Doug Henwood wrote:
> r maybe "communities of color" just
> don't care about the issue very passionately. Maybe they're more
> concerned about not getting shot by cops or paying the bills.
I think this is correct. Martin Luther King at the very end of his life was working to unite the black liberation movement with the labor movement and the anti-imperialist movement. He had his priorities right -- that is, not expand beyond black liberation issues until the black liberation movement itself had achieved great momentum and until there was strong evidence that at least strong elements of the white-dominated movement groups could be depended on to maintain the priority of the fight against racism. I doubt that large numbers of black activists will respond vigorously on environmental issues (except those directly affecting the black community) until environmental groups begin to take up *on their own* the immediately more pressing issues such as cops killing blacks and the massive imprisonment of black men. In the United States a movement that does not have massive black participation and significant black leadership is a crippled or merely embryonic movement.
The following two paragraphs from a post on the marxism list are illuminating:
****
Half the Americans over 18 won't vote in November. This half is heavily, heavily tilted towards Blacks and Hispanics, towards the more oppressed and exploited layers of working people. And it is NOT TRUE that Blacks or Hispanics are apolitical, they are MORE political, that's why they do not vote.
A most striking example is that of the Puerto Ricans who move from the island to the U.S. Because of PR's colonial status, citizenship is not an issue. Yet a population that had an 80% electoral participation on the island becomes an 80% abstentionist population in the states. And remember, the island's government openly recognizes that it is a local colonial administration, i.e., that real power lies in Washington, not San Juan. ****
Carrol