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 15, 2025
On August 22, Decarlos Brown, a 34-year-old black, mentally ill, homeless man, stabbed Iryna Zarutska, a 23-year-old white Ukrainian immigrant, to death on a public train in Charlotte, North Carolina. After the transit system released surveillance video of the stabbing, Donald Trump seized on the opportunity to put out a video from the Oval Office expressing outrage over the killing.
In the video, Trump held up side-by-side pictures and describing the young white victim as “a beautiful young girl” and her attacker as a “deranged monster.” The next day Trump posted on his social media platform, Truth Social, calling Brown an “ANIMAL” who should be given a “Quick Trial” and be given “THE DEATH PENALTY.”
In making these comments Trump was clearly using typical dog whistles in an attempt to whip up racist hysteria over the incident. It’s probably no accident, then, that the very next day there were threats made against six Historically Black Colleges and Universities that caused them to put their campuses on lockdowns and cancel classes.
Trump also seized on the fact that Decarlos Brown had a long criminal history. And what he omitted was Brown’s long history of mental illness, including being diagnosed as schizophrenic and suffering from hallucinations and paranoia.
Certainly, Trump and Duffy, his Transportation Secretary, are seizing on real concerns facing many workers who do have to use public transportation systems, and feel threatened and alienated, suggesting that the origin of the attack is racial.
Trump’s comments harken back to the time when Trump put out a full-page ad attacking the Central Park Five in New York and calling for the death penalty for them, though they were later exonerated of the charges which wrongly sent them to prison.
Yet neither right-wing demagogues like Trump nor mainstream Democrat and Republican politicians are going to fight for the mentally ill, not for health care, nor for housing and decent paying jobs to allow them to get off the streets. In fact, many of the homeless even have jobs, but don’t make enough money to pay rent on a place to live, and their homelessness often contributes to their mental illnesses.
The stabbing in Charlotte is certainly horrible. It took place in a society in which real concerns over rotten conditions in mental institutions led to movements for de-institutionalization, only to see care for the mentally ill practically disappear completely. This has led to the mentally ill being forced to live on the streets or wind up in this country’s massive prison complex.
Safety for passengers on public transit and care for the mentally ill are not counterposed. But the capitalist system is moving backward, devolving into chaos and dismantling any humane solutions for the population. As long as profit is the sole driver, society has no way to prevent such tragedies.