No justice without state power

Police are working hard to spin their way out of being called out as the murderers they are after Monday's shooting of 18 year old black Brooklyn resident, Khiel Coppin. Their story of events has been altered more times over the past two days than the Bible has in the past 1,000 years. However, more members of his working-class community continue to step forward with a more consistent--not to mention tragically believable--narrative: Coppin dropped from his window, put his hands up in the air, dropping the hair brush, and was then executed by five fascist pigs who let loose twenty rounds.

A common reaction from the press, police, and sections of the public has been to blame the mother of the victim: "it's her fault; she told the police he had a gun." But as of yesterday afternoon, we know that's a flat-out lie. The mother never said the son had a gun. Yesterday police played audio tape of the mother's initial conversation with a 911 dispatcher, whom she had called to get help for her son. These fascist killers said that they were "justified" in their actions because the son can be heard yelling that he had a gun in the background of the call. But the mother never says it's true, as the police initially said.

Not only that, but after massive public outcry, the police finally released the transcript of the previously unreported second phone call, made from the 911 dispatcher to the mother to "get a more accurate physical description" of her son. In this call, the mother specifically stated that Khiel did not have a gun. But mysteriously, the call from 911 still went out coded as a "family dispute" involving "a firearm."

Additionally, when police arrived and evacuated the mother from the building, she again told them that regardless of what her mentally ill son claimed, he did not have a gun.

The capitalist press have repeatedly insinuated that, regardless of whether or not the killers thought he was armed, the son "wanted to die," aiding the police's bigoted "suicide-by-cop" scenario. However, it is clearly evident from even a cursory reading of the situation that Khiel Coppin was having some kind of manic or psychotic episode. Now the cops and press aren't just blaming the victim of being guilty of being black, but also of needing mental help. How much more outrageously disgusting can you get? It doesn't take a scholar to figure out that if this had taken place in an affluent white community, not a single shot would have been fired. Strangely, it's only when the victim's hand is black that everyday objects like a wallet or a hairbrush turn into a firearm.

Now the real danger is having the mass outrage over Khiel Coppin's cold-blooded murder derailed into meaningless reforms. The working class youth will be told by their Bantustan Chief misleaders to beg for reform from the killers, to ask the murderous system to make itself slightly less murderous. This would be like if Germany's Jews had petitioned Himmler to make the Ghettos more comfy or to add a few more orchestras on the way to the gas chambers! Asking the system to "fix" itself is absurd--especially because, from its point of view, there's nothing to fix: it's working just like it should. Misleaders like Sharpton who always insert themselves into situations like this should be recognized as the collaborators they are. They are worse than the killer kkkops, because their job is to help maintain this blood-soaked capitalist system by delivering the working class of all "races" to their executioners on a silver platter.

It is time to stop begging for a gentler kind of slavery from the plantation's overseers. The only solution is worldwide communist revolution. This is the only path to create a truly egalitarian society, where no one is murdered for being the wrong color or suffering, through no fault of their own, from a mental illness. Not only that, but in a communist world, no worker who seeks mental health treatment for themselves or a member of their family, as Coppin's mother had even earlier that day and in the past, will be ignored or turned away.

It is right and just for the multiracial masses of workers in Brooklyn and everywhere else to rebel in the streets over this shooting; indeed, open rebellion is part of a real solution, instead of sucking up and praying to the ruling class for change. However, rebellion is just that: part of the solution. Disorganized, spontaneous rebellion is not enough, and it can be put down quickly. Mao was in a way correct when he said that political power grow from the barrel of a gun--but even more critical is the ideology the masses holding the guns are mentally armed with. Without a real plan to seize power and smash the state, mass rebellion and violence is adventurism, and will at best lead to more violent repression from the state and its occupying army on our streets: the police.

However, if we help ideologically arm the masses with communist theory--the science of class struggle--then we can pave the way for real change; a change that will see these racist killer pigs and their masters get what's coming to them. If we really want justice then we, the international working class, cannot depend on anyone but ourselves to make it a reality. And only when we take power into our own hands, can we start shooting back. And then, we can hang these fascists from their own racist courthouse steps. It may be a fate much better than they deserve, but it's a better start than the absurdity of begging our masters to use a lighter whip.