Working Class Anti-Racism or Capitalist “Anti-Racist “ Hypocrisy ?
Steve Leigh
Since the success of the Civil Rights Movement political offices and police departments are more integrated. There have been many examples of female and BIPOC police chiefs and mayors. Even police departments as a whole have more people of color and women in their ranks.
How do these changes affect anti-racist and especially socialist strategies?
The Marxist approach to oppression was spelled out by Lenin in What Is To Be Done: socialists and especially the revolutionary party must be the “tribune of the people” and take up issues of oppression “ no matter what class” it is aimed at. This means raising demands to increase the status of particular oppressed groups. Following Lenin’s advice means that socialists should not ignore racist or sexist attacks on ruling class individuals just because they are ruling class.
Why is this? Oppression trickles down — -or in many cases cascades down. When ruling class individuals are subject to racist or sexist attacks , it increases the oppressive atmosphere generally. The attack on the rich Black person or woman of any race becomes an attack on all Blacks or women etc.
We saw this clearly when Barrack Obama was subject to various right wing attacks most notably birtherism. Birtherism is being revived today against Kamala Harris. Hillary Clinton was likewise subject to sexist attacks. These attacks poisoned the whole political atmosphere. While opposing the Biden/Harris ticket politically socialists need to defend Harris from birtherism as a blatant attack on immigrants and people of color.
American history has been replete with attempts by upper class members of oppressed groups to gain equality with the rest of their class. The early Feminist movement was one example. While stressing equal rights for the working class members of oppressed groups and fighting against primary orientation on the needs of the rich, many socialists supported these movements. Though the suffragette movement was dominated by middle and ruling class women, most Marxists critically supported it. Marxists fought to extend the fight for equality to working class women, not denying equality to women of other classes. The approach was to give critical support to positive movements rather than opposing them as not good enough.
This is as it should be for more than one reason. As noted above oppression against the rich also impacts the poor. The other reason is strategic. As long as the ruling class appears to be overwhelmingly white and male, it is hard for people to be clear on the source of exploitation. If it appears that white men exploit and oppress everyone else, the enemy seems to be just white men rather than capitalism in general.
The integration of the ruling class and middle class is therefore in the interest of the working class. This integration undermines societal attitudes of racism and sexism. Further this integration makes the issue of exploitation clearer. When the bosses are of all colors and genders, it becomes more evident that the most fundamental problem is exploitation. Socialists should follow Lenin’s advice and oppose oppression “no matter what class” it is aimed at. We should support Affirmative Action at all levels of society.
Overall , the socialist attitude toward members of oppressed groups who are part of the ruling class and middle class should be the following: We defend their interests and demands in so far as they are aimed at equality with their class. However , we oppose their interests and demands in so far as they conflict with the needs and interests of the poor and working class.
For example, we oppose the existence of CEOs, police , armies etc. Yet when the oppressed want the right to have positions in these institutions , we should support that right. For example, we supported the right of LGBTQ people to join the military. To paraphrase Martin Luther King injustice at any level fosters injustice at every level.
Socialists have to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time — -oppose class divisions as the ultimate goal but support the integration of classes while they still exist. This means that we should oppose racist hiring practices even in the police and other institutions. It is overall a good thing that the police force today is more integrated than it was 50 years ago. Integration of the police does not reduce the repressive and oppressive nature of capitalist policing. It does however make it clearer that the problem is capitalist policing, not just racist attitudes among white cops.
The principle of opposing oppression even in repressive institutions is important. However, it does not trump everything else. For Marxists, the keystone of any position is how it affects the interests and power of the working class. As early Marxists said “ The good of the revolution is the highest law.” As Lenin said ,our attitude to all democratic rights is conditioned by the highest law.
All other things being equal , we want all levels of management to be integrated on racial, gender, sexual orientation and other lines while there is still management. However, if an exploitive manager or repressive government official is being opposed because of their exploitive and repressive actions, we don’t come to their defense just because they are Black or female or LGBTQ. When workers fight against exploitation, we side with the workers, no matter the composition of the workforce or the demographics of management. The first goal is resisting exploitation and oppression of the mass of Blacks, women etc. Integration of management is only a goal that generally but not always makes resistance to exploitation and oppression easier.
The defense of a nasty manager or official on the grounds of their race or gender is just another way the ruling class uses racism and sexism to undercut the interests of workers. It is hypocritical and absurd to defend the interests of rich oppressed people at the expense of vast numbers of working class oppressed people on the grounds of supposed anti-racism ! This ruling class ploy will be more common with more integration of higher positions.
The working class is disproportionately people of color and female. Defense of working class interests is also defense of the interests of the majority of specially oppressed groups. There is no fundamental contradiction between the working class interest against exploitation and the interest of the oppressed in fighting against oppression. In fact, the two are in total alignment.
Obviously, Marxists oppose any suggestion of using oppressive attitudes as a weapon against bosses, officials or scabs. Historically workers have sometimes slipped into trying to win support on a picket line on the basis that the scabs were Black etc. This is not only disgusting , it also sews divisions within the working class and makes class unity that much harder. Any use of racism or sexism is opposed to the interests of the working class.
A good example of this was the resignation of Carmen Best as Seattle Chief of Police in August 2020. Best is a Black woman who had to fight against racism and sexism to get to the top of the department. She was almost excluded from consideration based on unstated racism. Several Black community groups fought for her selection as police chief.
The attitude of Marxists was that it was a good sign about the diminishing of racism that Best was selected. It was good that the barrier of racism was partly overcome. Some socialists including Kshama Sawant , Socialist Alternative city council member, used this as a reason to vote for her appointment as police chief. Revolutionary Marxists would not have voted for her as police chief because we oppose the police. Our position in favor of integrating the police at all levels is secondary to our opposition to the police as an institution. We do not give political support to officials that we know will exercise repression against workers and oppression against people of color. Voting for Best is an example of putting the interests of ruling class agents of color above the interests of the working class.
This is similar to our position on Barak Obama. We thought it was a sign of progress that a Black man could be elected president of a country founded on African slavery. However, we did not vote for him because his political program reinforced oppression, exploitation and imperialism. He was also the representative of the staunchly capitalist Democratic Party. His politics were in opposition to the interests of workers in general and all oppressed groups in particular. Again, Marxists have to be able to hold two ideas in their heads at one time.
In the Spring and Summer of 2020, the movement for justice for George Floyd broke out all across the U.S. including in Seattle. The police were as usual repressive against this movement. They used chemical weapons, rubber bullets etc. and arrested large numbers. While the city government including police management claimed to be in solidarity with the movement, they tried to crush it in practice.
Carmen Best led this attack. She justified the use of repression. She opposed the creation of the Capitol Hill Organized Protest area. She demanded that TV stations hand over video tapes to identify protestors to arrest.
The movement stayed in the streets and pushed the city council to cut the police budget for 2020, at first by a mere 4% in August 2020 . In response to this , Best decided to resign. She couldn’t bear to lay off any cops.
Best’s resignation was used as an excuse to attack the movement. Supposed friends of the movement, unfortunately including some Black leaders , attacked the city council for being insensitive and even racist. They claimed that the council should have talked to Best more and implied that they should have taken her objections to the budget cuts into account. Attacking the council was actually a way to attack the movement, since the movement had demanded not a 4% cut, but a 50% cut . If the council was insensitive and dogmatic, certainly the movement was even more so. Activists also criticized the council but from the left — -for not cutting the police budget more severely.
The irony of criticizing the council and the anti-racist movement for being racist against the poor beleaguered police chief was unfortunately lost on many in the city. A majority of the city council members are women of color. The movement in Seattle is led overwhelmingly by Black people, especially young Black women. The movement is fighting for the literal lives of the mass of Black people , other people of color and also poor whites.
The appropriation of anti-racist language to oppose the Black Lives Matter movement was the height of hypocrisy. The critics of the movement said that the interests of one highly paid official responsible for massive repression aimed at large numbers of Black people and others was more important than the needs, interests and even lives of large numbers of people of color.
The other argument supporters of Best raised is that she helped integrate the police force. While integration is overall positive , it does not trump the fundamental needs of workers and the poor. It is more important to oppose the police institution than to integrate it. We should support integration in general because it helps us oppose the police more effectively. However, if there is a conflict between these goals, Marxists should oppose the institution wholesale.
Those who criticize Best for her repressive activity need to clearly and strongly argue that these criticisms of Best are not racist ! They are instead an application of more consistent anti-racism that focuses on class, and therefore on the interests of the majority of the oppressed. This issue exposes very well the real nature of capitalist cooptation of anti-racist language. Capitalist ideologues will distort any idea available to confuse and divide any movement that supports working class interests.
Marxists need to take a clear stand on issues like this especially since they will be arising more often.
We need to say clearly that Marxists are the most consistent opponents of racism. We base our strategy for fighting racism on the needs and interests of the vast majority of the oppressed — — not on the interests of the handful of “Black faces in high places.”(Keeanga Yamahtta-Taylor) When there is a clear class conflict between the majority of the oppressed and the interests of those few people at the top, to support those at the top is fundamentally a racist position. Capitalist defense of officials from oppressed groups against the anti-racist movement actually supports the institutions that impose racism and exploitation on the majority, the working class
