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Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the June 29, 2000
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------Hypocrisy over Central Park attacks
Since when do the NYPD & Giuliani care about women?
By Rebeca Toledo
New York
The alarming June 11 attacks on over 45 women by groups of young men in New York's Central Park have become a win-win situation for the New York Police Department, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's administration and the whole racist and sexist system.
First, they whipped up a racist backlash against the historic National Puerto Rican Day Parade that took place earlier the same day. And then, they got to pretend that they care about violence against women.
Since when does the NYPD care about women? On June 11, women reported that the police stood by and watched as they were being attacked. And can Mayor Rudolph Giuliani claim to care about violence against women? Isn't throwing women and children off welfare and into the dire poverty called "workfare" violence against women?
So why did the cops and the mayor and the media play such a role in bringing the June 11 attacks to public attention? They used what happened in an attempt to discredit and undermine the political significance of this year's Puerto Rican Day Parade, which took place before the attacks on the women.
This year's parade was dedicated to Vieques and Don Pedro Albizu Campos, leader of the modern independence movement in Puerto Rico. It was an overwhelming show of support for the struggle in Vieques.
The 2-million-strong parade did indeed become the largest demonstration to date against the U.S. Navy's continued use of the small island for target practice.
The crowd cheered wildly at a huge statue of Don Pedro. They chanted non-stop, "Vieques si, Marina, no." Signs calling for "Peace for Vieques" and "U.S. Navy out" lined the parade route.
During the Puerto Rican Day Parade and afterward, the cops and the system showed their true colors. There were 4,000 cops out to patrol the parade. That's 10 percent of the entire city force.
The day before, the route along Fifth Avenue was literally boarded up. Crowd control during the parade was so tight, as in other years, that spectators could hardly move.
Parade-goers were herded into a 45-block area along Fifth Avenue. People were forcibly kept from moving east or west of the avenue.
This year, the parade was cut short because of lobbying against loud music by affluent Fifth Avenue residents.
The parade's anti-U.S.-imperialism spirit is of great concern to the ruling class here.
So it shouldn't come as a surprise that the city government was given a green light to discredit the parade.
Although the cops did nothing to stop the attacks on women while they were happening, afterward they launched a massive dragnet to round up young Latino and African American men--regardless of whether the men were involved.
What is needed
The anti-women attitudes instilled in all boys by the ruling class and its media must be combated.
Nationally, one out of every four women will be the victim of rape or attempted rape in her lifetime. And when one of these women's cases makes it to court, a slap on the wrist is often all the court gives the offenders.
Take the gruesome 1989 case of white male athletes from a high school in Glen Ridge, N.J., who gang raped and tortured a female classmate who was mildly retarded. They penetrated her with a broomstick and a baseball bat.
There were no immediate front-page mug shots of the athletes with $12,000 rewards offered by the police. There were no outcries from town officials calling for their arrest.
No. It was months before anything was even done in this affluent suburb. And the result was that the ringleaders were convicted of first-degree sexual assault, but the judge gave them less than two years in jail.
This is the true nature of the cops and the bourgeois state. They are not here to protect women or parade-goers. In fact, it's the exact opposite. The cops are here to repress and oppress women, people of color and workers. They are here to protect the ruling class's private property and keep things status quo.
So it's unfortunate to hear some community leaders calling for cooperation with the NYPD in rounding up young Latino and African American men. Women's groups are rightfully outraged by police inaction during the attacks. But to call on the police to take violence against women seriously by taking more action in the communities is not the answer.
Abner Louima didn't need any more police action. Amadou Diallo certainly couldn't have cooperated more. Patrick Dorismond was trying to be law-abiding. Yet they all suffered death or torture at the hands of the NYPD.
What is needed in this situation is community control. Oppressed communities should chart their own destinies.
These young brothers did violate women and show total disrespect for them. Puerto Rican and Latina women should be the ones to set them straight. Latina women should hold hearings to let it be known that violence against women will not be tolerated.
That's how they do it in socialist Cuba. The people's tribunals, based in the communities, are an integral part of Cuba's justice system. They hold hearings to rule on offenses and penalties. Whether the punishment is re-education or something else, it is the people themselves who decide.
This is what is needed. Latinas have to let it be known that we don't want or need the cops and the courts to interfere and that women in general cannot rely on the capitalist cops and courts for justice.
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