Black unemployment in July 21 Left Business Observer

[Charles Brown]

However, at the same time that the
CPUSA had the slogan "Black and
white unite and fight" it proposed 
"super seniority" for Blacks (i.e. affirmative action) 
in industry and Reuther
and others opposed it. Wm. L. Patterson,
a CP leader, was charging the U.S.
with genocide against the Negro
People, (at the UN), et al. In other words
the slogan was not put forth absent a
vigorous assault directly on white racism,
not ignoring it  or leaving it to a secondary 
importance.

Charles Brown


>>> Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> 08/10 12:03 PM >>>
Andrew Kliman wrote:


>Doug:  "Sure, in a nonracist world, workers as a whole would be
>better off, but that's difficult to imagine and a long way off."
>
>Right.  So isn't the foremost task to make it easier to imagine
>and therefore not such a long way off?

Yes, absolutely.

One of the reasons I asked Heather to write up her work for LBO was because
it forces a confrontation with some unpleasant truths, notably the fact
that there are real material reasons why cross-racial class unity, so
passionately embraced by anti-identarians, is so difficult. When I said:


>Doug:  "So from that point of view, the "black & white, unite &
>fight" slogan makes sense."
>
>No.  It is a disastrous slogan.  In the interests of so-called
>unity, it
>would have the racism of whites and the discrimination faced by
>Blacks be ignored or declared of secondary importance.

you rightly rebuked me for sliding too easily back into the one big happy
class mode. But can the slogan be rethought as a second movement, after
race and racism are confronted?

Are there any U.S. unions that explore race and racism? Any non-U.S.
unions? Or do they just not want to talk about it.

Doug