Cross Burning In Downtown Chicago—Fight Racist Attacks With Working-Class Solidarity

Editors’ note: A day after this article was published, the person of interest in this case came forward to confess, explaining that the cross burning was an act of protest against the Trump administration. He claims he did not know the racist history of cross burning. Regardless of his intent, the analysis in this article about Trump’s impact on increasing racist attacks, as well as points on how we can fight back, are still very relevant.

Announcement

On June 9—just ten days before Juneteenth—a burning cross was discovered in Chicago’s Grant Park. 

Cross burnings in the US have been symbols of racism and white supremacy ever since the Ku Klux Klan’s campaigns of terror in the early 20th century. As the Klan grew in numbers, cross burning became a way for white supremacists to signal their allegiance to one another and to terrorize Black and other oppressed people, who could see the flames in their communities. There is no reason to think the cross burning in Chicago has any other intent.

Racist Attacks On The Rise

Hate crimes, anti-Black racial terrorism, and all manner of racist attacks have been on the rise in the United States (and across the world), and Donald Trump’s administration is fanning the flames. This disgusting act comes just six weeks after the Supreme Court gutted what remained of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, often considered the legislative crown jewel of the Civil Rights movement’s victories, leading to the disenfranchisement of Black voters. This cannot have failed to boost the confidence of violent elements of the extreme far right. Imagine the audacity to hoist a burning cross at the center of Chicago, in broad daylight! 

Black people are facing tremendous attacks from the Trump regime as it tears down the legacy of the Civil Rights movement: unemployment is increasing for Black workers and youth, and Trump’s war on “woke” has resulted in devastating cuts to Medicaid, Medicare, and other vital social services, disproportionately impacting Black Americans.

Neither Party Will End This

Trump’s reactionary agenda has emboldened far-right violence ever since his first administration. After a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia led to the death of counterprotester Heather Heyer, Trump got on national television to condemn the violence and hatred “on many sides” and declare that there were “good people on both sides,” equating neo-Nazis with anti-racist protesters. This sent a message to the far right that they would continue to find sympathy and accommodation from the Republican Party.

At the same time, the Democratic Party has repeatedly failed to offer a real alternative for working people. Decades of broken promises, austerity, rising inequality, unaffordable housing, and stagnant wages have left millions frustrated and angry. When establishment politicians fail to improve people’s lives, right-wing demagogues step into the vacuum and attempt to pit working people against one another. Then there’s the Democrats’ own participation in the right-wing war on “woke”—saying that they lost the 2024 presidential election because they were too woke and left-wing! You would be forgiven if you thought they were joking.

Capitalism Needs Racism

Racism is not ingrained, inevitable, or natural. It is a product of the capitalist system that benefits from division and always needs vulnerable sections of the working class that it can super-exploit. The working class—Black, white, Latino, Asian, immigrant, and US-born alike—creates the wealth of society through our labor. Meanwhile, a tiny minority of billionaires and corporations control that wealth and political power.

To maintain their rule, the capitalist class relies on systems of oppression such as racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and xenophobia to divide working people. Their aim is to make it much harder for us to unite and challenge their control over society. Today, the capitalist class is driven towards inter-imperialist conflict and war, and Trump is requesting an eye-popping $1.5 trillion in military spending. If the working class is at each other’s throats, they hope we won’t see that the billionaire class is stealing the lion’s share of the wealth.

Fight Back With Solidarity & Collective Action

The answer to racist attacks is not fear, retreat, or reliance on politicians who have repeatedly failed us. The answer is solidarity and collective action, going beyond mass demonstrations and using the organized power of the working class to shut down the profit system through strikes, sit-ins, and blockades. Black workers, Latino workers, white workers, immigrants, queer people, women, and all those who face oppression under capitalism have a common interest in fighting back together. 

We can draw inspiration from the historic January 23 general strike in Minneapolis, when tens of thousands of workers delivered the biggest counter-blow so far to Trump’s xenophobic agenda. Though ICE has not completely left Minnesota, shortly after the general strike, Trump wrapped up “Operation Metro Surge,” fired Greg Bovino and former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, and has decreased the intensity and volume of ICE operations, for now. 

This is exactly the kind of action that Chicago and cities across the US need to take up against anti-Black racial terrorism—whether it comes from far-right scum, the cops, or the courts.

To Fight Racism, Fight For Socialism

The cross burning in downtown Chicago is a terrifying reminder that racism remains a threat as long as capitalism exists—as do all forms of oppression. If we want to dismantle systems of oppression, end police brutality, end attacks on immigrants and transgender folks, prevent union busting, and stop environmental destruction, we need an organized, mass revolutionary movement against their common root: capitalism. Join Socialist Alternative in the fight for a socialist transformation of society and get involved today.

Socialist Alternative Says:

• The Chicago Police Department should publicly release all available information, including city surveillance footage, and investigate the cross burning as a hate crime.
• Labor unions, community organizations, and civil rights groups should organize a united response on Juneteenth. Bring the struggle for civil rights back to Juneteenth!
• If the perpetrator is not quickly identified, we must organize a mass citywide anti-racist rally to point the way forward against hate crimes and racist attacks.