rampant police bru- hearing. tality continue as major problems, pro- united worker action! testers and bystanders alike face another Right-wing disinformation campaign threat: Out-of-town fascist groups are As Portland completed its 100th day of On Aug. 12, 2017, an angry white postponed a decision to extradite staging violent, armed rallies in the city protest in the face of fascist attacks, cor- nationalist participating in a Unite the Rittenhouse to Wisconsin until Sept. 25. center and then driving around looking porate media from coast to coast reported Right rally in Charlottesville, Va., delib- On Aug. 31, Trump suggested that for fights. the date as a “grim milestone” reflecting erately sped his car up and drove into Rittenhouse “did nothing wrong” and Aaron J. Danielson, a member of the the “grim reality” in Portland. unsuspecting counterdemonstrators, “exercised his god-given, constitutional, Vancouver, Wash.-based Patriot Prayer This skewed description fits in with the striking and killing Heather Heyer and common law and statutory law right to group that organizes many of the fascist highly sensationalized, fact-scarce and injuring dozens more. Donald Trump’s self-defense.” rallies, was killed on Aug. 29 after those distorted reporting on anti-racist mass initial response Meanwhile on forces descended on that night’s anti-rac- protests which dominates U.S. media. For was to condemn Aug. 29, heavily ist protest. The man who shot him, instance, photographs of city-sponsored the “display of armed Trump sup- Michael Reinoehl, states in an interview homeless camps, set up after the COVID- hatred, bigotry and porters in hundreds to Vice Media on Sept. 3 that he fired in 19 pandemic began, have been passed violence on many editorial of trucks staged a self-defense because Danielson threat- around in right-wing media as evidence sides.” violent rally in Portland, Ore., driving ened protesters with a knife. Reinoehl of “antifa training camps.” There are now Fast forward to Aug. 25, 2020. their vehicles into counterdemonstrators said: “I could have watched them kill a fears that the people living in these camps, Trump’s 17-year-old supporter Kyle and attacking them with pepper spray, friend of mine of color. But I wasn’t going who are mostly those most vulnerable to Rittenhouse crossed the Illinois state bats and sticks. Activist Michael Forest to do that.” Reinoehl’s social media reveals the virus, will face violence from conspir- line, carrying an AR-15-style rifle, to Reinoehl went to the aid of a friend who his deep involvement in the three months acy-fueled fascist vigilantes seeking to Kenosha, Wis., where he shot and killed was surrounded by pro-Trump protesters. of Portland’s anti-racist, anti-fascist pro- attack anti-fascists. two people and wounded another at a Feeling he was acting in self-defense, tests. (tinyurl.com/y5yauugk) The disinformation flows from the rally for Jacob Blake. Reinoehl confronted and shot Trump On the evening of Sept. 3 Reinoehl was White House on down, with Trump fix- Kenosha police let Rittenhouse walk rally participant Aaron J. Danielson. A killed in a rain of police bullets in Lacey, ating on Portland as an example of away from the shootings. Following nightly presence at Black Lives Matter his peaceful arrest, an Illinois judge Wash., just south of Seattle, when a federal Continued on page 8 Continued on page 10 Battling racism on many fronts Pensacola and Greensboro 2 Kevin Zeese, Sports focus on Black lives 9 ¡presente! 8 Tribute to Chadwick Boseman 9 Labor’s militant rank and file Capitalist ‘gifts’: evictions and hunger 3 Save the people’s post office! 4-5 #DropTheCops 5 Transitioning behind bars A different Labor Day 11 6-7 Remembering ‘Big Black’ and George Jackson Attica and Paris Commune Martinique and Vietnam 11 Another death in Cleveland jail ‘Against the Loveless World’ 11 Page 2 Sept. 10, 2020 workers.org From Pensacola to Greensboro to Kenosha Fight police brutality! this week Pensacola is occupied Mvskoke/Creek land; Kenosha is and international occupied Peoria/Potawatomi/Miami/Dakota Sioux land. issues linked to the In the U.S. ongoing struggle ◆ Thirty people gathered Aug. 30 at Florida Square in in Kenosha. The Portland anti-racists defy police, fascist terror ..... 1 downtown Pensacola, Fla., in solidarity with the Kenosha upcoming elec- Fight police brutality!...........................2 Uprising— the ongoing protest against police brutality tion and the inac- Epidemic of evictions goes viral ..................3 and anti-Black violence that erupted after the Aug. 23 tion of Democratic police shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man, in Kenosha, candidates Joe Stock market booms, job report hides hunger .....3 Wis. The demonstration was organized by the new Central Biden and Kamala Justice for Marcus Smith! .......................2 Gulf Coast branch of Workers World Party. Harris were dis- What postal workers are demanding .............4 Several members of Strive (Socialist Trans Initiative) cussed thoroughly, Voting, self-determination and social change . 4 spoke, including vice president Mallory Luana, a Haitian with particular American, nonbinary fem and self-identified “Black punk emphasis on police ‘Drop the cops’.................................5 witch,” and Strive secretary and social media coordinator brutality and the prison-industrial complex, which both Message to U.S. postal workers ..................5 Indigo Lett. Other speakers— including this writer for candidates have actively supported. Remembering ‘Big Black’ Smith .................6 WWP and the North Florida Regional Organizer for Black Transitioning behind bars.......................6 Voters Matter Jamil Davis— addressed local, national — Report and photo by Devin C. George Jackson................................6 Jail death of Black transwoman.................. 7 Paris Commune of the Black Liberation struggle . 7 Justice for Marcus Smith! Kevin Zeese, ¡presente! .........................8 BLM holds court in sports.......................9 Greensboro Chadwick Boseman: an appreciation .............9 Solidarity with frontline workers .................11 Two years after Greensboro, N.C., police officers killed Marcus Deon Smith, the Smith family, the Working- ◆ Around the world class Homeless Organizing Alliance, and their allies took to the streets of Greensboro to celebrate Marcus’ Workers and oppressed people, write to us! ......10 life and demand justice. “We will march until we get Book review: ‘Against the Loveless World’........10 #JusticeforMarcusSmith and his family gets reparations; French imperialism: A scourge then, now .........11 we will march for Black liberation and Black freedom. We will march until we abolish both the prison-industrial com- ◆ Editorial plex and racial capitalism,” reads a statement from WHOA. Fight the right with united worker action! ......... 1 “There will be a new dawn in Greensboro ushered in by the Black masses of people fed up with demoralization and Housing is a right for all!.......................10 exploitation.” PHOTO: WORKING-CLASS HOMELESS ORGANIZING ALLIANCE ◆ Noticias en Español — Report by calvin deutschbein ¡Mantenla en las calles! ........................ 12 Workers World 147 W. 24th St., 2nd Fl. New York, NY 10011 Join us in the fight Phone: 212.627.2994 E-mail: [email protected] for socialism! Web: www.workers.org Vol. 62, No. 37 • Sept. 10, 2020 Workers World Party is a revolutionary Marxist-Leninist and trans people are gunned down by cops and bigots on Closing date: Sept. 9, 2020 party inside the belly of the imperialist beast. We are a mul- a regular basis. Editor: Deirdre Griswold tinational, multigenerational and multigendered organiza- The