The Spark

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

Racist Violence in Tulsa—Not from the Shooters Alone

Apr 16, 2012

Two white men in Tulsa, Oklahoma went on a shooting rampage, killing three black people and wounding two others.

The media tried to excuse the shootings, speculating that one of the men, Jacob England, who is part Native American, was angry about his father being shot to death by a black man two years ago.

These men shot five people, all walking in completely different neighborhoods, people whom they didn’t know. They were looking to kill black people. Any black person would do.

It was racist revenge pure and simple. And it was fed in part by the enormous campaign carried by Fox News and other right-wing news media to defend the shooting of Trayvon Martin as somehow justifiable. They repeated the lie that Martin attacked his killer, George Zimmerman. They declared Zimmerman justified in killing the young man. They made Martin out to be dangerous.

That campaign finds resonance in the minds of people already deformed and unbalanced by the racism of this society.

Assassinating Trayvon Martin’s character, the right-wing media prepared the ground for other racist assassinations. Those in Tulsa won’t be the last.