http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/2000/2000-February/003169.html
Yoshie Furuhashi furuhashi.1 at osu.edu Thu Feb 10 05:28:47 PST 2000
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________________________________ Doug:
>>The same went for the Scottsboro case. The Communists took up the case
>>before others came around to it. Mark Naison writes in _Communists in
>>Harlem during the Depression_ (Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1983):
>
>Maybe one of you could explain why Mumia's cause has failed to find
>any significant black support.
1. *General retreat of the Left from all things Leftist.* Socialism, feminism, anti-racism, anti-imperialism -- you name a Left cause, and you find *a lot* of leftists who have turned conservative, retreated, given up, or are now busy looking for an *excuse* to retreat or give up. The most important cause for the lack of support, as far as I can see.
2. The segment of black people who are the most likely to support the cause of Mumia -- the unemployed, intermittently unemployed, under-employed, frustrated with low wages; in other words, the strata who made the 60s radical -- are either in prisons themselves, caught somewhere in the web of criminal justice, beaten back by cuts in welfare, overworked & exhausted, (of all things!) employed in the security industry (e.g., law enforcement, prisons, private security, etc.), and so on. The war on crime, more intense labor discipline, & widening inequality -- both within black communities and in America in general -- have taken their toll.
3. Some black people have made significant advances in employment, and many black college students probably feel they have a "career" they can look forward to. During the heydays of the Communist Party and black radical politics (with tensions and overlaps between them), Naison argues that many black people who became radical leaders were actually _very_ well educated, more educated than average white radicals probably, because few profitable employment opportunities _befitting_ their credentials were open to educated black men & women. Unlike now, educated black men and women in the radical past had a reason to come to conclude that their talents and efforts were and would forever be _wasted_ because white & capitalist America had _no use_ for them. Though, even now, many privileged African-Americans often feel slighted, insulted, humiliated, and generally treated as if they were still poor -- at work, on the road, in social settings -- they are keeping the stiff upper lip; they figure whites won't belive them, so they don't mention hidden injuries in public. Confronting such hidden injuries in public has a consequence; you'll be seen as a "politically correct whiner with a victim mentality"! So, they only talk about them amongst similarly situated blacks, when whites are not around.
4. As with other workers, many black workers have moved to working-class suburbs, too, in the process becoming atomized. Urbicide has weakened radical politics. A new social base of solidarity has yet to be built up.
Yoshie
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