Jailed for Defending His Son Against Racist Thugs

John White Freed

John White, a black Long Island resident imprisoned for defending his family against a racist mob, spent Christmas back at home after outgoing Democratic governor David Paterson commuted his sentence last month. Sentenced to up to four years for manslaughter and for possessing an unlicensed gun, the 57-year-old White walked out of prison after five months served. It is a travesty that he was ever jailed in the first place. And Paterson, New York’s first black governor, who will be remembered most for slashing millions from health care and education, did not even grant a pardon. Outrageously, White, who rightly wanted a full exoneration, remains a convicted felon.

As we recounted in “John White Must Go Free!” (WV No. 905, 4 January 2008), in August 2006 White was awakened by his son Aaron, who had been chased home by five young whites, led by Daniel Cicciaro Jr., screaming the “n” word and threatening to kill him. The gang’s lying pretext was that Aaron had threatened to rape a white woman. John White grabbed his pistol, ran out of the house and confronted the thugs on his driveway. As White turned back to his house, Cicciaro lunged for the gun, which discharged accidentally, killing him.

At his trial, White spoke of how his family’s experience in the South with the racist terrorists of the Ku Klux Klan influenced his actions. As the New York Labor Black League for Social Defense, which is fraternally allied with the Spartacist League, wrote in a letter to John White’s family hailing his release from prison: “The logic of your conviction was to deny black people the most fundamental right of self-defense.”

In capitalist America, black self-defense against racist terror has historically been met with state repression, including through gun control measures. In the 1960s, gun control laws were passed in New York and California to specifically target Malcolm X and the Black Panthers. Like many other black Democrats, Al Sharpton, whose National Action Network was active in protest marches for John White, supports gun control in the name of fighting crime and violence. Recently, Sharpton has teamed up with the NYPD—the enforcers of racist state terror in the ghettos and barrios—to get guns off the streets of Harlem in a program called “Cash for Guns.” As Marxists, we stand for the right of armed self-defense and in opposition to gun control, whose effect is to strengthen a monopoly of arms in the hands of the capitalist state, while racist terrorists like the KKK are always able to get guns.

The New York LBL was founded in July 1986 after a successful campaign to defend black transit worker James Grimes. A token booth clerk, Grimes was being railroaded by the courts for using his gun while on the job to defend himself against robbers who threatened to kill him. Likewise, the LBL and SL joined others in defending John White, and the Partisan Defense Committee sent protest letters and contributed funds toward his defense. As the LBL noted in its letter to the White family, “It is in the interest of the entire labor movement to fight against every instance of racist oppression.” No to gun control!