Protest hits another state-sanctioned lynching in New York

New York City

The state, its police and its prisons actively HUNT and END the lives of poor and oppressed people — Black men in particular. On March 1, correctional officers from Mid-State Correctional Facility located in Marcy, New York, brutalized 22-year-old Messiah Nantwi, beating him to death. They pounded him repeatedly as National Guard troops not only REFUSED to intervene BUT enforced protocols that ENSURED his murder. 

Just weeks earlier at Marcy Correctional Facility, correctional officers beat to death a handcuffed, bedridden 43-year-old Robert Brooks.

These killings are not random. They are a function of this racial, capitalist, imperialist system that we live under. The system is not broken; it is operating exactly as intended.

From their inception, police and prisons were created to quell people’s rebellions against injustice, to control marginalized groups and stamp out dissent. Police and prisons as we know them only started popping up after the releasing of enslaved people across the U.S. This is no coincidence.

The police exist to shut down protest, to protect billionaires (and their corporations), to shut down workers’ strikes and ultimately to maintain the genocidal status quo. This is their function. This is what WE pay for with OUR tax dollars. We are financing our own oppression.

We call on all working-class and oppressed people — especially those who face this terror daily — to join the struggle. Organize, agitate, build collective power!

Our fight is not just against a few violent individuals; our fight is against the violent system of capitalism, imperialism and all those who work to defend it.

On March 14, a coalition of anti-imperialist, abolitionist organizations took to the streets outside of the courts in downtown Manhattan to protest these murders and call for the destruction of borough-based jails being constructed in Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens and Manhattan. 

Participating organizations included Black Intifada, Workers World Party, Bronx Anti-War Coalition, Workers Movement for Liberation, December 12th Movement, Black Star, Mutual Aid & Scientific Socialism (MASS) and Misandry Coalition, among others. 

Speakers talked about the urgent need for system change, mass organizing and defense of those suffering from the brunt of ruling-class attacks. The rally then marched through downtown Manhattan, stopping at precincts and passing out literature to folks along the way.

The statement was lightly edited.