MORE’s
unspeakable statement refusing to support the August 23 Staten Island march
against police brutality, particularly over the NYPD chokehold murder of Eric
Garner last month (see http://morecaucusnyc.org/2014/08/21/the-march-for-justice-and-unity/)
speaks volumes. Not only did you not stand with the thousands who came out to
denounce this racist cop killing, you called instead for “unity” with the PBA,
the voice of the killer cops
You wrote
that many of your members would be there. How nice. But MORE as a caucus in the
UFT would not. Claiming you are in solidarity with the Garner family is cynical
hypocrisy when you wouldn’t march with them. How dare MORE call itself or pretend
to be a “social justice caucus”? If you
cannot even take a stand against racist police murder you have indelibly
stamped yourselves as a social injustice
caucus.
What’s
more, you have shown that on the key issue of racism MORE stands to the right
of Mike Mulgrew’s sellout UFT bureaucracy.
You have
criticisms of Al Sharpton. I have repeatedly publicly criticized Al Sharpton
since 1983 when he wore a wire for the feds. But your objections come from the
opposite direction, from people who think he is “anti-police.” Nonsense, Al
Sharpton has worked with the police for decades to “cool things out,” keep
protests “under control” and divert struggle against racist injustice in
alliance with the capitalist Democratic Party.
But this
march was not about Al Sharpton. It was a referendum on racism. Even the UFT knew
that. The NAACP knew that, and sent a big contingent. Countless other New Yorkers knew that. They
came out, including unionists from SEIU 32 B-J, the New York Nurses
Association, CUNY’s Professional Staff Congress, and numerous anti-racist and
left groups across the city. Class Struggle Education Workers was there
with a contingent.
The August
23 march was a time to stand up and be counted. If MORE was so blind to racial
oppression that it couldn’t see that, all you had to do was look at the barrage
of racist criticisms of the UFT for its stand. But, of course, you were well
aware of those criticisms, and conciliated and even embraced them. What was
needed on Saturday was a massive turnout of labor, blacks, immigrants and all
defenders of working people and the oppressed against police terror. Thousands
did turn out, but not MORE.
MORE
claims to “stand against racism,” not to mention being for justice, unity and all
good things, but when the moment came to show it, you were first tied up in
knots, and then came down on the wrong side. Instead of linking arms with the
family of Eric Garner, murdered by the racist NYPD, you put out a despicable
call for “unity” with … his killers (“we encourage the leaderships of the UFT
and PBA, to find ways to work together and unite” … “with our brother and
sister officers”). Outrageous.
Far from
being our “brothers and sisters,” the police are professional strikebreakers
and enforcers of racist “law and order.” That’s their job for the ruling class.
The victims of NYPD killer cops include Eleanor Bumpurs, Anthony Baez, Amadou
Diallo, Patrick Dorismond, Sean Bell, Ramarley Graham, Kimani Gray and so many
others. The list goes on and on of black lives snuffed out by the NYPD. But
MORE wants to work together and unite with the murderers.
I might have
said MORE’s statement was shocking, that it was incredible coming from a group
claiming to be a “progressive” alternative to the sellout UFT bureaucracy of
Mike Mulgrew and Randi Weingarten. In fact, it is not only credible but even
predicable. It flows directly from MORE’s basic premise of “uniting” all and
sundry against the Unity misleaders. It flows directly from its avoidance of
all issues of race and class, the fundamental questions in this country.
If MORE cannot
fight against our union endorsing the capitalist Democratic Party politicians that
keep labor tamed and enchained, and who are leading the offensive against
public education and teachers in particular; if it cannot take a firm stand
against Common Core; if it cannot point out the racist nature of the school closings; if it was “missing in action”
during the NYC school bus drivers strike last year; if it couldn’t march last
summer against the NYPD’s “stop and frisk” of hundreds of thousands of African
American and Latino youth; if today it can’t bring itself to mention the racist
cop killing of Michael Brown in Missouri, MORE has demonstrated that it is in
no advance over Mulgrew’s bureaucratic Unity Caucus.
While the MORE
Caucus of the UFT has been lionized by many on the left, we in Class Struggle
Education Workers have characterized it as a case study in opportunism.
Opposing racist police repression is a litmus test. Today people throughout the
U.S. are confronted with the basic, urgent need to take a stand with African
American targets of murderous racist repression and military occupation. This
is ABC for any decent unionist or opponent of oppression.
Trying to dodge
this with a gazillion words about “teacher priorities” is obscene. What are we
as educators if not advocates for our students who are stopped and frisked in
the streets every day, and sometimes shot?
After
MORE’s vile statement, how can any self-respecting leftist, anyone with a shred
of anti-racist consciousness (or conscience), not to mention class
consciousness, remain in MORE? This is not a mistake, it is a betrayal of the
first order.
--Marjorie
Stamberg
UFT member, delegate D79
Class Struggle Education Workers
Class Struggle Education Workers