Wednesday, December 01, 2004

May 1, 1992 Statement on the Rodney King Verdict

Editor's Note: The following statement/press release was issued by Carl Dix on May 1st--International Workers Day--from Los Angeles just as the L.A. rebellion was about to break out over the Rodney King verdict.

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This racist system delivered its statement this week.

The system cut loose the cops who brutally beat Rodney King, even when the whole world has seen the tape of their crime. The system is saying straight up that a pig beating the hell out of a Black man--or any oppressed person--is no crime. The whole trial was a set-up to deliver that message from the start. That's why moved it to a lily-white neighborhood. That's why they put two ex-cops and two relatives of cops on the jury. And the prosecution's case agreed with the cops that Rodney King was a "monster" who needed to be beaten. They only disagreed about how many times they should have hit him. But this whole trial and verdict wasn't just about Rodney King, the individual. This was a billy club to the head of the oppressed and exploited people--everywhere.

But the people are delivering their own message. It was delivered at LAPD headquarters--where youth of all nationalities stormed Parker Center and the Hall of Injustice among other places and torched American flags and police buildings. It was delivered outside the courthouse in lily-white Simi Valley where Black, Latino and white youth joined together to go after the four cops as they left the courthouse. Its being delivered throughout South Central L.A. and all over the city. Its a message that the people are not going to stand for this abuse anymore. And that's the stand that they got to take.

The representatives of the system condemn violence and looting. But how can they talk about such things? This system is based on robbery and violence all over the world.

Those the media has dubbed "responsible leaders" are heard everywhere telling the people to chill out. They're saying we should "put the Rodney King beating behind us." They tell the people to "channel your anger into something constructive"--like voting to change the police department or waiting for the new Black police chief, Willie Williams. THIS IS A CLASS SOCIETY. The big capitalists who rule over this system are afraid of those they exploit and oppress. That's why the police--the rulers' first line of defense--are trained to treat whole sections of the population as the enemy.

And a Black police chief won't change any of this. In fact, both Willie Williams and the so-called "reforms" they are promoting are designed to tighten up and increase the brutality and repression of the police department against the Rodney Kings of L.A. Their hyped-up plan for "community-based policing" means more concentration-camp neighborhoods behind barricades and a snitch network to help the cops brutalize the people on the bottom even more.

A lot of people in the streets of L.A. haven't bought their hype and that's better than good. This outrage has to be fought. And more, while we're battling them back, politically like that, we got to make this part of getting ready for The Time--and it could come soon--to wage revolutionary war.

In order to get ready for the time, as the May First Manifesto says, "you have to lead the people to fight back, you have to move masses of people to battle the system in a way that is guided by revolutionary ideology and serves revolutionary aims; and through all this you have to build up the revolutionary consciousness and organization of the masses, with the Maoist vanguard Party at the very core, and prepare the revolutionary people to wage the people's war when the conditions for that are ripe."

That's the message we're uniting with the people to deliver. And it's especially strong on May First, the revolutionary holiday of the proletariat--the class of people of every nationality that can and will free itself by freeing all humanity. People need to get organized to act together with the Party and get its Manifesto up everywhere so that the people can see it and the enemy will fear it.

NO MORE RODNEY KINGS!
NO MORE RACIST POLICE BRUTALITY!
REVOLUTION IS THE HOPE OF THE HOPELESS!
IT'S RIGHT TO REBEL!