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Title: Capitalism and Racism Author: Black Autonomy Federation Date: November 19, 2013 Language: en Topics: capitalism, racism, white supremacy, oppression, people of color, Black Anarchism Source: Retrieved on 24th October 2020 from https://blackautonomyfederation.blogspot.com/2014/09/capitalism-and-racism-analysis-of-white.html
If an effective resistance is to be mounted against the current racist
offensive of the Capitalist class, the utmost solidarity between the
poor and workers of all races is essential, but especially among various
peoples of color. My position has always been one that rather than the
usual road of a white dominated path to “unity”, as laid out by the
White left, I believe an alliance of oppressed peoples of color is
really the way forward in this period. This does not mean that we do not
have group differences or will always agree on individual issues between
various non-white ethnic and racial groupings. But our shared history of
oppression and desire for liberation equip us for a new type of unity
and lays a path to unite with advanced elements of the white working
class.
We must point out to those white people who say they oppose the system:
that the way to defeat the Capitalist strategy is for white workers to
defend the democratic rights won by Blacks and other oppressed peoples
after decades of hard struggle and to fight to dismantle the system of
white skin privilege. White workers should support and adopt the
concrete demands of the Black/POC movement and should work to abolish
the white identity entirely. These white workers should strive for
multicultural unity and should work with Black/POC activists to build an
anti-racist movement to challenge white supremacy. They should stand in
absolute solidarity with the liberation movements in those communities
that arise. (This must be done in tandem with any wage demands, but most
white radicals dismiss this as “divisive”).
However, even though we call on white workers to support our struggle,
it is also very important for them to recognize the right of the Black
movement to take an independent road in its own interests. That is what
self-determination means. It does not mean deferring our struggles to
that of white radicals or other segments of the white community, with
the hope of some mindless “unity” in the future. It has not yet even
been proven that the most progressive or “radical” whites are up to the
task and since racism is so deep, that they would be able to break away.
But we offer them a way forward, in support of and as part of a new
movement.
But if such a Black movement does become a social revolutionary
movement, it must ultimately unite its forces with similar movements
among Native Americans, Chicanos, Puerto Ricans and other oppressed
peoples of color, who are in revolt against the system. Such a united
movement of activist peoples of color could radicalize even broader
sectors of the white society, such as students, youth, laborers and
others, thus undermining the consensus upholding white support for the
government across class lines.
This is what we believe has the most potential for happening again,
radical autonomous movements acting as revolutionary “incubators” of
broad-based struggles, although it is not enough to call for mindless
“unity” as much of the white left does. Their “unity” just means white
leftist control and leadership of the overall struggle.
So we cannot sit around waiting on white working people to join our
movements, or running to join white-dominated organizations. White
people are still not in the same desperate circumstances as Blacks,
Latinos or Native Americans, nor want to see the system defeated now as
long as it serves them.
Because of the dual forms of oppression of non-white workers and the
depth of social desperation it creates, Blacks and peoples of color must
strike first, whether their potential white allies are available to do
so or not. This is self-determination and that is why it is necessary
for oppressed workers to build independent movements to unite their own
peoples first. Malcolm X was the first one to really explain this. This
self-activity of the oppressed masses of color when it reaches the
radical stage is inherently a revolutionary force and is an essential
part of the social revolutionary process of the entire working and poor
class.
Although Anarchists do not believe in vanguard political parties, the
reality is that because of the peculiarities of the United States of
America’s social development and especially racial slavery, Africans in
America and other peoples of color with a shared history, are
predisposed to lead at least the beginning states of a social
revolution, thereafter enlisting or being joined by its potential allies
in the white working class. African Americans constitute a “class
vanguard”, a class capable of radicalizing society with its struggle
against racism and capitalism. Most white radicals at least give lip
service to understanding this, especially since the Black Power and
Civil Rights struggles unfolded in the 1960s, although they still hang
onto the “white working class hero” ideology of the past, to try to
deflect these issues with a backward class argument. We cannot simply
wait around for white people to “get it” and become active in our cause.
Even though Blacks and people of color are a “minority”of the total
population, there can be no successful social revolution in the United
States without Black and non-white people not just taking equal part in
a white dominated movement, but in fact leading the way. The U.S. class
system is based on racialized social, economic and political oppression.
With such a race and class divided society, to ignore this basic fact is
a sellout or capitulation to white supremacy. Rather than reducing all
contradictions to class alone, like most white radicals continue to do,
we must understand the workings of racism as part of the structure of
overall oppression.
In fact, for white radicals to ignore this means that they themselves
are engaging in white chauvinism of the worst sort and betraying the
very idea of social revolution. Though they think they should lead
everybody or have all the answers, United States social history has
proven too many times that white middle class radicals cannot even lead
working class whites, less known the captive nationalities to freedom.
Because of their almost total ignorance about race and class issues,
white Anarchist radicals don’t even know what questions to ask and
therefore can’t come up with the right answers. So we organize in our
own name and for our interests in a Black/POC Autonomous movement,
rather than depend on them.
The new autonomous politics is made up of the Libertarian Socialist core
of Anarchism and many of the tenets of revolutionary Black nationalism,
such as was stated and practiced by the original Black Panther Party.
This combination of elements makes up something so new that it has not
been fully defined before now. We will attempt to more sharply define
what it is that we have been talking about for so many years and also
place it within an historical context so that it can no longer be
dismissed as an eclectic mish-mash” or “corruption of (both ideals)” as
the purists would claim. Yet, it should not alarm Anarchist ideological
“purists” when we speak of an autonomous movement of Anarchists of
color.
First, the early Anarchist movement in America always reflected the
cultural, social and political ideals of the community that produced it.
Thus, we had a Germanic-dominated Anarcho-Syndicalist tendency during
the 1880’s called the International Working People’s Association, which
was strong in Chicago, Pittsburgh and a few other industrial cities; a
Jewish Anarchist movement in New York and other cities during the
1900’s-and lasted until the 1980s, wherein some whole newspapers were
printed in Yiddish; an Italian movement also flourished in New York, New
Jersey and other urban areas in the 1920–30’s and so on. One European
ethnic group after another produced unique American Anarchist social
movements, which culturally and politically reflected those communities.
So the question then becomes why should anyone be surprised to learn
that there would be Anarchist movements of Pacific Islanders, African
Americans or Latinos among other peoples of color? In talking about
Anarchist ideals and autonomous movements, we are not talking about
“orthodoxies” which cannot be revised, we are talking about ideas which
will be picked up, used by millions of oppressed peoples and adapted to
their purpose and circumstances. But many of the white Anarchists have
shown nothing but fear and loathing.
Black Autonomy is not Black Nationalism. We believe in
self-determination, but not any form of racial superiority. We do not
negate class differences between rich and poor within any nationality,
those among us who seek to be our neo-colonial masters, the “Negrosie,”
are our enemies as much as the European racists. We do not seek to build
a nation-state for our own separate peoples. We subscribe to the major
tenets of Anarchism and anti-authoritarian politics, although we
redefine many of those to deal with our oppressed condition and ideas of
liberation.
Interestingly, it was Fred Hampton and the Chicago branch of the Black
Panther Party, which first conceived of a “Rainbow Alliance” of
revolutionary organizations of various ethnic and racial groups way back
in the late 1960s. Hampton was no integrationist and although he
remained a strong Black revolutionary, Hampton began to unite white
radicals, with progressive elements of the Black community, Latinos,
Asians and others into a grassroots political movement to organize in
their own communities, and then unite their local political associations
into a citywide grassroots alliance. He openly referred to this as a
dual power institution to challenge the established white power
structure and empower the poor masses of the Daley political machine.
However, he was assassinated in December 1969, before he could really
put his program into play. And yet it is something that still needs to
happen.
We go further now and say that there should be a movement built of
autonomous peoples of color, linked to the Anarchist movement, but
existing as an independent tendency. There have been short-term
alliances between ethnic and racial groups, but there has never been a
real attempt to actually create a revolutionary organization of peoples
of color. But what is needed is a radical break from the narrow race
nationalism of “our people first and only” to a new radical
consciousness of race and class, which embraces those peoples of color
and oppressed peoples of diverse ethnic backgrounds that share views of
autonomous political action. Many Black nationalists and doctrinaire
white radical groups alike would be opposed to this, for reasons of
their own.
But the Anarchist purists and Black chauvinists both will just have to
shudder, because a new movement is on the verge of happening now and
there is nothing that anybody can do to stop it. There are
anti-authoritarian activists of color of every ethnic group and hue, who
are taking the first slow steps towards building a tendency within the
Anarchist movement, or even venturing out as autonomous
anti-authoritarians. They have taken those ideals which I and others
have put out there and made them into a class weapon reflecting the
African, Asian, or Latino experiences on this continent and thus taken
the first steps to free their peoples and their class.
This great sector of oppressed colored humanity has said we have had
enough: Enough racism! Enough poverty! Enough degradation! Enough
oppression! They also know they will have to fight their own fight, if
they want to be free. Nobody from the white world is coming to save
them. Although they know the revolutionary project to defeat this system
of capitalism and enslavement requires millions of other allies who will
help them, it is people of color who will decide the agenda, the
timetable and the tactics for obtaining our liberation. Too long have
others spoken for us without our best interests at heart.
The new Black/POC autonomous politics differs from European Anarchism in
that we know that we are oppressed as a distinct people and as workers.
Currently, European-dominated Anarchism places its greatest
contradictions with the State alone, with the state’s ability to hold
back a free lifestyle and yet this is exactly what we cannot limit our
critique to. This is a white world-view based on many members’
privileged background in capitalist society. Some Anarchists and other
white radicals argue that we should not “buy into” any race
differentiation at all, less known ideals of autonomy. To them we say:
yes, we realize that historically constructed “races” have been created
under this system, which determines both manner of life and death under
this system and that the State upholds this race/class system.
Yes, we know that it is no accident that it is this way. Yes, it is also
true that individual white workers have not commissioned racism and we
do not perceive all white people as enemies. However, we also know how
this system really works for white supremacy, and that all classes of
whites have been the beneficiaries of our oppression, and that white
class collaboration-ism is part of the social control mechanism of the
state. The fact is that it is the whites who should be the ones
deconstructing whiteness and confronting white racism, while we fight
for freedom and liberation in our own way!
Therefore, we vehemently disagree with the Socialists, Communists and
those Anarchists who say that the oppression of all workers is identical
under this system. This does not reflect reality at all.
We say that we are a class of super-oppressed people of color
historically downtrodden equally because of our racial oppression under
this system, not just our social class as workers. Even a cursory glance
at history and everyday social reality proves that one’s place in this
racist society rides on the outcome of their skin pigment or ethnic
makeup. So racism is a class doctrine, used by the state for social
control of workers of color. In fact, racism is the actual class
relationship in North American society.
I have pointed out before that so-called “white” people are a contrived
super-nationality designed to help the capitalists keep workers of color
in their place and safeguard the status quo. So rather than see the
white industrial working class as a potentially revolutionary class,
instead we see it as an opportunistic, collaborationist body which must
be redefined and reorganized if is to constitute a reliable ally for
workers of color and have any ability of fighting in the interests of a
new working class. As it stands now, they are fighting for white rights,
not for the rights of the entire class of the poor and workers.
As Autonomous workers of color, we of course disagree with Marxists and
other so-called radicals who claim that an authoritarian political party
and strong leadership cultism is necessary to produce a social
revolution. But we go further and say that neither they nor the white
Anarchists can lead us as a people of color (or even themselves) to our
freedom, even though they have been conditioned as Europeans to command
and rule over people of color and the lower classes. We vehemently
reject their mis-leadership and authoritarian rule over us, or their old
ideals of white industrial workers as a proletarian class of saviors.
However, we also have differences with the Black (and other race)
nationalists, although we may share many basic ideas with them on
cultural autonomy. We also believe in and treasure many of the
traditions and history of our peoples, but believe it must be
demystified and made into a culture of resistance, rather than
personality cults or escapism from the reality of fighting racism and
the state. Further, we categorically do not believe in any “race
nationalism”, which demonizes white people and advocates some sort of
biological determinism. We are not xenophobic; so do not entertain any
race mythology about European peoples as either a superior species or as
devils. And although we recognize the necessity of autonomous struggles
in this period, we can work with white workers and poor people around
specific campaigns. Our major point of our differences is that we are
not seeking to build a Black nation-state.
In fact, we believe the same class politics of “haves-and-have-nots”
will show itself within any type of Black nation-state, whether it’s an
Islamic, secular New African, or African Socialist state, and that this
will produce an extreme class differential and economic/political
injustice among those oppressed peoples of color. We can look at a
succession of dictatorships and capitalist regimes in Africa to let us
know this. We believe that a bourgeois class and political dictatorship
is inevitable and that a people’s revolution will break out under such a
Black Nationalist government.
Look at what is happening today under the former Apartheid government,
now under Black rule, united with the White capitalist class. The Black
bourgeoisie and business class have been elevated as the nominal ruling
class, while the same economic forces are exploiting and oppressing the
African working class and poor. Millions are homeless, unemployed,
exploited at low wage, labor jobs, and are landless. Capitalist Black
Power has not freed Black people even after apartheid has been defeated.
Can the capitalist imperialist financial institutions take any less
control of a Black nation-state in America? Sovereignty is not an option
in such a world dominated by this system. A new Black nation-state on a
North American land territory does not mean freedom anymore than do the
ones in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
We also believe that under the capitalist system that now exists, most
manifestations of Black nationalism have never been a truly
revolutionary doctrine, but rather such movements have asserted
themselves most forcefully as a defensive doctrine for the protection of
the Black middle class. It is not even a movement to fight white racism,
but rather an interest group politics which can battle for equal
political power for Black business people or the professional class
under this system, not to remove it.
So, a Black nation-state is not the answer to our problems as an
oppressed people, in fact it leads us back to slavery, just as it has
not led to freedom for any of the world’s people. Just flag
independence. It replaces the white master for the Black master. We are
not immune from the laws of social change; the state is an oppressive
institution by its very nature.
In addition, those who argue for a Black state almost never tell how it
will be obtained and many of their arguments that have been presented
are intentionally vague and fanciful. Who really believes that America
will just grant an Islamic state to the Nation of Islam, or give up five
Southern states to the Republic of New Africa just because a small
faction calling itself a “government in exile” exists and advocates for
it? Who can even prove most people want it in the first place? Why, it
would require years of a bloody struggle and a major organizing drive.
And what are we to do until that great day comes (?); the Black
Nationalist groups never tell us, but we can presume we are to blindly
follow behind their leaders and pay our dues to their organizations.
This is opportunism and treachery, leading us down a blind alley.
In addition, the only revolutionary nationalist group to even talk about
conducting a plebiscite to find out what form African people in America
believed our freedom should take was the Black Panther Party. They
recognized that it was up to the masses to make such decisions, not
vanguard organizations in their place. Like the Panthers, we believe
that even before racism or capitalism are defeated, we can begin now to
wage a protracted struggle against capitalism and its agents and that
the only nation-state we should be concerned with is the corrupt
American state still oppressing us and most of the peoples of the world.
In common with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the
leading militant organization of the earlier civil rights period,
Anarchists believe that the role of the organizer is not to lead people,
but to empower them and let them take over their own local struggles. We
also believe that such communities are virtual colonies or
semi-colonies, which are under the military and political control of the
state. But we do not believe that a national liberation movement alone
can free us and that the real task is to dismantle capitalism itself.
Our liberation struggle is part of a broader struggle for total social
change.
Many middle class Black nationalist groups are tied to the Democratic
Party or Ralph Nader’s Green Party and do not offer any real radical
alternative. Firstly, we do not believe in conventional or electoral
politics in any form and reject coalitions led by liberals and social
democrats. Finally, like the Panthers of the 1960s and contrary to
today’s Nation of Islam and the Afro-centric movement, we believe in a
class analysis and understand that there were historical, socio-economic
factors that accounted for both slavery and racism, not because whites
are “ice people”, “devils” or other such nonsense. The main motive was
money, the enrichment of Europe and the “New World”. This capitalist
system produces racism/white supremacy. It is this capitalist system
that must be destroyed to get rid of it.
Therefore, this is who we are, autonomous peoples of color, fighters for
Anarchism, self-determination and freedom for our people and all
oppressed people. The Panthers proved how dangerous Black
revolutionaries can be to this system, now we will finish the job of
putting capitalism in its grave. No freedom without a fight!