yesterday morning, as i was waiting for the bus at Wake-Med hospital, a Latin@ couple walked by the group of older Black men who were waiting with me for the bus. the couple was young and the man was carrying a baby. as the couple passed all the men began to sneer as if they had suddenly caught whiff of the smell of shit. after the couple had moved far enough away one man broke the silence.
"look at them," he said, his voice oozing contempt, "...and they don't even pay any taxes."
"go to any construction site," said someone else, "if you look at the crews all you see are mexicans where it used to be blacks. they came in and took all the jobs."
"let me tell you something," said still another Black man. "you know why the goddamn mexicans got all the jobs? because we're too busy fussin' and fightin'. talkin bout how we want more money but then won't get up in the morning and go to work. i get up every morning and i do my work. so unless you gonna do that, unless you gonna talk to the bosses like i do, then i don't wanna hear a damn thing about the mother fuckin mexicans."
everyone else got quiet. he continued, "huh! i'm just waiting for another race to come in and do to the mexicans what they're doing to us!"
i have never seen such racism amongst Black folks in my life. but it is useless to denounce their attitudes in abstraction. today the struggle against entrenched nativism and racism must be a struggle against the structures. nothing less will do. no substantial proportion of poor white or Black people will reverse their attitudes until there is some substantial struggle against the SYSTEM which stratifies labor hierarchically.
it is obvious that the root of the contempt that these Black men expressed is not "racial". it has nothing to do with where the new bottom rung of labor comes from or looks like or what language they speak or even how many children they have. "race", or rather ethnicity, is the correlation between a position in the division of labor and some cultural marker characteristic of the region(s) where those workers have come. hating Mexicans is a substitute for hating a system of labor allocation that is marginalizing the Black working-class. similarly, hating the fact that the (younger) Black working-class resists humiliation and marginalization by refusing to subordinate themselves to shit jobs is another way of blaming the powerless instead of struggling against the system.
if we want to struggle against racism the first task on our list is to develop a political program that will eliminate the structures of capitalism which necessitate the ethnicization and hierarchicalization of the labor force. racial capitalism, as Cedric Robinson calls it, has been a reality from the beginning. capitalism IS racist. we need to stop thinking about racism in terms of attitudes and "class" in terms of income. race and class are ways of talking about a single division of labor. we're not gonna end racism simply by appealing to people's "tolerance". we've got to realize that racism means the structuring of the living conditions of a people by determining their place in the capitalist hierarchy of labor and that this is not separate from a class analysis. the struggle against attitudes can only proceed when we have a strategy for the struggle against the structure.
as long as work remains in the hands of capital, as long as the State can differentiate rights to people based on "race" (which has always used the euphamisms of "citizenship" and "nationality"), as long as work is organized in such a way that some jobs are menial and degrading, poorly paid, and relegated to certain groups---as long as these structural elements persist, racism will thrive. instead of looking at whether some people have escaped this racial division of labor (Obama, Rice, Powell) we need to look at the composition of those divisions themselves.
i don't give a rat's ass if someone "escaped" the ghetto. i don't give a damn if some bourgeois negro can't live with bourgeois white folks. i care that the jobs that Black folks have and the income they get from them relegate them to the ghetto. such jobs should even exist. the ghetto should not exist. i care that the jobs that Latin American folks are forced into jobs that pay such shit wages and are so circumscribed by the violence of the State and the nativist vigilantes that they are forced to work incredible hours far from the people whom they love. i care that poor white folks aren't in much better of a position. how we gonna end racism? dammit, we're gonna end it when radical people of color take the leadership in developing anti-capitalist political agendas that include mechanisms for the abolition of the racial division of labor alongside the gender division of labor and the international division of labor, all of which are expressions of the capitalist/imperialist division of labor.
as long as someone else has stacked the deck so that "races" must displace one another we're doomed. the only "race", my friends, is the race to the bottom. and we can't bring workers or cultural groups together under those conditions. nor can we bring them together under some piece-meal reformist plan that wants to accept the current structure and just win a few concessions. the marginalization of poor Black and white workers and the extreme exploitation of poor Mexican workers demands a RADICAL answer and program. only a RADICAL approach can bring these folks together in a struggle for POWER. as long as we're looking to be GIVEN jobs and income we can't win. "race" will continue to win out. we need plans for seizing power at our worksites so that we can end this nonsense of racism.
of course there are more elements to racism than what happens at work. but i contend that it is the position of a people in relation to production which is the foundation of their broader social position. the most oppressed groups must lead the struggle to transform the meaning, structure, and role/meaning of labor in society. through this struggle we will build the resources, experience, solidarity, and power to push forward our rights for cultural autonomy and respect throughout this and other societies.
this has been a Black Radical rant...
"look at them," he said, his voice oozing contempt, "...and they don't even pay any taxes."
"go to any construction site," said someone else, "if you look at the crews all you see are mexicans where it used to be blacks. they came in and took all the jobs."
"let me tell you something," said still another Black man. "you know why the goddamn mexicans got all the jobs? because we're too busy fussin' and fightin'. talkin bout how we want more money but then won't get up in the morning and go to work. i get up every morning and i do my work. so unless you gonna do that, unless you gonna talk to the bosses like i do, then i don't wanna hear a damn thing about the mother fuckin mexicans."
everyone else got quiet. he continued, "huh! i'm just waiting for another race to come in and do to the mexicans what they're doing to us!"
i have never seen such racism amongst Black folks in my life. but it is useless to denounce their attitudes in abstraction. today the struggle against entrenched nativism and racism must be a struggle against the structures. nothing less will do. no substantial proportion of poor white or Black people will reverse their attitudes until there is some substantial struggle against the SYSTEM which stratifies labor hierarchically.
it is obvious that the root of the contempt that these Black men expressed is not "racial". it has nothing to do with where the new bottom rung of labor comes from or looks like or what language they speak or even how many children they have. "race", or rather ethnicity, is the correlation between a position in the division of labor and some cultural marker characteristic of the region(s) where those workers have come. hating Mexicans is a substitute for hating a system of labor allocation that is marginalizing the Black working-class. similarly, hating the fact that the (younger) Black working-class resists humiliation and marginalization by refusing to subordinate themselves to shit jobs is another way of blaming the powerless instead of struggling against the system.
if we want to struggle against racism the first task on our list is to develop a political program that will eliminate the structures of capitalism which necessitate the ethnicization and hierarchicalization of the labor force. racial capitalism, as Cedric Robinson calls it, has been a reality from the beginning. capitalism IS racist. we need to stop thinking about racism in terms of attitudes and "class" in terms of income. race and class are ways of talking about a single division of labor. we're not gonna end racism simply by appealing to people's "tolerance". we've got to realize that racism means the structuring of the living conditions of a people by determining their place in the capitalist hierarchy of labor and that this is not separate from a class analysis. the struggle against attitudes can only proceed when we have a strategy for the struggle against the structure.
as long as work remains in the hands of capital, as long as the State can differentiate rights to people based on "race" (which has always used the euphamisms of "citizenship" and "nationality"), as long as work is organized in such a way that some jobs are menial and degrading, poorly paid, and relegated to certain groups---as long as these structural elements persist, racism will thrive. instead of looking at whether some people have escaped this racial division of labor (Obama, Rice, Powell) we need to look at the composition of those divisions themselves.
i don't give a rat's ass if someone "escaped" the ghetto. i don't give a damn if some bourgeois negro can't live with bourgeois white folks. i care that the jobs that Black folks have and the income they get from them relegate them to the ghetto. such jobs should even exist. the ghetto should not exist. i care that the jobs that Latin American folks are forced into jobs that pay such shit wages and are so circumscribed by the violence of the State and the nativist vigilantes that they are forced to work incredible hours far from the people whom they love. i care that poor white folks aren't in much better of a position. how we gonna end racism? dammit, we're gonna end it when radical people of color take the leadership in developing anti-capitalist political agendas that include mechanisms for the abolition of the racial division of labor alongside the gender division of labor and the international division of labor, all of which are expressions of the capitalist/imperialist division of labor.
as long as someone else has stacked the deck so that "races" must displace one another we're doomed. the only "race", my friends, is the race to the bottom. and we can't bring workers or cultural groups together under those conditions. nor can we bring them together under some piece-meal reformist plan that wants to accept the current structure and just win a few concessions. the marginalization of poor Black and white workers and the extreme exploitation of poor Mexican workers demands a RADICAL answer and program. only a RADICAL approach can bring these folks together in a struggle for POWER. as long as we're looking to be GIVEN jobs and income we can't win. "race" will continue to win out. we need plans for seizing power at our worksites so that we can end this nonsense of racism.
of course there are more elements to racism than what happens at work. but i contend that it is the position of a people in relation to production which is the foundation of their broader social position. the most oppressed groups must lead the struggle to transform the meaning, structure, and role/meaning of labor in society. through this struggle we will build the resources, experience, solidarity, and power to push forward our rights for cultural autonomy and respect throughout this and other societies.
this has been a Black Radical rant...
1 comment:
I've missed your words and brilliance.
SO ON POINT and so well said.
"hating Mexicans is a substitute for hating a system of labor allocation that is marginalizing the Black working-class."
YESSSS.
"we're not gonna end racism simply by appealing to people's "tolerance". we've got to realize that racism means the structuring of the living conditions of a people by determining their place in the capitalist hierarchy of labor and that this is not separate from a class analysis."
YESSSSSSSSSS.
he only "race", my friends, is the race to the bottom.
YES YES more yes.
ok yes. i really am just quoting the whole thing.
so good.
also made me think of the latest tim wise article - addressing how obama's popularity actually confirms racism...the whole "transcending race" thing...i mean almost all his pieces continue to breakdown how "escaping" and "exceptionalism" are irrelevant...as he puts attention on how those things actually further reinforce/explicate systemic racism...
http://www.lipmagazine.org/~timwise/Obama.html
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