As known cases of the COVID-19 virus soar to a million worldwide, the parasitic capitalist economy built on our backs continues to crash.
Today’s unemployment reports reveal a record-breaking 6.6 million people filed for unemployment benefits this week followed by 3.3 million workers who filed last week.
That means more than 10 million people were forced out of work in the past two weeks due to the shutdown of most sectors of the capitalist economy throughout the U.S. and around the world.
The U.S. government is now forced to talk about a second “relief package,” which again will give pennies to African people while feeding the rich.
While many elites of the ruling class are rolling in cash with the trillions of dollars from government “stimulus” packages, the African working class is getting hit hard both health-wise and in our pockets!
Reports from the colonial media are predicting an economic downturn as bad as the worst periods of the capitalist crisis called the Great Depression of the 1930s when one fourth of all workers were without jobs.
Unemployment was already higher in our communities way before the coronavirus hit, due to the fact that we live under colonialism!
We all know that the first to get fired, evicted, foreclosed, imprisoned and shafted on our pension are African workers.
Many of us are not even in the system due to mass imprisonment or just no more jobs to look for.
Millions of us were already quarantined as “convicted felons,” stripped of our rights and banned from the workplace.
In January a report came out that 50 percent of the U.S. homeless population is made up of African families.
Those Africans who are or were government workers can pretty much forget about our pensions which were already underfunded to begin with.
According to The New York Times this morning:
“The coronavirus has staggered pension funds in Chicago, which were already chronically underfunded. Most are required by law to keep sending checks every month to about 11 million Americans.
“Even before the pandemic gut-punched the economy, Maria Pappas, the treasurer of Cook County, IL, counted a record 57,000 delinquent property-tax payers in her county, which includes Chicago. Property taxes feed more than 400 municipal pension funds in Cook County, including some that are cash-starved and close to hitting bottom.
“’The people have no money,” said Ms. Pappas.”
While sectors of the white ruling class are raking in the cash African people are catching hell. The Wall Street banks, Big Pharma, Amazon and Whole Foods, drug stores, the gaming industry, Netflix and online entertainment—these sectors are doing great. At our expense!
Most of the unemployed at this point are from small businesses which have little or no cash reserves.
The impact on small businesses has forced the closing of our Uhuru Furniture stores in Philadelphia and Oakland, and Uhuru Foods & Pies booths at farmers’ markets in Oakland and St. Petersburg.
Our stolen labor for hundreds of years built this capitalist system which needs to rip us off in order to feed itself every day.
We must seize our reparations—the stolen wealth that belongs to us! This is why the African People’s Socialist Party has launched The People’s War Campaign.
We must get organized for economic and political power in our own hands. We must take territory.
The white elite are not scared of the coronavirus, they are scared of African people when we are organized and rise up. Our power must overturn their power!
Join the African People’s Socialist Party People’s War!
We are winning!
