White supremacy basis for attack on whole working class in Wisconsin, Michigan , et al

by: John Henry Wednesday 16 March 2011

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Below is my comment on the following quotation from:

INSURGENT ANTHROPOLOGIES: THEORIZING WISCONSIN
http://asitoughttobe.com/2011/03/13/insurgent-anthropologies/#comment-1774

While there may be a significant contingent of the non-white middle class, that believes, along with Barack Obama and Bill Cosby, that the United States has largely become a “post-racial” country, the lived experience of the majority of African Americans, Latinos, and other oppressed minorities tells us a different story.  What establishes the basis for recognition of real common material interests is the fact that the white working class, the old labor aristocracy, has largely been decimated, and has also experienced, albeit to a lesser degree, declining material conditions during a time with capitalist elites are richer and more powerful than ever.

On this point, it is important for white activists to try to point out the following to white workers in general and in Wisconsin, Michigan etc. specifically: The Tea Party's origin was fueled critically by its white supremacist attacks on Obama. The Tea/Republican Party surge in the November 2010 elections consequently was rooted in white supremacist activism. The Tea/Republican Party attacks on the working class as a whole, including white workers in majority in Wisconsin, Michigan et al, therefore got its turbo boost from white supremacy. White workers ultimately are victimized by white supremacy. This is a fundamental dynamic throughout US history. The trick of white supremacy on white workers is the main trick used against them by the US ruling class. As Karl Marx said in Capital (Volume I, Chapter 10, Section 7, pg.329 )  "Labour cannot emancipate itself in the white skin where in the black it is branded."

It is important to understand that though he is Black, Obama cannot speak like a Jesse Jackson or Black activist ,and be re-elected. White voters in their majority will not listen to criticisms of white supremacy from a Black person, and they would of course punish Obama by dis-electing of him if he speaks honestly about white supremacy. Recall his distancing himself from his own minister during the campaign. The issue of white supremacy coming back to bite white workers must be raised by white people. Obama must say that the Tea Party is not white supremacist; in other words, he must tell a falsehood in order to avoid being punished by the majority of white's whose are sadly lacking in their consciousness of what is white supremacy and how it manifests today. The anti-O white supremacy – Tea Party election win – Wisconsin/Michigan attack on the working class by the TP causal chain is an opportunity to raise the mass white consciousness on how white supremacy hurts white workers.

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  • While we can all agree on the precision and wisdom of Karl Marx's statement,we have to view it through the prism of real life,today's conditions and currents of the working class in the United States of America.
    The momentous,colossal fruit of the Civil and labor rights movement,the residuals which catapulted Barack Hussein Obama into the White House,the youth support,and the undying energy of labor,organized and unorganized has been owned by labor in the U.S.
    This is proven by the progressive stance and power base of labor in the 2008 elections,and further even in the difficult elections of 2010.
    There is a solid understanding of that all labor unity,and alas,shows itself yet,in the current confrontation between labor and capital in Madison Wisconsin,and practically all the states and capitols of the U. S.
    ,and shown in the composition of the leadership of Democratic Party,the leadership of the AFL-CIO Executive Board,and its president Richard Trumka. This integrated leadership of sex and race,is real evidence of practicing racial equality,fighting against racism in labor and in all human affairs in the U. S.,that there is in fact a vast majority of Americans who do and would reject racism,is shown with the actual election of Obama.
    Many would argue,as you write,that Obama is gagged,prohibited from identifying the racist,fascist Tea Party,because of the racist tendencies of white skinned labor. They are wrong. We cannot underestimate the knowledge,understanding and integrity of white skinned labor in unity with the black skinned labor.
    Because of the billions and billions of different social,economic and demographic changes in the wake of the Civil and human rights era,an African American president of the U.S. can indeed address racist discrimination-especially in its economic forms,showing how it is the death kneel of organized labor,given the demographic changes and needs of labor,today(it always had been,but today more urgently so)in the United States of America.
    The same way Richard Trumka explains,explains,explains how racism hurts workers in general,exposing,the specious,false argument that racism helps economic development,is available for the president of the U.S. After all, this is the direct argument the the great MLK successfully made to the devious and negligent presidents Einsenhower,Kennedy and Johnson when,they in white skins,claimed their whiteness gagged them,keeping them from executing powers to protect citizenry of African descent(which by the way,includes all Americans,including white-skinned Americans).
    President Obama can not only demand that labor,ravished as it is by capital,in black skin be protected;one can reasonably say that if he fails to do this,white skinned labor will revolt,because it knows that a president that does not protect ALL labor,protects no labor-the true meaning of Marx's dictum quoted in your piece.
    Now,is it essential and positive for labor,in white skin to fight to protect all labor with the president?
    Of course.
    This,just as reasonably does not say the president must by zipped-mouthed.
    It says that labor and the president must in unity denounce and reject racism in its many forms.
    The argument given here,in this piece,is a ultimately a form of racism.
    Both white and Black Americans have historically fought courageously,indefatigably,against racism in its many forms,from General Cassius Marcellus Clay to Muhammad Ali,from John Brown to Harriet Beecher Stowe to Harriet Tubman.
    They have won that right for MLK and Barack Hussein Obama,as citizens of the U.S.,and the world. Will the President of the U. S. take that right,expressing it in Chief Executive ACTIONS of the United States of America fighting the # 1 national polutant,RACISM?

    Posted by E.E.W. Clay, 03/16/2011 12:50pm (14 years ago)

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