Heat and Light on Race. Was: Black Rad. C

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

Carrol wrote:
>My argument, and I think the core argument of most who posted defending
>the validity of such a conference existing, was that the calling of the
>Congress represented, *in principle*, the route to the unification of the
>U.S. working class, EVEN IF THIS PARTICULAR CONGRESS TURNED OUT TO BE A
>COMPLETE DISASTER. Even in that case, the really serious barriers to
>achieving "cross-'racial'" unity of the u.s. working class were those
>marxists who denied the *duty* of blacks, of women, of other "marginal"
>working class groups, to organize themselves.
>
>I myself see no way to *ever* organize a (marxist) working-class party in
>the United States unless the vast majority of white marxists/radicals come
>to understand AND ACCEPT unconditionally not just the right but the duty
>of blacks, women, etc. to organize themselves *separately* AS WELL AS
>to participate in the struggle to unify the class. The u.s. working class
>will remain *permanently* divided by race and by gender until unity across
>those lines is forced by efforts such as that which the BRC is attempting
>to generate. One could only wish that in the near future a WRC should be
>called.

Without autonomous organizings by blacks, women, sexual dissidents, the
disabled, etc. in the past, I don't think that there would have been even a
_very limited_ recognition of the validity of anti-racist, etc. struggles
on the part of white leftists in the USA. I don't think that whites will
one day decide to become class-conscious, anti-racist, internationalists
out of the goodness of their hearts, without the pressures exerted by
organized blacks and other races. The same can be said about other
oppressed groups such as women and sexual dissidents. Unorganized people
are weak and in no position to change social relations, be they relations
of class, race, gender, or whatever. And organizing ourselves to undo race,
gender, etc. as axes of domination should _not_ be confused with 'identity
politics' of the kind that many lbo-talkers love to hate. Such organizings
have more in common with the idea that the working class must become the
class for itself in order to undo class society that constituted class
relations as well as classes to begin with.

Yoshie