067: Interview with comrade Diop of the Black Community Control of Police Organization

Turn Leftist Podcast

https://apscuhuru.org https://apspuhuru.org https://blackisbackcoalition.org Colonialism is the Cause, Black Power is the Solution "On the morning of January 5, 2022, a fire tore through a row house converted into apartments in the Fairmount neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Twelve people died, nine of them children, and two others were injured. Eight additional people escaped unharmed." Then "A major fire in a residential apartment building in the Bronx in New York City on Sunday (jan9) left 19 people dead, including 9 children, in what Mayor Eric Adams described as one of the worst fires the city has experienced in modern times. The blaze sent 32 people to hospitals with life-threatening conditions, Daniel Nigro, commissioner of the New York City Fire Department, said earlier Sunday. A total of 63 people were injured." As incidents of colonial violence, together these two fires forced the question of fire and public safety policy in the Black community onto the forefront of national discussion within the Black liberation movement. The Philadelphia "row house" was actually a building to house public housing residents, all of whom were African. The Bronx fire was essentially the same situation, housing designated by the ruling class for African workers. As is the case in all sectors of the capitalist economy, the conditions that led to the deaths in these fires were created entirely by the colonial capitalist ruling class, which has no interest in spending resources on effective fire safety equipment that would prevent fires from becoming dangerous to life and limb. In addition the insurance industry ensures that there will be no material loss to ruling class in fires. In fact, insurance companies offer compensation for the costs incurred in the replacement, repair or reconstruction of a property that was damaged due to fire. The contents are usually covered for at least 50% to 70% of the policy value. As an instrument to perpetuate colonial capitalist production the institution of firefighting in north America shares the same origins as that of the police. "The United States did not have government-run fire departments until around the time of the American Civil War. Prior to this time, private fire brigades competed with one another to be the first to respond to a fire because insurance companies paid brigades to save buildings." This situation was more graphically depicted in a scene in the movie entitled" Gangs of New York", told from the perspective of an Irish working class colonizer. "The municipal police fought the metropolitan police, the metropolitan police fought the street gangs, there were 37 amateur fire brigades. And they all fought each other." It is clear how the origins of the US fire-fighting apparatus can be found in the police and the state, as an institution to protect private property as well as wield fire as a weapon of the colonialist-capitalist system. All "official" firefighters in the first US were white. And their fundamental task was to protect the private property as employees of the US ruling class; bosses and landlords. for the rest of the text of the press release: https://controlc.com/2efcbb8f