the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
Apr 26, 2021
“Where Are the Good Apples?” is a powerful April 15th video on YouTube.com by Trevor Noah, host of The Daily Show. The topic is the job description that the police are asked to fill in this society.
Trevor explains that the video of the black lieutenant in the Virginia National Guard, being treated like trash by the cops, got him thinking. He realized that when black people go through bad experiences, even murderous experiences, society says these things happen because of “bad apples” in police departments.
Trevor then flips the script. He argues that if the police truly protected and served all of society equally, we would see many “Good Apples” jumping in to stop the “Bad Apples.” “Where are the cops who are stopping the cop from putting the knee on George Floyd’s neck?”
He then points out an argument used to misdirect the population to unconditionally take the side of the police. It is the argument that there IS crime in America and THAT is why police must act with violence.
Trevor says: “Go to any black community, any disenfranchised community in America and you will find people marching against that same crime... You see the community doing something. In fact, they call 911 when something happens, so that tells you something.
“But we don’t see a mass uprising of police saying, ‘Let’s root out these people!’ ... Honestly, I believe we don’t see them, not because there are no good people on the police force.... But I think it is because they themselves know, that if they do something, they are going against the system.
“The system is more powerful than any individual. The system in policing is doing exactly what it is meant to do in America. And that is, to keep poor people in their place.
“Who happens to be the most poor in America? Black people. You monetize them. You imprison them which monetizes them again. It’s a system. It’s not broken. It’s working the way it is designed to work.... We are not dealing with bad apples, we are dealing with a rotten tree.”
He is right! And the goal must be to chop down the rotten tree and build a better system.