Reparations for the working class

Chris Kromm ckromm at mindspring.com
Wed Mar 7 07:16:20 PST 2001


An intern of mine once made this point. The U.N. says that groups are eligible for reparations if they have been "unduly denied the fruits of their labor," or something like that. In other words, the working class. Now THERE'S a campaign for the Labor Party... CK

----- Original Message ----- From: "Yoshie Furuhashi" <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu> To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Sent: Wednesday, March 07, 2001 9:51 AM Subject: Re: Horowitz/Reparations for slavery


> Michael Pollak posted:
>
> >On Tue, 6 Mar 2001, Art McGee wrote:
> >
> >> Only ignorant white folks, some of them who call themselves Marxists,
> >> think that the reparations campaign is a "misguided" or "potentially
> >> disastrous" political strategy.
> >
> >Fwiw, Adolph Reed, who's neither ignorant nor white, shares a similar
> >view: http://www.progressive.org/reed1200.htm
> >
> >Michael
>
> Adolph L. Reed Jr. says in "The Case Against Reparations": "The
> notion that white America, however defined, owes reparations to black
> Americans for slavery and its legacy has been around for some time"
> (at <http://www.progressive.org/reed1200.htm>). Why should a
> campaign for reparations be based upon the "notion that *white
> America*, however defined, owes reparations to black Americans for
> slavery and its legacy"? Why not organize a campaign on the ground
> that *the ruling class* owes reparations to black Americans for
> slavery and its legacy?
>
> According to my understanding of slavery, racism, & their injuries,
> non-black American workers are also entitled to reparations for
> slavery and its legacy, but most of them have yet to become hip to
> their own injuries.... :-)
>
> I don't claim that such a campaign is or will be practical, but since
> campaigns for reparations _already exist_, whether Reed likes it or
> not, a Marxist contribution to them should be to introduce the
> vantage point of class struggles & the concept of exploitation in
> them, I think. My advice to Reed is, "don't fight against the
> reparations campaigns, redefine them instead, so the campaigns become
> vehicles for all-sided political education as Lenin said."
>
> Yoshie



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