Words on Class Issues.

rosa roja  TJ  11 hours ago
Your main question is this: Is "white America" collectively responsible for the oppression of black people? If you ask it in those words, I will answer No, but I don't think a one-word answer is adequate. If you bear with me, I will try to indicate where I think a fuller answer lies.

The starting point must be that the ultimate responsibility for the oppression of "black people" in the US and everywhere, falls on the ruling class in the core capitalist nations of Europe and America. They are the ones who organize it, and who benefit the most from it. It was European (i.e. "White") imperialism that plundered the non-European world, instituted chattel slavery, organized the genocide in the settler colonies, and carried out all those crimes that Marx denounces so eloquently in Capital.

But to promote this process, a racist ideology had to be created, and it has sunk its roots into the culture of Europe (and the US, etc). This culture influences the thought -- and therefore the actions -- of everyone, not just members of the ruling class. (I don't see how any one who has lived in the US could deny this, or how a historical materialist could have expected anything different.) In a sense then, a shared culture does imply a kind of "collective responsibility".

Since you read this website, you might be interested that Trotsky did not feel the need to mince words in discussing white racism of his era (1933): "But today the white workers in relation to the Negroes are the oppressors, scoundrels, who persecute the black and the yellow, hold them in contempt and lynch them." And he exhorted his followers in the US to carry out "an uncompromising merciless struggle ... against the colossal prejudices of the white workers". You might also be interested, if you haven't seen it, to read what Lenin had to say about how a layer of English workers benefited materially from the super-exploitation of the English colonies, and how this hobbled the workers' movement.

I'm not sure I've answered your questions, but I hope at least it's the beginning of an answer.

You also asked about my "position on Hannah-Jones". I know her only from this one article. She writes well and with passion, and she brings out some historical facts that eveyone needs to know. But her analysis leads to a dead end. It operates at a superficial level that ignores the material basis of racial oppression and its roots in capitalism/imperialism. Some of her prose descends into what people sometimes called "Pork Chop Nationalism" in the 1970's, when what's wanted is the "revolutionary nationalism" of people like Fred Hampton, who before his murder by the state was forging an alliance between workers and community members of all colours (the original Rainbow Coalition). She even seems to want to drive a wedge between Africa and its diaspora! Claiming to combat racism without connecting it to imperialism as Malcolm X did is dangerously misguided.


 rosa roja  TJ  15 hours ago
Thanks for the link, TJ. Actually I had not read her article, but now that I have, I can state with certainty that nowhere does she claim or imply there is a biological basis to racism. She referred to "DNA" only in one sentence, where it is obviously intended as a metaphor. For wsws
to imply the opposite was not honest.

Now let me make a start on your questions. I do NOT endorse the NYT viewpoint, in fact I rarely read them these days. Always the voice of the capitalist ruling class, they have more recently degenerated so much that most of their articles are more fluff and propaganda than they are news.

I will reply to your other questions in a separate post.


 rosa roja  Yasir  21 hours ago
"All you scholars should know, the conditions and the execution of slavery was much different than what was done in the Americas."

This is very important. You have put your finger on what is dishonest about this article. Equally important is that modern slavery was part of a bigger phenomenon, a Euro-American racism/imperialism that is a fundamental mode of organization of capitalism on a world scale.

One thing I would add, however, is that I do not think that a "level playing field" is a good description of what we want. We want a cooperative society that has no economic winners and losers.


rosa roja  21 hours ago
Response to Pierre, Jim Bergren, MB, de rubempre.

To Pierre:
My comments are not meant for you. I comment here because I believe that the site has many honest readers who are anxious for an honest discussion. It has them because it tells the truth about many things that the bourgeois media lies about. Unfortunately wsws in important ways ALSO deviates from the tradition it claims to uphold.

If you look at my old comments you will see that in many cases I praised articles here. It happens rarely now. If and when I decide that all the thoughtful readers have been driven away by comments like yours, I'll stop commenting.

To MB and Jim:
If you read the article carefully, I think you will agree with me. The authors wrote, "Hannah-Jones's reference to DNA is part of a growing tendency to derive racial antagonisms from innate biological processes." If she really said this, evidence should have been provided. The use of a metaphor is hardly evidence.

To de rubempre:
The metaphor does NOT imply that people of European descent are biologically programmed to be racists. It is merely implying that racism is deeply embedded in the history and present of the US. If the article wants to dispute that, fine, but don't make charges you cannot substantiate.


rosa roja  rosa roja  a month ago
Too many responses to reply to separately!

Dear Warren, Pierre, Eric, Matt,

I commented as I did because I think we need to be objective, and objectivity demands that we not cherry pick quotes to fit a preconceived point of view. Unfortunately the article did so in my opinion.
That was the only reason I commented, but I will also try to address some of the more general points you all have raised:

1. AOC is a social democrat and nothing more, but for the moment she is intervening in politics in a positive manner. Should we be unhappy about that?

2. Social democracy too often turns into "social imperialism". I see no sign of that in AOC's statements.

3. Support for decolonization of Puerto Rico is valid and important. Maybe a website based in the centre of the Empire has a hard time understanding this.

4. To slam Ocasio-Cortez as a fake because she's a member of the Democratic Party is disingenuous. I personally do not believe the party can be reformed, but that doesn't mean that people who try to reform it are all hypocrites.


rosa roja  4 months ago
Attempts by characters like Shockley and Herrnstein
to "scientifically" justify imperialism/racism and class-exploitation are repugnant but they are hardly new. They are as old as capitalism and always promoted by the ruling class. If anything is new it is the success of the Cambridge students in excluding this particular bourgeois ideologue from their university.

oswald durand  pierre • 3 hours ago
Pierre, your 'innocence' in this matter is really revealing of the unhealthy political atmosphere you dwell in.
I assure you that it is no revelation to me that politicians are "SELECTED" by their party bosses before being presented to their constituents to be elected. Reading your comments leads me to believe that you think there's some kind of conspiracy involved to foist Black politicians on an unsuspecting public. Really?
Let's look at the selection of Barack H. Obama. As far as I know, he made all the moves required to be in contention to get the backing of people with power in his party.

He did so by going to the right schools, holding the right jobs, marrying the right kind of lady and making friends with the right kind of people. His trajectory was similar to that of his rivals for the democratic nomination. If you can show me that the rules that apply were cast aside on his behalf, I will take your claim on affirmative action as a serious one instead of the nonsense I think it is, used by White losers to salve their bruised egos.
Tom Peters wrote: "The ruling class, generally speaking, decided to increase the numbers of black people in bourgeois politics, big business, academia, the state apparatus, etc. One of the mechanisms for this was affirmative action policies.
Obama is an obvious concrete example of this change: His elevation to the presidency would have been inconceivable in the Jim Crow era. He has also publicly stated that he "undoubtedly benefited from affirmative action” in his academic career. https://www.nytimes.com/200...

Oprah Winfrey's rise to worldwide fame and fortune also wouldn't have happened under Jim Crow. Again, this seems like an obvious point to make. Winfrey's first broadcasting jobs were helped by broadcasters' affirmative action policies, as she herself was aware.
If one compares the position of these individuals to that of black political leaders and celebrities in 1960, the difference is obvious: Obama and Winfrey are both richer and far more powerful. It doesn't require much special insight or painstaking analysis to see the change that has taken place in the ruling class."
Mr. Peters is correct, the Jim Crow era is dead and the ruling class has gotten better at picking its representatives, certain nostalgic types want to revive it. My main objection to the anti-affirmative action crowd is the exaggeration of the import of these programs. So what if she got her first job due to some employer's affirmative action policies, lots of Whites get these breaks for reasons ranging from the employer seeing something of him/herself in that young person, to the desire to have sex with the candidate for the job.

If affirmative action is to be judged by the end results, the bourgeoisie's investment in Obama and Winfrey paid rich dividends, based on his management of the 2008 economic crisis and her ability to flog products such as books, etc. on tv. The WSWS may not like these facts but it cannot deny the fact it was money well spent.
Why is the WSWS fixated on a program that began it's death agony as far back as the Bakke case, forty-one years ago, and is now dead an buried? If, as the WSWS likes to claim, affirmative action impeded the advance of the proletariat's march to power, why did reversals to that program fail to lead to the WSWS's favored outcome? Too bad you failed to read Trotsky on the "Negro Question". He would have shown you how a real revolutionist approaches such problems.


oswald durand  Ozmay • 3 days ago
Ozmay, thanks for the link. You are correct that I object to the impression given that Blacks who hold positions in science, business and other fields do so solely because of affirmative action. That's a lie. I have zero objection to criticisms of some black public figures who make overly broad claims. To me they are as ridiculous as people who want to reduce Black successes to 'affirmative action'