Don't let anti-working-class ideas us astray

By Barbara Jean Hope

As the Communist Party USA prepares for its ideological conference this weekend, the question of how we fight racism must be addressed. Racism must be fought. Whites must fight against racism and speak out, to other whites. That is vital.

As a Black woman living in the U.S., some issues must be raised in regard to how we as Black workers will fight racism. We have waged a great struggle and we have further to go. As the struggle continues, there are elements in regard to the fight against racism that are counter-revolutionary and must be addressed. We must not let reaction guide the struggle for Black liberation.

The Black separatist movement is a movement of reaction. "Leaders" such as Minister Louis Farrakhan are reactionaries. We must be willing to call it as it is.

It is more important now than ever before to understand that the special oppression and exploitation aimed toward Black people comes from one source, the ruling class. Having people in the streets in "Millions of This or Millions of That" marches is an exercise in "feel-goodism" that the Black working class cannot afford to entertain.

In 1972, there were 900,000, or 27 percent, more Black men than Black women employed. In 1999, there are 900,000, or 12 percent, fewer Black men employed than Black women. Of the current 900,000 gap, 800,000 are Black men doing unpaid labor in America's prisons. Times are very serious, we have not a moment to "feel good" as we do not address our class enemy.

Another point has to do with the Black and Jewish political relationship. Those who want us to feel good, look at the political landscape and point their fingers at the Jewish population in this nation as the cause of Black oppression. On the face of it, that is ludicrous. Jewish people are 2-3 percent of the entire population in America. If we do any research at all, we find that the owners of the means of production in America overwhelmingly are not Jewish people.

What has the finger-pointing wrought? It has wrought an alienation between two groups of people who must fight together to end racial and religious oppression. Those who would fight racism by scapegoating Jewish people are far off the mark. They are anti-progressive. That method of "fighting" is actually colluding with the ruling elite's aim to divide working/progressive people by any means necessary.

Above all, the ruling elite wants to have Jews and Blacks at the throats of one another. There is a reason that those who talk about a separate Black nation get so much air time in the capitalist media. They are doing the work of the ruling class as they masquerade as voices for "freedom" for the Black working class.

The special oppression of Black people in America is completely related to with the profitability of racism. If racism were not profitable, it would be ended tomorrow morning. The special oppression and exploitation of the Black population has totally to do with the need to separate the working class. If we are not united, we cannot stage an effective fightback.

We must not heed the false cries of those who would separate us. We must not ruminate on perceived conspiracies from 2 or 3 percent of the population, the Jewish people. We must look at the real conspiracy that has Black people working harder and earning less.

Who is responsible for that? Jewish people or the ruling class? Let us be focused, let us not listen to Pied Pipers who blow their flutes in the interests of separation of the entire working class for the benefit of the ruling class.

Particularly, in Philadelphia, there are some participants on Black talk radio who seem to have a fixation with the "power" of Jewish people. It is buying into myths put forward by the same people who are in the hills, counting their bullets, and wearing combat fatigues, the militias. We must not join hands with the misguided who have not the courage to face our real enemy, the class that starves our children and takes the right of health care from us, among other things. We as Black people are first of all working-class people.

We must remember why our ancestors were brought to America's shores. We were brought here to help - through free labor - to build capitalism. Without slave labor, the sugar and cotton plantations, so vital to the growth of capitalism in the western hemisphere, would not have grown as tremendously as they did.

As Black people living in the U.S. and the western hemisphere, we must always be conscious of the fact that the enslavement of our ancestors, their brutalization, was a direct result of capitalism. We, as Black people in America, instead of wanting to tie our oars to the sinking boat of capitalism, should understand that when we stand on the streets of Philadelphia, Boston, L.A. or Chicago, and wonder if we are going to have a job tomorrow, we are here because of the rapacious greed of capitalism.

Millions died during the building of western capitalism. Our ancestors were beaten, enslaved, killed, and worked to death without a payday to build capitalism. That is why we as Black people must look at capitalism for the scourge that it is. Millions of Africans died, forced to lend their blood, sweat, and tears to build an oppressive system of worker exploitation for the benefit of a few.

There are those Black separatists and nationalists who mouth such words as "miscegenation" and rail against those in the working class who decide to marry outside of racial boundaries. Those separatists are, usually unknowingly, simply mouthpieces for the ruling elite.

The word "miscegenation" came into use in 1864 according to Webster's dictionary. What were the conditions for Black people then? Who coined the word? Why?

To separate the broad working class has always been the aim of those who would seek power and wealth by the exploitation of all workers. Those who buy into repeating the words coined by oppressors actually are minting a "new" version of the same coin: divide and conquer. We must show that coin for the counterfeit that it is.

Then, there are those who decide to sit out elections. After all, the voting process is crooked and what has it to do with us? That is exactly what those in power want us to do. We must participate actively in the political system, Black, Brown and white, or we participate in our own destruction.

To act, as the most vilified and racially oppressed in this nation, to vote early and often, to become involved in the political process in the interests of our class, is the one sure way to move America forward. An America that works for all workers and an America that is anti-racist can be achieved in one way, and one way only, political involvement and fightback.

Stephen D. Isaacs, the author of Jews and American Politics (Doubleday, 1974), quoted a passage from the Torah: "If a man of learning participates in public affairs, he gives stability to the land. But if he sits at home and says to himself: 'What have the affairs of society to do with me? ... Let my soul dwell in peace,' he brings about the destruction of the world."

We must not aid in bringing about the destruction of our class and the furtherance of racial oppression by not being involved in political affairs or by scapegoating other groups of people. Our fight, as Black people in America, is a valiant one. We have come too far to fall on the horns of scapegoating or to ignore the fact that the fight against racism is a class issue.

Scapegoating is not part of the class struggle. There will be no "win" in the fight against racism without the class struggle.

Barbara Jean Hope is a contributor from Philadelphia who writes regularly on the fight against racism.