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
Sep 13, 2021
The Los Angeles County district attorney’s office has not charged a single L.A. police officer in a shooting in 20 years. Many times, higher-ups also failed to protect employees, especially Black women, from sexual harassment and racial discrimination. They also stood by when cops and prosecutors framed people and openly displayed racist behavior in the D.A.’s office—for example when prosecutors mocked Black Lives Matter protesters, including ones who were injured by cops.
These revelations came from an inside witness—Adewale Oduye, who between 2008 and 2020 was a prosecutor for the L.A. County D.A.’s office himself. For years, Oduye voiced his concerns to his higher-ups, including the D.A. But when his bosses ignored his memos and grievances, Oduye began to write on the internet.
Of course, Oduye’s revelations about racism and criminal misconduct inside law enforcement will not be news to people living in L.A.’s working-class, Black and Latino neighborhoods. But they show, once more and through the eyes of an insider, the workings of a system set up to frame and criminalize the working class and poor, and to divide them, so that a wealthy, powerful minority can maintain its grip over the whole society.