Understanding Our Vote on Carmen Best

Letter to the National Committee and BC members from the Executive Committee

8/13/18

This is an internal document that could complicate our

work in Seattle if it was made public. Please distribute
this to active SA members as needed while keeping in
mind these security considerations.

Following a series of discussions, the EC met
Saturday to resolve a complicated tactical decision
over how to vote in Monday?s Seattle City Council
nomination of Carmen Best for police chief. Best is
a black woman, a 26?year veteran of the SPD,
viewed as a reformer with long connections in the
black community. She emerged as the nominee as a
result of uproar from black community leaders and
anti?police brutality activists against a racist
attempt by the Mayor and establishment to push
her aside.

After careful consideration of all sides of this
issues, considering all options and through
collective discussion with the Executive
Committee, the International Secretariat (the IS is
elected leadership of the CWI), many National
Committee and Seattle CC members and crucially
a number of left allies and black leaders in Seattle -
we feel confident that the best tactic is to vote
?yes.? This must be combined with a speech by
Kshama before she votes warning about Best?s
limitations, appealing to step up the fightback
against racist policing, and pointing towards to
need for an alternative to the capitalist system.

How to vote on this is a tactical question, not a
question of principle. It is a question of how we can
most effectively win broader support for our
program on the police, and how a ?no? or ?yes 
vote will actually be understood - not simply how
we intend it to be understood. While a ?no? vote on
a police chief would be our strongly preferred and
default position, it is clear that in the context of
either silence or a near unanimous support for Best
in the African American community including
among activists fighting police brutality - a ?no?
vote would not be seen, in the first place, as a clear
stand against police racism and repression. For
much of the black working class and a large
section of activists fighting police racism - a ?no?
vote would be seen as dogmatically refusing to

stand with black and brown communities in their
attempt to push back against racism in the
establishment and police.

We should not be afraid to stand against the tide
when this helps us win over a more conscious
minority. But Marxists should also not be afraid to
make tactical concessions to working class
consciousness when this helps us maintain the
cohesion of the movement around wider goals and
to win the ear of the working class to communicate
our wider program. In our fight for $15 in Seattle,
for example, we decided a concession to small
business (a phase?in) was needed, given the
confusion and positive illusions in small business
held by most working class people. This concession
was not designed to win over small business. It was
to deny our enemies the ability to use workers?
confused consciousness to drive a wedge between
ourselves and sections of the class, and to maintain
the cohesion of the movement to win $15 and build
support for our wider program. There are of course
limits in any comparison, but this example helps
illustrate the Marxist method we feel needs to be
applied to the Best vote.

Background on Best?s Appointment

In May, the process to select Seattle?s new chief of
police blew up into a very public controversy. In a
process driven by Mayor Durken, councilmember
Lorena Gonzalez, and former council president Tim
Burgess, the three finalists announced for the new
chief of police didn?t include Best. Black
community leaders, including the key local figures
of the fight against police racism and violence,
organized a public outcry against the exclusion of
Carmen Best. Referring to the exclusion of Carmen
Best, Nikkita Oliver said ?this racist mess will not
stand.?

Facing huge pressure and scandalized by a
discriminatory process with a total lack of
transparency, Mayor Durken did an abrupt
about?face and announced that she was

nominating Best as the new chief, pending

Resolution to Seattle SA Members Meeting 9/15 20

confirmation from City Council. What is clear is
that, out of this process, the overwhelming feeling
among politically conscious sections of the black
community and beyond is that Best?s nomination is
the product of their fight against racism in the SPD
and the political establishment. This is a

significant difference with the way the process
unfolded with the previous police chief Kathleen
O?Toole, who was also was celebrated as a
reformer, and whom we voted against.

Black clergy, community leaders, and even many
leading voices against police violence and racism
like Andre Taylor (brother of Che Taylor whose
racist k?ling by the SPD sparked protests) are
enthusiastic backers of Best. Even those who share
our analysis of the police and skepticism toward
Best have decided not to make any public criticisms
of Best because of the consciousness of black
workers around this issue.

Voting yes does not mean we will join in the
celebrations of the establishment. Her
appointment will not solve anything for black
workers and youth and we will make our warnings
known. At the same time, we are prepared to make
a concession to support the aspirations of an
oppressed section of Seattle in order to fight
shoulder to shoulder with them through all the
experiences that will be needed to help clarify the
need for socialist policies. While Best has
attempted to claim the mantle of a reformer,
saying her number one priority is rebuilding trust
and relations with the community, we should have
no illusions that she represents a serious break
from the status quo of institutional racism or the
repressive role of the police in capitalist society.
The police union (SPOG) also weighed into the
public debate, backing Best as a 26 ?year veteran of
the SPD who had risen through the ranks,
underscoring our perspective that Best is not at
this stage prepared to go beyond largely symbolic
reform measures.

However, in a display of independence from SPOG,
in July Best fired two police officers for using
deadly force in a simple car theft incident. After the
prosecutors refused to press charges on the
officers, SPOG is now demanding Best reinstate the
officers. Best also has instituted an anti?racist
training program for police, bringing in the group
Youth Undoing Institutional Racism, which
emerged out of the wider BLM movement, helped
initiate the No New Youth Iail struggle, and is seen

as a fighting, movement?based group. We should
have no illusions that these gestures represent a
meaningful break with the status quo, but it helps
to understand the support behind Best.

How Our Vote Will be Understood

Our preferred position would of course be to vote
as we correctly did against the previous chief
O?Toole in 2014 despite significant illusions in her
promises for reform. But even with the O?Toole
appointment, the EC and SEC then did not treat the
question of voting ?no" as an automatic thing or a
question of principle. We took a meticulous
approach to considering how our vote and speech
would be understood. This situation has been more
complicated and required quite a serious
consideration.

In the last couple weeks, we went through a
systematic process of discussion with our allies on
the left and in the black community, from faith and
civil rights organizations to former Black Panthers.
Even with the warnings from leaders in the black
community about how this would be received, we
attempted to build the political basis for a ?no?
vote. We asked those leaders that shared our
criticisms of Best to publically back us if Kshama
voted which would have been vital to ensure
our reasons for voting "no? would be understood by
at least a significant radical minority. However,
given the confusion and strength of the mood for
Best, no one committed to defend a ?no" vote or
even to raise concerns publicly about Best.

Through this process it became clear that a ?no?
vote would be interpreted by key sections of the
black working class and activist layers as a
dogmatic refusal to stand in solidarity the
democratic demands of the community, with our
attempt to communicate a principled opposition
against police racism and repression deeply
obscured.

Nikkita Oliver and those around her have also been
largely silent. After loudly organizing to fight
Best?s exclusion from the nomination process,
since the Mayor?s reversal Nikkita put out one
tweet saying that, ?as an abolitionist? she
supports none of the options for chief, but included
no specific criticism of Best and she has been silent
since. Unlike with Kathleen O?Toole, there has
been virtually no public criticism of Best from

Resolution to Seattle SA Members Meeting 9/15 21

movement activists, while many black leaders have
painted her nomination as a victory of the
movement. Importantly, in this concrete situation,
support for Best in the black community reflects a
wider mood to fight against the whole legacy of
qualified black and brown people and women of
color especially being discriminated against and
passed over. But as always working class
consciousness is contradictory and we act in a way
that doesn?t cut us off but pushes forward the most
progressive, fighting instincts.

For of those who back Best?s nomination, however,
it doesn?t automatically follow that there are real
hopes she can really change things, that the
structural racism embedded in the criminal justice
system will be curbed on her watch, or that we
shouldn?t tomorrow begin to fight Best when the
SPD acts against working class and oppressed
communities. Our position is to side with the black
and brown community both in their anger at the
establishment?s handling of this process and
against police racism, and to link our vote to a call
to action to continue the fight. The best way to do
that is to vote ?yes combined with clear warnings
in a sharp statement.

Perspectives and Consciousness

While Best may enjoy a more sustained
honeymoon than O?Toole did, we should fully
expect that new outrages by the SPD will expose
Best?s limitations and her support in the black
community and more widely will wane. For our
ultra?left critics, this will be seen as confirmation
that a ?yes? vote was a ?betrayal.? However, the
rigid thinking of many on the left is not mirrored in
the consciousness of most working people,
including most of the black working class. For wider
layers, there is no contradiction in Kshama siding
with the democratic demands of the black
community in her vote while clearly warning of
Best?s limitations and the need to step up the
struggle. And unlike the out?of?touch formal logic
of the ultra?lefts, most working people will not see
a contradiction when, the next time SPD engages in
racist violence or political repression, SA and
Kshama sharply criticise and protest Chief Best.

On the other hand, voting ?no? on Best risks
undermining our authority and legitimacy among
black workers -- even many who may generally

agree that the capitalist state is built upon racism
and can?t be reformed. A backlash from the black
community today would undermine our ability in
the future to get an ear for our program or action
proposals. Even when events would appear to
many on the far left to ?vindicate? our ?no? vote,
it is far from automatic that wider layers would see
it this way, especially among black and brown
workers and activists who felt we?d dogmatically
snubbed them previously.

Given that we are not in a position to effect the
outcome (all other eight council members will be
voting then the central question is how
Kshama? 3 vote and speech will be interpreted, and
how it will prepare the ground for winning over
wider layers to our program in the future. With no
visible points of support for a "no" vote, this
course would be exploited by our enemies in the
establishment and could even be cast by many of
our allies (Andre Taylor, etc) as snubbing the
movement to fight racism in the police and
establishment. In this context, a ?yes? vote
combined with a sharp statement against racist
policing and for our socialist ideas is the best way
to position ourselves for building future struggles
against the SPD and winning wider layers to our
program.

As it became clear in the last week that no public
support existed for a ?no? vote, on Saturday the EC
met to take a final decision. We agreed that
however Kshama voted on Monday there would be
widespread confusion over what it represented, but
that a ?yes? vote will likely do less damage to our
longer-term ability to win over the black working
class (and beyond) to our ideas than a ?no" vote
would. Given that we are not in a position to effect
the outcome (all other eight council members will
be voting ?yes"yes), then the central question is
how Kshama?s vote and speech will be interpreted,
and how it will prepare the ground for winning over
wider layers to our program in the future.

The vote would be combined with a clear speech
from Kshama skillfully outlining our
disagreements with Best, warning that her lack of
commitment to serious reforms (much less a
socialist program) means that new racist police
killings are inevitable, and that only a movement
from below will achieve the changes demanded by
the community. We will explain our ?yes? vote by
referencing the racist process led by the Mayor
behind closed doors that initially passed over Best,

Resolution to Seattle SA Members Meeting 9/15 22

and the broad community outcry against it, and black working class. We will point toward the need
that despite our warnings we will not stand in the for a unified movement demanding accountability
way of the democratic will of the wider movement and fundamental changes in police policy.
including important sections of the more conscious

Resolution to Seattle SA Members Meeting 9/15 23