The city of Lima, Ohio, recently announced that it will pay a $2.5 million settlement for the slaying of Tarika Wilson , a 26-year-old African American woman and the mother of six children.
 Tarika Wilson was shot and killed during a police raid in Lima, Ohio. Despite a $2.5 million settlement, the police denies any wrongdoing. |
During a January 2008 drug raid, Sgt. Joseph Chavalia, a white police officer shot and killed Wilson, who was unarmed and holding her one-year-old son. Her other five children were huddled in a corner of the room, looking on as the police murdered their mother and shot their brother. Wilson’s son had to have a finger amputated.
The $2.5 million settlement, to be paid by the city’s insurance company, is waiting for approval by a federal judge. (Associated Press, Jan. 4)
But the settlement will hardly give Wilson’s family a true sense of closure. The city refuses to admit guilt and remains a vocal supporter of Sgt. Chavalia, and officials insist that Chavalia acted appropriately. Sgt. Chavalia was acquitted of criminal charges and, though he no longer patrols the streets, is still employed as a police officer. The community is outraged.
Wilson is one of countless victims of the so-called “war on drugs,” whose main beneficiaries have been the corporate profiteers running the prison-industrial complex. Corrections Corporation of America, for instance, held assets totaling $2.9 billion in 2008(Pershing Square Capital Management, Oct. 20, 2009). The United States has the highest number of inmates of any country in the world, both in absolute and per capita numbers (Pew Center, 2008).
The war on oppressed communities is an inherent feature of capitalism. Because jobs are only created when there’s an opportunity for profit, unemployment is inevitable under capitalism. It further benefits the bosses by helping them drive down wages as workers in need of jobs compete against each other.
The resulting impoverishment of the lower rungs of the working class calls for repressive measures to quell any unrest that may result. To that end, the poor are criminalized, the flames of racist hatred are fanned, and every instrument of repression is turned against the working class under the pretext of fighting crime.
The prison system attempts to lock up in a cage the irreconcilable class antagonisms between workers and capitalists. The U.S. prison population is the world’s largest, not only in absolute numbers, but also per capita. The prison system is the capitalists’ solution to the threat of social upheaval posed by droves of unemployed workers. The real criminals—the rich who rob working-class people of the social wealth they produce—walk free.
The prison industry is a profitable one. Insiders state that a 90-95 percent prison capacity rate must be maintained to make profits, while a 100 percent capacity rate would be ideal . (Corp Watch, June 1, 2000)
Who benefits from this? The people in our communities who continue to struggle with poverty, joblessness, foreclosures, evictions and lack of public services? Or the few who line their pockets with profits at the expense of workers? The answer is clearly the latter.
The solution is building a class-conscious movement against racism and the ravages of the capitalist system. We must use every opportunity to expose fraudulent schemes such as the “war on drugs” that are nothing but a war against poor and oppressed working-class communities.
