Political movements are made up of an enormous number of contrasting and conflicting 'personalities,' 'life styles,' and points of view. They only agree, and that imperfectly, on a few very general and even vague points. "Peace, Bread, & Land!" End the War. Health care for all. (And let the enemy decide how that is to be done.) The last of course is not a slogan in present use in the u.sd. Perhaps that is because under present conditions it just wouldn't generate the widespread passion that the demand for unsegrgated buses generated, or perhaps those working for health care have compromised fatally before the fact, retreating even before forced to to "single payer,"public option," and so on down to nothign. I don't know. Some people in the anti-war movement will be there only because they think that war should be made only after a proper declarationof war. (Actual instance, & my shock at the sign caused me to blunder and make a sarcastic comment. Not correct. People learn in an active movement, but not if the price of entering that movement to beging with is too demanding in terms of reasons for entering.)
Millions of workers are hippies. Tens of millions of workers are middle-class. Prbably 100 to 200 million of them would (as individuals) oppose the minimal steps to eliminate the ghettos and the imprisonment of Black), and in that sense support structural r acism whatever their personal feeligs might be. (Whether capitalists re racist or not is of absolutely no political importance; it is the racism, of various forms, of workers that are a barrier to building a left movment.)
Sneers at hippies, then, are anti-working class. Sneers at blacks who practice too simpole a form of opposing racism are anti-working class.
Every left political grouping in the u.s. suffers from lack of Blacks inits membership and leadership. That is not to blame anyone. It's a simple fact of political life. There are no villains here but only a terrible problem that must be analyzed and means found to overcome it. Thousands of leftists for decades have struggled with the issue. It's a hell of a tough condition, and to whine or roar about it is seriusly stupid.
If Tim died today or if he suddenly became an abject follower of Henwood and Reed, the world would not change. So the questionis not what is wrong with Tim Wise but what is it in American life that generatres the position he represents. Sneers and howls at him as an individual or snide remarks about the students who listen to them are also anti-working class, because they deflect analysis from actual conditons to focus on the goodness or badness of individuals.
There was a debate of several years back around 1905 on how to spell Negro, "negro" or "Negro." The latter was the 'victor.' This tradition simply carried over to the spelling of "Black" as a reference to members of the Black nation. "White" of course doesn't name anything, as do "Black," "French," Intellecuals probably ought to know something about this history, or at least that it happened. The concept of "nation" or "national minority"got all fucked up by the metaphyscis of the Third International, but it was strong in the Black community as far back at least as the 1850s. Barbra Fields book on conflict in the middle states during the Civil War is a useful resource here. Remember when in Salt of the Earth the union organizer didn't recognize a picture of Juarez. Same principle here when a leftist doesn't recognize the history of "Black" rather than "black."
Carrol