Black Panthers support on RevLeft

[Emile Armand]

I don't understand why people support groups like the Black Panthers and then make statements like "Race is a social construct" etc. You can't have it both ways... If I'm not mistaken the Black Panthers were a racially EXCLUSIVE organization, as in blacks only. The black power/pride movement only further divides the working class, portraying "black pride" is no better than portraying white pride, your skin colour is nothing to be proud of. Don't get me wrong I'm ALL for supporting the African-American (In my case Canadian) community but the a large amount of Black Panthers members were also black nationalists and supporting black nationalism is NOT leftist, and if you read the ten-point plan they make it very clear they are racialists.
RACE IS A SOCIAL CONSTRUCT, ABANDON RACIAL IDENTITIES.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I don't understand why people support groups like the Black Panthers and then make statements like "Race is a social construct" etc. You can't have it both ways... If I'm not mistaken the Black Panthers were a racially EXCLUSIVE organization, as in blacks only.
First of all, one of their main members in Oakland was asian and they worked with committed revolutionaries of any racial background.


The black power/pride movement only further divides the working class, Racism divides the working class. While the BPP was well aware of prevelent racism among whites, they did not see racism as coming from whites but coming from the SYSTEM. They organized as a specifically black group, but they also generally realized that a minority of the population could not get liberation without allies from other groups in the population.


portraying "black pride" is no better than portraying white pride,I think this is 100% incorrect comrade. White pride (actually racism) is used to prop-up the capitalist status quo. "Black pride" was an expression of the confidence people began to gain from the civil rights victories and a RESPONCE to racism. Black people were told by society that they were not as good as white people, not as pretty, not as smart, and just not worthy of rights. So it's perfectly natural, in my view, that people fighting for their rights would also want to counter being told they are worthless with pride.

So while racism against blacks is cultivated by the system in order to justify crackdowns on people's rights (more cops, more prisons, voter disenfranchisement) as well as justify and excuse the systemic inequalities of capitalism ("black poverty comes from blacks being lazy" etc*) the system has no use for a "black pride" which is actually challenging these assumptions that the system rests on!

Nationalism is problematic even in the best examples (and the BPP had a whole set of political and organizational problems in my view - Maoism etc), but there is a huge difference between the nationalism of the oppressor and the nationalism of the oppressed.

[Invincible Summer]

I don't understand why people support groups like the Black Panthers and then make statements like "Race is a social construct" etc. You can't have it both ways... If I'm not mistaken the Black Panthers were a racially EXCLUSIVE organization, as in blacks only. The black power/pride movement only further divides the working class, portraying "black pride" is no better than portraying white pride, your skin colour is nothing to be proud of. Don't get me wrong I'm ALL for supporting the African-American (In my case Canadian) community but the a large amount of Black Panthers members were also black nationalists and supporting black nationalism is NOT leftist, and if you read the ten-point plan they make it very clear they are racialists.
RACE IS A SOCIAL CONSTRUCT, ABANDON RACIAL IDENTITIES.

Funny that you bring up the 10 Point Plan...

From: http://www.blackpanther.org/TenPoint.htm, all emphasis mine.


1. WE WANT FREEDOM. WE WANT POWER TO DETERMINE THE DESTINY OF OUR BLACK AND OPPRESSED COMMUNITIES.
We believe that Black and oppressed people will not be free until we are able to determine our destinies in our own communities ourselves, by fully controlling all the institutions which exist in our communities.


3. WE WANT AN END TO THE ROBBERY BY THE CAPITALISTS OF OUR BLACK AND OPPRESSED COMMUNITIES.
We believe that this racist government has robbed us and now we are demanding the overdue debt of forty acres and two mules. Forty acres and two mules were promised 100 years ago as restitution for slave labor and mass murder of Black people. We will accept the payment in currency which will be distributed to our many communities. The American racist has taken part in the slaughter of our fifty million Black people. Therefore, we feel this is a modest demand that we make.


4. WE WANT DECENT HOUSING, FIT FOR THE SHELTER OF HUMAN BEINGS.
We believe that if the landlords will not give decent housing to our Black and oppressed communities, then housing and the land should be made into cooperatives so that the people in our communities, with government aid, can build and make decent housing for the people.


6. WE WANT COMPLETELY FREE HEALTH CARE FOR All BLACK AND OPPRESSED PEOPLE.
We believe that the government must provide, free of charge, for the people, health facilities which will not only treat our illnesses, most of which have come about as a result of our oppression, but which will also develop preventive medical programs to guarantee our future survival. We believe that mass health education and research programs must be developed to give all Black and oppressed people access to advanced scientific and medical information, so we may provide our selves with proper medical attention and care.


7. WE WANT AN IMMEDIATE END TO POLICE BRUTALITY AND MURDER OF BLACK PEOPLE, OTHER PEOPLE OF COLOR, All OPPRESSED PEOPLE INSIDE THE UNITED STATES.

Need I go on?

[Madvillainy]

Need I go on?


I think the 10 point programme speaks for itself, not only is it unachievable under capitalism but these supposed communists fail to even mention the working class.

I agree with the OP's main point, that organising along racial lines is always divisive to the working class.

[RedAnarchist]

They had a white equivalent working alongside them too, although I don't know too much about them - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Panther_Party.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Yes, I think it is much more problematic that the BPP had an orientation on the lumpen-prols, instead of workers, than their orientation on organizing black communities.

I agree with the OP's main point, that organising along racial lines is always divisive to the working class.

yes well ultimately we need a united movement, but organizing along racial lines in cases like this is not the source of divisions. Racism has already divided the working class and so in order to be able to build a united movement, these divisions within the working class must be taken on. If people are organizing separately because of pervasive oppression, it is frankly idiotic for radicals from the dominant and less-oppressed group in society to make demands on the way oppressed people organize. That would be more divisive than people organizing along the divisions that already exist in capitalism in order to try and overcome these divisions. The way to go about it IMO, is to argue for why a united movement is much stronger and necessary to win liberation, while showing in practice that the multi-racial group is committed to the liberation struggles of all people.

What ended up happening with the BPP though is that revolutionaries in the student movement built alliances with the BPP (and visa versa) and this allowed trust and mutual projects to come together in an organic way.

Honestly, to expect that black revolutionaries from Oakland or Detroit or Chicago in 1968 should go to white communities to recruit white people to fight against police brutality and for community control in black communities is silly. First of all they probably would have been attacked by racists if they tried going to some working class areas at the height of racial tensions in the US. MLK was attacked by working class white racists when he tried to have a march through a white part of Chicago.

In the radical black union of DRUM in Detroit, workers organized a black union in the auto-industry BECAUSE the official union was working with the bosses in keeping blacks in the lowest-paid and worst jobs. So this kind of organizing comes out of specific material circumstances, not just because some black people decide they don't like white people! In addition through this organizing, DRUM was able to find white allies and work with them. Far from CREATING divisions, at that time, this created the groundwork for actually building solidarity and the potential for a cross-racial organization. Unfortunately this did not happen because of a whole host of reasons and political problems and a splits that were related to the state of the civil rights and black power movement at the end of the 1960s.

[praxis1966]

Well, apart from what Jimmy and Helios are saying (and I do share Jimmy's criticism of the BPP's focus on lumpen proles), my two cents is that simply looking at the 10 Point Program and thinking that it's the be all and end all of what the BPP stood for strikes me as pretty fucking lazy. If the 10 Point Program is all you know about them, or at least all you've considered while forming your opinion, you've only got about 0.000001% of the story.

The fact is, in later publications of their periodical The Black Panther, the BPP was very vocal in its assertions that socialism was the only way toward an elimination of oppression in general and racism in particular. This was the conclusion that most civil rights activists came to eventually, Martin Luther King, Jr and Malcolm X not excluded. The trouble is that MLK and X were assassinated and the BPP decimated by Cointelpro before their greater class consciousnesses could fully mature.

Anyway, I'd suggest a thorough reading of The Black Panthers Speak as it pretty much contradicts all assertions about racism.

[gorillafuck]

Don't get me wrong I'm ALL for supporting the African-American (In my case Canadian) community but the a large amount of Black Panthers members were also black nationalists and supporting black nationalism is NOT leftist, and if you read the ten-point plan they make it very clear they are racialists.
RACE IS A SOCIAL CONSTRUCT, ABANDON RACIAL IDENTITIES.
Racial identities are more easy to just completely throw out the window when you are not of a race that is constantly victimized and oppressed. "Black nationalism" as an ideology is reactionary, but blacks realizing they need to empower themselves without first needing to gain some sort of permission from whites and coupling that with opposition to capitalism is not reactionary in the least bit. Class struggle can't be blind of race because people are still very oppressed along racial lines, and it needs to acknowledge that.

[Hiratsuka]

Two legitimate points have been raised in this thread:

- Black nationalism (at least, as it was, not as it is defined by bigotted organizations like the Nation of Islam) was not synonymous with white nationalism. One is in pursuit of refuge, the other to promote inequality.
- Black nationalism is handicapped by an admitted short-sightedness in terms of uniting people across racial barriers. Most whites probably will never support black nationalism, as most blacks won't in all likelihood support the Aztlan projects, etc.

How to reconcile these two points is a good question.

[manic expression]

"Black nationalism" as an ideology is reactionary,
How so? This is not just about your post, but about a few viewpoints on this thread.

Black nationalism is progressive and will continue to be progressive until our Black sisters and brothers achieve full liberation. Until that nation finds itself in full human dignity, it is certainly the progressive position to give our full support to Black national liberation.

And on the point of "organizing along racial lines", we must remember that it is along national lines, and organization along national lines has been an accepted and celebrated part of our movement since its founding. Further still, it is simply a matter of a people saying "we want to figure out our problems for ourselves, we want to organize with those who share our experiences". That is hardly reactionary.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Black nationalism is progressive

Not at all. Have you ever spoken with avowed black nationalists, in real life? Their views on an array of issues are questionable, to say the very least.

Liberation for black (and any other people) is only possible through organization along class lines.

[counterblast]

If I'm not mistaken the Black Panthers were a racially EXCLUSIVE organization, as in blacks only.


Nope. There were Asian and Indigenous members of the Panthers. And look up "White Panthers". And read the "open letter to the womens and gay movement" by Huey Newton.

Exclusively Black? By no means.




The black power/pride movement only further divides the working class, portraying "black pride" is no better than portraying white pride, your skin colour is nothing to be proud of. Don't get me wrong I'm ALL for supporting the African-American (In my case Canadian) community but the a large amount of Black Panthers members were also black nationalists and supporting black nationalism is NOT leftist, and if you read the ten-point plan they make it very clear they are racialists.Have you even read the 10 points program? They make it resoundingly clear that the Black community in America at the time were wholly oppressed by capitalists. And the way the Black community was (and continues to be) oppressed is undeniably different from the way the white working class is.

Whereas the American working class white of the 1950s and 1960s had a theoretical chance of some upward mobility (a managerial position at a factory or as a "head" maid or housekeeper); upward mobility for a Black person of that same era -- was actually obtaining any kind of job.

This doesn't in any way minimize classism faced by all poor people -- but simply illustrates how the intersectionality of things like racism and other social oppressions plays a part in how poor people are oppressed.

A cis woman is more likely to get a job than a trans woman of the same class in America. A white immigrant from Europe is more likely to get a job than a Latino/Chicano immigrant of the same class in America. A so-called "able-bodied" person is more likely to get a job than a differently-able bodied person (ie:someone in a wheelchair) of the same class in America.

They're all oppressed by their class, but some of these people face oppression outside of their class status.


RACE IS A SOCIAL CONSTRUCT, ABANDON RACIAL IDENTITIES.As long as racism exists -- race is real. Simple as that.

[counterblast]

Not at all. Have you ever spoken with avowed black nationalists, in real life? Their views on an array of issues are questionable, to say the very least.

Examples?



Liberation for black (and any other people) is only possible through organization along class lines.Can I assume you buy into the utopian assumption that oppression doesn't exist in communist societies?

:rolleyes:

[Os Cangaceiros]

Examples?

Watch this BBC documentary:

HuxMlDGUXGI


Can I assume you buy into the utopian assumption that oppression doesn't exist in communist societies?

:rolleyes:

What "communist societies" do you speak of, and how on earth did you get that out of what I said?

[Jimmie Higgins]

Liberation for black (and any other people) is only possible through organization along class lines.I don't disagree with this, but I think the question this leads to is how do multi-racial radical groups relate to a radical group like the BPP who organize separate organizations because of oppression in society. How do you build solidarity along class lines while also not discounting the existing divisions withing the working class because of oppression.

It would have been a mistake to write-off the BPP, one of the largest revolutionary groups in US history after the IWW and the CP.

[Os Cangaceiros]

I don't completely write off the BPP; I'm just skeptical of some aspects of their organization.

[gorillafuck]

As long as racism exists -- race is real. Simple as that.
Emphasis on this. Race isn't biologically a real thing but if you put a group of white people and a group of black people in a room and ask "how important is your race in your life", white people will say it is not important and black people will probably say it is very important, because white people do not face racial oppression whereas black people do. I know this specific example to be true because I was once at a youth retreat and while we were all in a room they did just that, and the result was exactly what I described.


And on the point of "organizing along racial lines", we must remember that it is along national lines, and organization along national lines has been an accepted and celebrated part of our movement since its founding. Further still, it is simply a matter of a people saying "we want to figure out our problems for ourselves, we want to organize with those who share our experiences". That is hardly reactionary.No, organizing along solely racial lines is a bad thing, solely racial lines can never overthrow capitalism.

Also as a side note, I don't support capitalist national liberation, capitalist national liberation is like South Africa today (half the population living on a dollar a day or less). Apartheid is officially gone but I don't see why anyone should ever have to settle for having a non-official apartheid government in place but still having to live in a horribly impoverished way where the "liberators" live comfy lives and ignore the pleas of the South African working class.

[counterblast]

Watch this BBC documentary:

HuxMlDGUXGI


Black Panther Party Black nationalism =/= Islamic Black nationalism

COMPETITON ON THE CORNER
By Mumia Abu-Jamal

The 3rd Avenue El in the Bronx was a major thoroughfare in the borough, and as such was a prime site for one trying to sell The Black Panther.

I had recently been assigned to the Bronx office and in an attempt to sell my 50 copies, I chose a stop on the line where the foot traffic would be quite heavy, as people descended from the elevated train ride. At roughly the same time, another young Black man elected to stop at the busy corner with the intention of selling his wares.

His wares were essentially the same as mine—newspapers. There, however, the similarity ended, for it was clear from his product that competition was inevitable.
The young man wore a dark-green iridescent suit and a brightly colored bow tie. His hair was cut close to his scalp in the "hustler" style, with a thin part cut in, his face shaved hairless. He carried with him a multi-colored plastic shopping bag that appeared to be filled with copies of Muhammad Speaks.

As I surveyed his wares, he was surveying mine. We looked at each other and understood that neither would relinquish the corner to the other.
And so, we began selling in earnest.

Shouts of "Help Us Free Huey!" mingled with "Salaam Aliekum, brother!" as we struggled to sell our product.

"Yo, brother! Find out what’s happenin’ that the white power structure ain’t gonna tell ya! Check out The Black Panther—only a quarter!"

"Salaam Aliekum, Sister! Come on back to your own! Read Muhammad Speaks! Twenty-five cents!"

For nearly an hour the sales continued, fed and famished by the flow of passerby debarking from the trains hissing to a stop overhead.

After a while, we got into a conversation:
"Brother, you got to get with the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, and stop following those devils like Marx and Lenin and ’em."

"Well, bro’—you should get with the Minister of Defense, Huey P. Newton, and the Black Panther Party."

"You should follow a Black man, brother, not some Jews like Marx and Lenin!"

"We revolutionaries, brother, and we study about revolutionaries from around the world. We don’t care what race they is."

"I can see that, brother," glancing at a copy of The Black Panther, pointing to a cover picture of an Asian, full-haired man. "Who is that, brother?"

"That’s Kim Il-Sung, the leader of North Korea, and a revolutionary."

"You see what I’m saying, brother? Here you go talking ‘bout another guy! He ain’t got nothin’ to say to Black people, brother!"

"Well, if that’s so, brother, why he in yo paper Muhammad Speaks?"

"What you talkin’ bout, brother?" he asked, seemingly stunned by the question.

I read and studied his paper quite regularly, for its layout, news, and commentary, but I doubted if he ever read any of ours. This seemed only logical for someone assigned to the East Coast Ministry of Information office, and I remembered reading this week’s issue of Muhammad Speaks.

"Check it out, brother, in yo international news section."

In disbelief, he turned the pages until, sure enough, an article appeared bearing a photo of Kim Il-Sung. He looked at it, and then turned to me, smiling.
"Yes sir, brother. Yessir. Um-humm."

"And what we learned from him was the idea of Juche, a Korean word that means self-reliance!"

[Hiero]

Not at all. Have you ever spoken with avowed black nationalists, in real life? Their views on an array of issues are questionable, to say the very least.

Liberation for black (and any other people) is only possible through organization along class lines.

Black Panthers such as Huey P.Netwon and Bobby Seale (and their factions) have already dealt with this. They founded the party along class lines. Go do some research, check out Seize the Time by Bobby Seale.

The original poster is just arrogant and would easliy be fixed if s/he did some research. We are fine to discuss such things on revleft and help inform people, but it is beyond ridicilious when people do nothing to understand and yet make such definite conclusions.

[The Red Next Door]

I don't understand why people support groups like the Black Panthers and then make statements like "Race is a social construct" etc. You can't have it both ways... If I'm not mistaken the Black Panthers were a racially EXCLUSIVE organization, as in blacks only. The black power/pride movement only further divides the working class, portraying "black pride" is no better than portraying white pride, your skin colour is nothing to be proud of. Don't get me wrong I'm ALL for supporting the African-American (In my case Canadian) community but the a large amount of Black Panthers members were also black nationalists and supporting black nationalism is NOT leftist, and if you read the ten-point plan they make it very clear they are racialists.
RACE IS A SOCIAL CONSTRUCT, ABANDON RACIAL IDENTITIES.

Also the BBP practice an ideology from an old white european man

[Devrim]

yes well ultimately we need a united movement, but organizing along racial lines in cases like this is not the source of divisions. Racism has already divided the working class and so in order to be able to build a united movement, these divisions within the working class must be taken on.

People organising along racial lines is not the source of racial division, but it perpetuates it.


If people are organizing separately because of pervasive oppression, it is frankly idiotic for radicals from the dominant and less-oppressed group in society to make demands on the way oppressed people organize.

It is interesting the way that you assume that the only people who would argue this are 'from the dominant and less-oppressed group in society'.


That would be more divisive than people organizing along the divisions that already exist in capitalism in order to try and overcome these divisions.

Arguing for unity is more divisive that organising divisively. That is a strane idea.


Honestly, to expect that black revolutionaries from Oakland or Detroit or Chicago in 1968 should go to white communities to recruit white people to fight against police brutality and for community control in black communities is silly.

But not quite as silly to think that pseudo-Maoist anti-working class ethnic groups like the Black Panthers were revolutionaries.

[MarxSchmarx]

I don't disagree with this, but I think the question this leads to is how do multi-racial radical groups relate to a radical group like the BPP who organize separate organizations because of oppression in society. How do you build solidarity along class lines while also not discounting the existing divisions withing the working class because of oppression.


Caucuses made up of people of different groups from the org (e.g., ethnic minorities, sexual orientation, etc...) are a quite effective way to approach this dilemma. These caucuses can provide room for articulating the concerns of such groups within a diverse organization, and devising tactics to take to their respective communities. They simultaneously also function within the context and broader vision of the larger organization and provide guidance and correction to the parent organization. They have the further advantage that coordination by the larger organization is easier, and balance this with the need for developing strategies specifically for different communities.

[jake williams]

American black people aren't simply an ethnic minority, but due to historical conditions can pretty effectively be defined as a distinct national group with a right to self-determination. Moreover, such national organization was given additional impetus due to the conditions faced at the time by black activists. A lot of the organizations fighting for "civil rights" had significant white leadership and were pretty politically bankrupt. It's not necessarily the case that white leadership was the cause, and certainly there was lots of white leadership in, say, the CPUSA, not an organization I would say (at least at the time) was politically bankrupt. But I think it appeared that way to a lot of black activists, and anyway the consequences of the BPP in terms of basic political self confidence for black people in America was profound. For that alone the Black Panthers deserve to be recognized as one of the most important political formations in American history.

It's also false that the Black Panthers were somehow bigots, black supremacists or were only interested in the organization of black people. The leadership, if not absolutely the entire membership (a membership that grew extremely rapidly within a few years, much faster than it could develop a very deep political understanding in its entirety), were very vocal advocates of the organization of the working class as a whole - as is well known. This was especially the case as significant groups with white or non-black leadership developed a respect for black self-organization.

As for the fact that we should avoid talking about or organizing around race because it's a "social construct", I disagree. I'm not personally in favour of the long term maintenance of ethnic or national or gender identities, but to ignore the fact that we have them now, and that moreover they are not simple personal identities but massive material forces in the organization of society, is to ignore an important part of the construction and reproduction of capitalist society. Such ignorance inevitably leads to the failure, in whole or in part, or our organizations.

[Devrim]

Caucuses made up of people of different groups from the org (e.g., ethnic minorities, sexual orientation, etc...) are a quite effective way to approach this dilemma. These caucuses can provide room for articulating the concerns of such groups within a diverse organization, and devising tactics to take to their respective communities. They simultaneously also function within the context and broader vision of the larger organization and provide guidance and correction to the parent organization. They have the further advantage that coordination by the larger organization is easier, and balance this with the need for developing strategies specifically for different communities.

The fact that people consider that they need to take this approach must say something about the nature of the organisations they are in.

Devrim

[Devrim]

The leadership, if not absolutely the entire membership (a membership that grew extremely rapidly within a few years, much faster than it could develop a very deep political understanding in its entirety), were very vocal advocates of the organization of the working class as a whole - as is well known.

So well known that not one of their 'ten points' talks about the working class.

Devrim

[manic expression]

So well known that not one of their 'ten points' talks about the working class.
That's because all of their ten points speak for the working class. Something an ultra-left wouldn't know much about.

The larger point here is that if Black nationalists are at all "reactionary", the only thing they're reacting to is racism, hatred and oppression. That makes them our allies far, far, far more than they are not. We have to recognize that first. In addition, Blacks are, as jammoe said, a distinct nation, and they have every right to organize along these lines.

One thing we should remember is that Black nationalists are organizing in working-class communities. You don't see the New Black Panther Party making speeches or drawing support in the suburbs for a very good reason. But most importantly, if we work with them, they will join us in pushing forward the interests of the whole proletariat, but only if we are open and accommodating to their concerns and respectful of their experience.

[Devrim]

That's because all of their ten points speak for the working class. Something an ultra-left wouldn't know much about.

No they don't. They constantly talk about 'black and oppressed communities', and occasionally mention the poor. They don't talk about the working class.

We don't try to speak for the working class. That is substitution. The communist left is part of the working class.

Just on a personal note about not knowing anything about the working class. I have been working since I was 15. I have worked as a postman (5 years), bricklayer (12 years), as well as various factory jobs, in a hospital...

Aren't you a college student?


The larger point here is that if Black nationalists are at all "reactionary", the only thing they're reacting to is racism, hatred and oppression.

I think that the word you are looking for is reactive meaning to react against.

Devrim

[RED DAVE]

black nationalism is progressive
Not at all. Have you ever spoken with avowed black nationalists, in real life?Have you ever worked with the Black Panthers? As perhaps the only person on this board who did work with them, I can tell you that they did not evince racism and were anxious as a group and as individuals to open up communication with whites, whether on the job or in the community.

The Panthers were not the only nationalist group around. There were groups such as the Nation of Islam who were overtly anti-white. Such groups did not get very far inside the black community, rhetoric and publicity notwithstanding. And as soon as the NOI tried to engage in any kind of action (besides setting up small businesses), they ended up working with whites.


Their views on an array of issues are questionable, to say the very least.Black nationalism was/is not a stable ideology since it was not based on or in the working class. In the end, it split along many lines. The most progressive were, as others have mentioned, DRUM and other groups inside the labor movement. The worst became gangsters.


Liberation for black (and any other people) is only possible through organization along class lines.In the long run, yes. And many nationalists in the 70s grew to understand this. The Panthers suffered because they made the wrong class choice and they were decimated by COINTELPRO. They ceased to be an active presence before the mid-70s.

RED DAVE

[manic expression]

No they don't. They constantly talk about 'black and oppressed communities', and occasionally mention the poor. They don't talk about the working class.
Black and oppressed communities is what they focused on as a result of being part of those communities, which are working-class communities, incidentally. Saying "working class" would have been redundant.


We don't try to speak for the working class. That is substitution. The communist left is part of the working class.
Working-class revolutionaries do speak for the working class, and they do it visibly and effectively. That's been a cornerstone of the Marxist movement since its inception.


Just on a personal note about not knowing anything about the working class. I have been working since I was 15. I have worked as a postman (5 years), bricklayer (12 years), as well as various factory jobs, in a hospital...
It doesn't mean you can articulate correct politics.


Aren't you a college student?
Aren't you from Ireland?


I think that the word you are looking for is reactive meaning to react against.
Meaning they aren't reactionary.

[jake williams]

So well known that not one of their 'ten points' talks about the working class.

Devrim
The ten point program basically consists of very common primary working class demands, as you well know. The fact that that particular document didn't refer to "the working class" per se reflects the fact that the BPP was not a working class organization as such but a national liberation organization. I know you're not sympathetic to national liberation organizations but I don't care. The point is that's what they were, and whether they were right or wrong in doing so they did in response to particular conditions they faced working in America in the 60s and 70s. And quite possibly because they tried to do so, they raised consciousness - including class consciousness - to a considerable degree.

[Devrim]

Black and oppressed communities is what they focused on as a result of being part of those communities, which are working-class communities, incidentally. Saying "working class" would have been redundant.

No, they didn't say 'working class' because they had an ideology which wasn't based on the working class. There is no such thing as a 'working class community'. All such 'communities' are actually a mix of different sort of people.

For example, I live in a pretty 'working class area' in a housing block. What you would probably call a project in the US. My neighbours include students, cops, and small shopkeepers, and businessmen. The idea of 'community' is ultimately hollow.


Working-class revolutionaries do speak for the working class, and they do it visibly and effectively. That's been a cornerstone of the Marxist movement since its inception.

You might think so, but you don't. At least we are more realistic. The idea that any left political groups 'speak for the working class' at the moment is absurd. Revolutionaries represent the historic interest of the class. This is different from 'speaking for the working class' though.


Aren't you from Ireland?

Yes, it doesn't make it any less funny when students are telling workers that they 'wouldn't know much about' the working class though.


Meaning they aren't reactionary.

No, it only means that you have confused two words.

Devrim

[Devrim]

The ten point program basically consists of very common primary working class demands, as you well know.

No, it consists of a lot of absurd slogans.

Devrim

[jake williams]

No, it consists of a lot of absurd slogans.

Devrim
Are you serious? Demanding homes, jobs, education and freedom from police violence (which of course black communities can't have been/can't presently be the victim of because communities aren't real things) is just a lot of absurd slogans?

ps. Are you a troll?

[soyonstout]

Are you serious? Demanding homes, jobs, education and freedom from police violence (which of course black communities can't have been/can't presently be the victim of because communities aren't real things) is just a lot of absurd slogans?


The question is how are you going to enforce these demands? It's an error to think that political groups can come up with slogans that the working class (or in this case 'black and oppressed communities') are supposed to also 'demand.' From whom, and how? The question is, in the absence of a mass movement that is threatening the power of the state, making demands like these confuses people about how such things are actually won or lost, and people start looking for bourgeois politicians who will promise such things instead of struggling.

Secondly, I think there are plenty of ways in which Black Panther ideology distorted and confused class consciousness for many workers. At the local radical bookshop where I live there's a pamphlet for sale about how the white working class are imperialist scumbags responsible for the murder of the native americans and how racial oppression actually increases the wages of white workers (when it is clear that it only creates downward pressure on wages worldwide, just like cheap labor in the 3rd world, etc.--this is exactly why the working class struggle tries to overcome these divisions, not to endlessly theorize them until it is more and more divided). I think black nationalism, by portraying white workers as the enemy, has actually kept black and white workers from fighting more effectively together for their class interests.

-soyons tout

[manic expression]

No, they didn't say 'working class' because they had an ideology which wasn't based on the working class. There is no such thing as a 'working class community'. All such 'communities' are actually a mix of different sort of people.
When they talked of Black communities, they were talking of the Black proletariat. Any objective, scientific analysis will yield this conclusion. You can dodge, insult and slander this as much as you like, it doesn't change the fact of the matter.


For example, I live in a pretty 'working class area' in a housing block. What you would probably call a project in the US. My neighbours include students, cops, and small shopkeepers, and businessmen. The idea of 'community' is ultimately hollow.And what class makes up the majority of that community? That's the point here. You might as well say a slave master's house isn't the master's house, since some slaves sleep within its walls.


You might think so, but you don't. At least we are more realistic. The idea that any left political groups 'speak for the working class' at the moment is absurd. Revolutionaries represent the historic interest of the class. This is different from 'speaking for the working class' though.You are realistic only in the fact that you admit that you're irrelevant. That's about it, though.

By the way, we're talking about the Black Panthers, who did speak for the Black working class before they were destroyed. Your only argument against this is their specific vocabulary, which underlines how out of touch and anti-materialist you are. If you want to talk about the present, though, then please do not project your irrelevance upon revolutionaries who are actually speaking for the working class today. Like I said, this argument of yours is nothing but a cheap excuse for not being part of working-class struggle, struggle that revolutionaries are a part of.


Yes, it doesn't make it any less funny when students are telling workers that they 'wouldn't know much about' the working class though.I told you you wouldn't know much about speaking for the working class, which is evidently true. Even you conceded this, so I fail to see why you're feigning offense.


No, it only means that you have confused two words.Good thing I put in quotes, then. "Quotes" meaning I was talking of the presumed categorization of the Black Panthers, which I was disagreeing with. Meaning I'm not the confused one between us.

[manic expression]

The question is how are you going to enforce these demands? It's an error to think that political groups can come up with slogans that the working class (or in this case 'black and oppressed communities') are supposed to also 'demand.' From whom, and how? The question is, in the absence of a mass movement that is threatening the power of the state, making demands like these confuses people about how such things are actually won or lost, and people start looking for bourgeois politicians who will promise such things instead of struggling.
The working class was demanding them, as the Black Panthers were pushing forth the interests of the Black proletariat. The demands were made of the ruling class, by Black workers. That, in itself, is progressive, as it challenges the power of the capitalists. Then take into account that the demands were essentially impossible under capitalism, and they become clearly revolutionary without any doubt.

Have you ever read the Manifesto? If so, check out that little list of demands that Marx made and tell me how that's fundamentally different.

And yeah, since there's no mass movement, we can't say anything about liberating ourselves from oppression. It might confuse people...since they have such fragile minds, you see. Are you trying to be patronizing?


Secondly, I think there are plenty of ways in which Black Panther ideology distorted and confused class consciousness for many workers. At the local radical bookshop where I live there's a pamphlet for sale about how the white working class are imperialist scumbags responsible for the murder of the native americans and how racial oppression actually increases the wages of white workers (when it is clear that it only creates downward pressure on wages worldwide, just like cheap labor in the 3rd world, etc.--this is exactly why the working class struggle tries to overcome these divisions, not to endlessly theorize them until it is more and more divided). I think black nationalism, by portraying white workers as the enemy, has actually kept black and white workers from fighting more effectively together for their class interests.
The Black Panthers specifically denounced the anti-white ideologies you mentioned. Blaming them for that is ridiculous, they arguably did more than any other organization in American history to fight those illusions.

Black nationalism does not portray white workers as the enemy. Stop slandering our Black sisters and brothers.

[The Red Next Door]

Black and oppressed communities is what they focused on as a result of being part of those communities, which are working-class communities, incidentally. Saying "working class" would have been redundant.


Working-class revolutionaries do speak for the working class, and they do it visibly and effectively. That's been a cornerstone of the Marxist movement since its inception.


It doesn't mean you can articulate correct politics.


Aren't you from Ireland?


Meaning they aren't reactionary.

He is from Turkey.

[Devrim]

He is from Turkey.

No, I am Irish born. I live in Turkey.

Devrim

[Os Cangaceiros]

Have you ever worked with the Black Panthers? As perhaps the only person on this board who did work with them, I can tell you that they did not evince racism and were anxious as a group and as individuals to open up communication with whites, whether on the job or in the community.

The Panthers were not the only nationalist group around. There were groups such as the Nation of Islam who were overtly anti-white. Such groups did not get very far inside the black community, rhetoric and publicity notwithstanding. And as soon as the NOI tried to engage in any kind of action (besides setting up small businesses), they ended up working with whites.

But whoever said that I was talking specifically about the BPP? I was responding to a point about black nationalism, not the BPP specifically. I'm well aware of the BPP's attempts at broadening their reach.

[Os Cangaceiros]

The larger point here is that if Black nationalists are at all "reactionary", the only thing they're reacting to is racism, hatred and oppression. That makes them our allies far, far, far more than they are not. We have to recognize that first. In addition, Blacks are, as jammoe said, a distinct nation, and they have every right to organize along these lines.

Whether their cause is understandable or not in the context of institutional racism is not a statement on whether it's condusive to our objectives.


One thing we should remember is that Black nationalists are organizing in working-class communities. You don't see the New Black Panther Party making speeches or drawing support in the suburbs for a very good reason. But most importantly, if we work with them, they will join us in pushing forward the interests of the whole proletariat, but only if we are open and accommodating to their concerns and respectful of their experience.

1) I doubt that their significance in working-class communities is even worth noting.

2) The New Black Panther Party is incredibly reactionary, and has been effectively disowned (http://www.blackpanther.org/newsalert.htm) by the original BPP members. Those clowns would have a black construction worker believe that he has more in common with Michael Steele than he does with the working-class white down the street. :rolleyes:

[manic expression]

Whether their cause is understandable or not in the context of institutional racism is not a statement on whether it's condusive to our objectives.
I think that if their cause is understandable in the context of oppression of Black workers, then it is not only conducive to our objectives but one with our objectives. We want to liberate the Black nation, they want to liberate the Black nation...surely this counts for something. An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory, so even if their theory is incorrect, we can join with them in correct action, and that's far more important IMO.


1) I doubt that their significance in working-class communities is even worth noting.
I can't speak on that, but they're still actively organizing in working-class communities, and we can work with them on this. If we do, it's a win-win.


2) The New Black Panther Party is incredibly reactionary, and has been effectively disowned (http://www.blackpanther.org/newsalert.htm) by the original BPP members. Those clowns would have a black construction worker believe that he has more in common with Michael Steele than he does with the working-class white down the street. :rolleyes:
True, we must recognize that the New Black Panther Party is not the original organization at all, and that their ideology is not the Marxist line of the BPP. However, they're still fighting against racism and oppression, and that makes them our allies. Like I said, they have a lot to learn from us, but only if we're willing to extend a hand in solidarity.

Remember, a lot of leftists were too quick to blow off Marcus Garvey because he had some weird ideas. That was a huge mistake, as Garvey was one of the seminal leaders for Blacks, and an alliance between the left and Garvey would have been a great step for revolution. Let's not make the same mistake twice.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Black nationalism was/is not a stable ideology since it was not based on or in the working class.

I just wanted to quote this because it deserves to be repeated. This is probably the most important point regarding nationalism in oppressed groups in capitalist society: they are highly unstable. They can range from crass class collaboration to petty bourgoise politics to revolutionary politics - and in organizations and groups, sometimes all these ideas can be mixed together.

Were the people who were attracted to the NOI when Malcolm X was getting a lot of attention attracted to it for the same reason that the petty bourgeois elements were? While the southern civil rights movement was (at that point) still focused on changing laws an working with good northern liberal politicians - Malcolm X was speaking to workers in Detroit and Harlem and showing the hypocrisy of these politicians who condemn the south while looking the other way as poverty and police oppressed black people in the north. At the same time, he was part of a group with no real answers or solutions for fighting oppression other than dressing nice, a moral code, and starting businesses in the black communities.

X's emerging political side as well as his popularity was a harbinger of a radicalization in the black struggle (particularly in industrial areas) and a more systemic look at the roots of racism in the US and how class plays a part.


People organising along racial lines is not the source of racial division, but it perpetuates it.If black nationalists or feminist separatists argue that working class whites are the source and cause of oppression, then yes this is divisive and perpetuates the divisions that the ruling class cultivates in the working class. If, like the BPP or other groups who ORGANIZE separately but locate the source of oppression in structures of the system, then I don't think it's actually perpetuating it, but it just is not as effective in the long run as a united movement.

However in order to eventually build that united movement, we have to help people come to these conclusions through their experiences and through the process of the struggle. That means not automatically writing them off, or having a view that they are part of the problem for organizing that way. It would be like demanding that Palestinian groups try and seek out christian and Jewish allies. Of course I think that would help the movement, but it should not be a requirement of the oppressed to reach out to other groups - it's on the united groups to prove in practice how a united organization is more effective in struggle and does not stifle members from oppressed groups or make the demands of the oppressed a lower-tier priority.


It is interesting the way that you assume that the only people who would argue this are 'from the dominant and less-oppressed group in society'.Why is it interesting - as I said, my skin is white (even though my family background is mixed) and so I'm not about to demand that Black radicals trust me on my say so - or LGBT radicals or female radicals etc.


Arguing for unity is more divisive that organising divisively. That is a strane idea.Demanding unity and writing off important groups in the struggle does not build trust or solidarity in the working class.

[Wolf Larson]

I don't understand why people support groups like the Black Panthers and then make statements like "Race is a social construct" etc. You can't have it both ways... If I'm not mistaken the Black Panthers were a racially EXCLUSIVE organization, as in blacks only. The black power/pride movement only further divides the working class, portraying "black pride" is no better than portraying white pride, your skin colour is nothing to be proud of. Don't get me wrong I'm ALL for supporting the African-American (In my case Canadian) community but the a large amount of Black Panthers members were also black nationalists and supporting black nationalism is NOT leftist, and if you read the ten-point plan they make it very clear they are racialists.
RACE IS A SOCIAL CONSTRUCT, ABANDON RACIAL IDENTITIES.

individualist "market anarchist"?

[counterblast]

The question is how are you going to enforce these demands? It's an error to think that political groups can come up with slogans that the working class (or in this case 'black and oppressed communities') are supposed to also 'demand.' From whom, and how? The question is, in the absence of a mass movement that is threatening the power of the state, making demands like these confuses people about how such things are actually won or lost, and people start looking for bourgeois politicians who will promise such things instead of struggling.


The Panthers weren't passively "making demands" and hoping capitalists would hear their cries.

They were putting their demands into action. Lets go through the BPP response to the 10 points program:


1. They mobilized, armed, and educated people, to give them more control of their destinies. They worked to get the descendants of slaves their own land outside the jurisdiction of the US.
2. They were employing the youth in their communities, through the sales of The Black Panther.
3. They attacked the capitalist apparatus, both by teaching their community about it and by blowing up many of the banks and government institutions that uphold it.
4. They were using revenue from the Black Panther to assist people in their community with rent or foreclosure. There were even a couple of experimental communal houses bought in the early days of the BPP.
5. They built schools for their children, that focused on Black, Indigenous, and radical white histories; with lessons that were more demographically correct than Eurocentric.
6. They built free clinics in Chicago, New York, Oakland, Baltimore, Detroit, and Minneapolis. The Baltimore and Minneapolis clinics are still around today.
7. The Panthers armed themselves with rifles and took to the streets of their neighborhoods, while observing police pulling over Black or Latino/a youth. And some very notable Panthers (including Sundiata Acoli, Assata Shakur, Mumia Abu Jamal, Eldridge Cleaver, Zayd Shakur, and Angela Davis) have been accused and/or convicted of killing cops.
8. They worked with anti-war campaigns, encouraged Black men to delist or go AWOL. They funded the NLF (or "Viet Cong"), and various African liberation struggles.
9. They hired lawyers for people of their community charged with crimes. Ex-Panthers also went on to form the Black Liberation Army, who forcibly liberated political prisoners in the US and helped them escape to Africa or Cuba; the most notable being Assata Shakur.

[black magick hustla]

I do think that the black question in the US was and is particularly different to any other sort of "ethnic questions". The BPP was not a socialist organization by any means though, it was a "populist" one. While some of the leadership might had exposed some pseudo maoism, the mayority of the rank and file members of the BPP were black nationalist militants. By the way, I have spoken to Bobby Seale and he argued that a lot of people exaggerate the "maoism" in the BPP

[Jimmie Higgins]

I do think that the black question in the US was and is particularly different to any other sort of "ethnic questions". The BPP was not a socialist organization by any means though, it was a "populist" one. While some of the leadership might had exposed some pseudo maoism, the mayority of the rank and file members of the BPP were black nationalist militants. By the way, I have spoken to Bobby Seale and he argued that a lot of people exaggerate the "maoism" in the BPP

Well it seems like there was a range of views within the group, but they were definitely socialist in the sense of locating black oppression in capitalism. From what I've read, while in the early years they were much more following the logic laid out in the last year of Malcolm X's life - their own group developing out of a black nationalist (reading and debating) group, by 68 they were pretty self-consciously socialist in their outlook, arguing that the lumpen-proletariat were like the peasantry and could become a "people's army". It also seems like a logical progression of the ideas of Malcolm X who was looking at the liberation struggles going on at the time and the ideas of Arab Nationalism, African Socialism and Maoism.

While you are probably right that their Maoism has been over-emphasized, I think Seale may also be understating the groups radicalism in the past few decades. In "Berkeley in the 60s" Seale claimed that they never read Mao's book, but just sold it to white college students. I find it hard to believe that in the height of radicalism in the heart of student radicalism where students would have been familiar with and debating radical ideas and theorists (particularly Maoism), that people as committed as the BPP never involved themselves in these political debates and never cracked a socialist book - even if it was a Maoist one.

I think he has tried to soften his image as the 60s movements declined... probably doesn't call for cops to end up on morgue slabs anymore and probably doesn't say motherfucker as much as in the past. After-all, now he pals around with Democrats:

http://i38.tinypic.com/2s0224h.jpg

:laugh: Someone sent me this awesomely ignorant and idiotic picture from a right-wing website.

[Barry Lyndon]

Devrim, kindly piss off and don't stick your arrogant ultra-left nose where it clearly does not belong. I'm seriously beginning to suspect you of racism at this point.

As so many comrades here have pointed out here, the Black Panthers were an anti-racist organization that stood for the coming together of all oppressed groups in the United States in order to fight for the overthrow of capitalism, which they identified over and over again as the main enemy. They did not fail because they had an incorrect 'line' or whatever crap you ultra-lefts like to pull out of your ass, they failed because the US government poured literally millions of dollars into infiltrating, undermining, blackmailing, jailing and assassinating their members.

I live in Chicago, where 40 years ago one of the most promising leaders of the Black Panther Party, Fred Hampton, was murdered in his bed by pigs at the age of 21. At that young age, he had already succeeded in establishing free breakfast programs for 15,000 children, set up a free medical center for the South Side of Chicago, and had mediated truces between Chicago's major black street gangs. These were REAL gains for the emancipation and self-determination of black working-class communities, in the real world, not as some abstract talking point.

Here is a brief clip of him making several speeches in which he clearly talks about the working class, he even says 'proletariat':
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UstROPm3Ezw]

Documentary of his life and assassination:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rn0PiDvVXDY

Watch and learn a fucking thing about the Black Panthers and what they stood for before you start again with your ignorant reactionary lies.

[Devrim]

Devrim, kindly piss off and don't stick your arrogant ultra-left nose where it clearly does not belong. I'm seriously beginning to suspect you of racism at this point.

This is pretty typical of a lot of the discussions on here. If you don't like what people say, try to insinuate that they are some kind of racist.


If black nationalists or feminist separatists argue that working class whites are the source and cause of oppression, then yes this is divisive and perpetuates the divisions that the ruling class cultivates in the working class. If, like the BPP or other groups who ORGANIZE separately but locate the source of oppression in structures of the system, then I don't think it's actually perpetuating it, but it just is not as effective in the long run as a united movement.

I think that the question is whether these sort of groups act towards uniting the working class or in perpetuating its divisions. I would say that in advocating separate organisation, they do the former.


However in order to eventually build that united movement, we have to help people come to these conclusions through their experiences and through the process of the struggle. That means not automatically writing them off, or having a view that they are part of the problem for organizing that way. It would be like demanding that Palestinian groups try and seek out christian and Jewish allies. Of course I think that would help the movement, but it should not be a requirement of the oppressed to reach out to other groups - it's on the united groups to prove in practice how a united organization is more effective in struggle and does not stifle members from oppressed groups or make the demands of the oppressed a lower-tier priority.

I think that this is a pretty interesting comparison because to me the Palestinian national movement is a reactionary national movement. Take a look at how its main manifestation, HAMAS, acted in the public sector strikes a couple of years ago.


Why is it interesting - as I said, my skin is white (even though my family background is mixed) and so I'm not about to demand that Black radicals trust me on my say so - or LGBT radicals or female radicals etc.

I don't think that it is about 'demanding that people trust you'. It is what I see as an implicit assumption in the statement that left militants don't belong to these groups. Maybe I read something into it that wasn't there.


I live in Chicago, where 40 years ago one of the most promising leaders of the Black Panther Party, Fred Hampton, was murdered in his bed by pigs at the age of 21. At that young age, he had already succeeded in establishing free breakfast programs for 15,000 children, set up a free medical center for the South Side of Chicago, and had mediated truces between Chicago's major black street gangs. These were REAL gains for the emancipation and self-determination of black working-class communities, in the real world, not as some abstract talking point.

If providing these sort of services makes organisations socialist the Hezbollah would be many many times more socialist than the BPP. Come to think about it, so would the British state.

People being murdered by the police doesn't make them socialists either.

Devrim

[Jimmie Higgins]

This is pretty typical of a lot of the discussions on here. If you don't like what people say, try to insinuate that they are some kind of racist.Well equating the BPP and Malcolm X to the KKK is a favorite pastime of the racist right-wing in the US and other posters here have made similar comments, so it's hard not to suspect some kind of acceptance of that racist line when you hear it from people on the left.


I think that the question is whether these sort of groups act towards uniting the working class or in perpetuating its divisions. I would say that in advocating separate organisation, they do the former.I'd say by organizing literally thousands of urban blacks into a struggle that located the source of racism and police violence with he capitalist system; by forming an organization that supported and inspired struggles of other oppressed people; an organization that actively made ties between the black power/civil rights movement and the rest of the new left; that they did as much to help create a unified revolutionary movement than the multi-cultural single-issue groups that preceded them.

In fact, if it was not for the BPP, then today we would always hear the media say things like "black people have no interest in socialism, that's for Europeans". Instead the radicals of the black power movement like the BPP have traumatized the US ruling class to the point that a centrist Black President is suspected of being Muslim (Malcolm X) and a socialist (BPP).


I think that this is a pretty interesting comparison because to me the Palestinian national movement is a reactionary national movement. Take a look at how its main manifestation, HAMAS, acted in the public sector strikes a couple of years ago.I wasn't talking specifically about Hamas or any group and you know it. Even then, you think that hamas needs to accommodate to Christians and Jews? Do you require that they recognize Israel's right to exist? No, that is not the MAIN problem with their politics, they have other problems with their politics.


I don't think that it is about 'demanding that people trust you'. It is what I see as an implicit assumption in the statement that left militants don't belong to these groups. Maybe I read something into it that wasn't there.Your stupid little implications are not cute: "you didn't mention anything in your last post about being against genocide... maybe I'm reading into it too much".

If we were talking about Oakland today, where there is still some segregation, but it is not as ridged, I don't think the BPP would have formed as it did. In my neighborhood the breakdown is probably 1/3 Latino, 1/3 black, and then 1/3 divided between Asians and whites. In that situation, I think serious radicals with BPP level politics would come to the conclusion that latinos and blacks are actually suffering from the same repression and so any organizing would have to include all oppressed people.

In the 1960s where in California the informal jim-crow of redlining and so on literally created situations where on one side of Normandie Ave. in Los Angeles, everyone was white... cross the street and everyone was black, I don't find it strange that people organizing their community would organize other black people. I also don't find it surprising that Black people on the left would be suspicious of white-led groups after being fucked-over by the Communist Party only a generation before.

So I think that groups like the BPP, at that time, were a pre-condition for being able to build solidarity along class lines. Today, probably not, but if such a group that was serious came around then I don't think we should write them off or blame them for racial divisions they did not create, but work with them and build that trust until the conclusion that a united organization will be stronger and can take up the issues facing the minority within the working class rather than burying these issues.


If providing these sort of services makes organisations socialist the Hezbollah would be many many times more socialist than the BPP. Come to think about it, so would the British state.

People being murdered by the police doesn't make them socialists either.
When the US state's answer to the drug problem is to hire thugs to wear blue uniforms and beat them and then throw them in jail, the BPP were providing treatment and a sense of purpose for drug addicts. When the US's answer to black inequality and higher black unemployment was: "what inequality, we gave you the vote, so you should be thanking us"... the BPP was providing services for low-income children. No these things aren't socialist the German SWP provided similar community services (and more) to workers and christian groups and NGOs currently provide services like these in Oakland. But the fact that the BPP wasn't just proving these services, but linking them to revolutionary politics and socialist explanations of why these services are needed in the first place as well as why the cops attack people, why drug addicts are thrown away by society, why blacks are drafted to fight for democracy when they don't have freedom at home... this is what made them socialists and revolutionaries that the US governmnet said was the "number on threat to internal security".

There are lots of things wrong with the Panther's politics and many of these problems contributed to their downfall (along with massive state repression). Organizing the lumpen meant that they did not have a strong connection to the working class at a time when industry was still strong and employed most black people in urban areas (very much a lost opportunity). But organizing in the black community did not cause the BPP to become more cut-off from the general revolutionary struggle, in fact, their dynamic was in the direction of MORE integration with the rest of the new left. Again, they came out of black power reading and debating struggles and then went to organizing in their communities and then they were organizing with the predominantly white left as well as people from other groups.

This is qualitatively different than other parts of the black power movement who's view of "community organizing" was not organizing the community against the system, but organizing it for the benefit of the black petty bourgeois to open black-owned stores and elect black politicians and hire black police. Well while the US state was busy killing and framing the BPP, they were also giving that other section of the black power movement "access" to power and backing black Democrats for local offices in Oakland and Detroit and so on. That side was the part of the movement that accommodated racism and capitalism and helped create our current situation where black mayor in increasingly re-segregating black communities pay black cops to beat the crap out of people just as white mayors hired white cops back in the past. If the BPP had been able to continue to develop, they could have gone crazy like the rest of the US Maoists, but they also could have helped be a radical critique of the accommodating side of the black struggle and that would have been a good thing for the working class.

[Zanthorus]

Well it seems like there was a range of views within the group, but they were definitely socialist in the sense of locating black oppression in capitalism.

Talking about how "capitalism" creates black opression does not a socialist make. "Capitalism" is essentially a meaningless word unless it's defined. I would regard probably the majority of posters here as supporting some form of capitalism but they still talk about how "capitalism" is bad and how "socialism" is the solution to various problems. The fact that the BPP read Mao to get inspiration for their "anti-capitalism" makes it even more suspect.

[Devrim]

Well equating the BPP and Malcolm X to the KKK is a favorite pastime of the racist right-wing in the US and other posters here have made similar comments, so it's hard not to suspect some kind of acceptance of that racist line when you hear it from people on the left.


Interestingly enough I have made any mention of the KKK at all in this thread, nor compared them to the Black Panthers, let alone equated them. It is just typical Revleft slandering of people as racists.


I'd say by organizing literally thousands of urban blacks into a struggle that located the source of racism and police violence with he capitalist system; by forming an organization that supported and inspired struggles of other oppressed people; an organization that actively made ties between the black power/civil rights movement and the rest of the new left; that they did as much to help create a unified revolutionary movement than the multi-cultural single-issue groups that preceded them.

I'd say that sinle issue groups don't do much either.


In fact, if it was not for the BPP, then today we would always hear the media say things like "black people have no interest in socialism, that's for Europeans". Instead the radicals of the black power movement like the BPP have traumatized the US ruling class to the point that a centrist Black President is suspected of being Muslim (Malcolm X) and a socialist (BPP).

I don't think this really says anything. The America right denounce everything even slightly to the left of the Republican party as socialist, and probably the things about Islam are much more connected to the fact that Obama's father was a Muslim, and he has a Muslim middle name than any connection with Malcolm X.


I wasn't talking specifically about Hamas or any group and you know it.

What were you talking about then? Were you talking about Fatah, an organisation that has also been involved in attacking workers struggles, or some vague imaginary Palestinian nationalism without the 'nasty' anti-working class bits?


Even then, you think that hamas needs to accommodate to Christians and Jews? Do you require that they recognize Israel's right to exist? No, that is not the MAIN problem with their politics, they have other problems with their politics.

I think that HAMAS is a totally anti-working class party, and as such I don't 'require' them to do anything.


Your stupid little implications are not cute: "you didn't mention anything in your last post about being against genocide... maybe I'm reading into it too much".

I don't think that it was a totally unfair comment. This is what you said:


If people are organizing separately because of pervasive oppression, it is frankly idiotic for radicals from the dominant and less-oppressed group in society to make demands on the way oppressed people organize.

Why wouldn't it be communists from the same ethnic groups saying that they think organising along racial lines has nothing to offer the working class.


There are lots of things wrong with the Panther's politics and many of these problems contributed to their downfall (along with massive state repression). Organizing the lumpen meant that they did not have a strong connection to the working class at a time when industry was still strong and employed most black people in urban areas (very much a lost opportunity). But organizing in the black community did not cause the BPP to become more cut-off from the general revolutionary struggle, in fact, their dynamic was in the direction of MORE integration with the rest of the new left. Again, they came out of black power reading and debating struggles and then went to organizing in their communities and then they were organizing with the predominantly white left as well as people from other groups.

I think this is key.

Devrim

[REVLEFT'S BIEGGST MATSER TROL]

Fucks sake this thread makes me cry

The only high point was discovering that Manic Expression is a college student when he regually insinuates that other people know little of the working class/are disconnected from the working class when they disagree with him.

[theblackmask]

They had a white equivalent working alongside them too, although I don't know too much about them - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Panther_Party.

The White Panthers did virtually nothing outside of some underground press stuff. By the time John Sinclair turned to Marxism, they were too busy fighting off drug charges. I got a chance to listen to some recordings of WPP meetings, and it's kinda funny to hear them talk about trying to "relate to them[the BPP] in Marxist terms."

[black magick hustla]

Well it seems like there was a range of views within the group, but they were definitely socialist in the sense of locating black oppression in capitalism.

I don't think this is particularly true. I think to most people the BPP was a militant black advocacy group. I think sometimes people confuse the leadership with the rank and file. Wikipedia mentioned that some members of the BPP considered it little more than a "good" gang.



From what I've read, while in the early years they were much more following the logic laid out in the last year of Malcolm X's life - their own group developing out of a black nationalist (reading and debating) group, by 68 they were pretty self-consciously socialist in their outlook, arguing that the lumpen-proletariat were like the peasantry and could become a "people's army". It also seems like a logical progression of the ideas of Malcolm X who was looking at the liberation struggles going on at the time and the ideas of Arab Nationalism, African Socialism and Maoism.

I think that was the leadership speaking.

While you are probably right that their Maoism has been over-emphasized, I think Seale may also be understating the groups radicalism in the past few decades. In "Berkeley in the 60s" Seale claimed that they never read Mao's book, but just sold it to white college students. I find it hard to believe that in the height of radicalism in the heart of student radicalism where students would have been familiar with and debating radical ideas and theorists (particularly Maoism), that people as committed as the BPP never involved themselves in these political debates and never cracked a socialist book - even if it was a Maoist one.

I think he has tried to soften his image as the 60s movements declined... probably doesn't call for cops to end up on morgue slabs anymore and probably doesn't say motherfucker as much as in the past. After-all, now he pals around with Democrats:



:laugh: Someone sent me this awesomely ignorant and idiotic picture from a right-wing website.[/QUOTE]

[counterblast]

The White Panthers did virtually nothing outside of some underground press stuff. By the time John Sinclair turned to Marxism, they were too busy fighting off drug charges. I got a chance to listen to some recordings of WPP meetings, and it's kinda funny to hear them talk about trying to "relate to them[the BPP] in Marxist terms."

They bombed the CIA office in Ann Arbor. Thats definitely not nothing.

[soyonstout]

Black nationalism does not portray white workers as the enemy. Stop slandering our Black sisters and brothers.

There are two things wrong with this: there are many Black nationalisms that do portray white workers as the enemy or at least as sharing in the enemy's profits--this is part of the Maoist obsession with the labor aristocracy. Look at J. Sakai's works specifically. Second, I'm really not trying to slander.

Hampton definitely moved away from the worst sorts of nationalism but Carmichael, their honorary Prime Minister from 68 to 69 was specifically not interested in the solidarity of white workers with Black "people" (http://marxists.org/history/usa/workers/black-panthers/unknown-date/black-power.htm). I think, however, that even when the BPP moved away from this kind of thing, the fact that their rhetoric continued to appeals to "Black and oppressed" people (which must include the Black petit-bourgeoisie and nascent bourgeoisie, right?) and not to the working class left these assumptions unchallenged for many of their more casual followers.

It was probably unfair of me to lump together the BPP with one-time memberes' views, but I'm also hard pressed to find the "official line" on these things. My impression is that Hampton's line is the one upheld to more marxist folks and a more nationalist one is upheld elsewhere, but I have not studied it as much as I could have, and I may be the victim of misleading publicity.

Regardless, I do think that nationalism divides a working class that needs to unite and the use of terms like "black people" as opposed to "black workers" obfuscate the class issues, and leave unchallenged a very obvious way that the bourgeoisie has of controlling the movement (affirmative action and the sponsorship of a black bourgeoisie, and more importantly the not-as-big-as-you-might-think leap from black nationalism to black separatism--which is effectively the isolation of a minority of the US working class from its class brothers whose material interests are best defended by defending the material interests of their black class brothers)

-soyons tout

[soyonstout]

They bombed the CIA office in Ann Arbor. Thats definitely not nothing.

One of them also helped form and score a record contract for the MC5! Which is great, but doesn't help spread consciousness of the necessity of revolution throughout the working class or increase the self-confidence of the working class in its capacity to struggle. Blowing up CIA buildings doesn't either, although it pretends to.

-soyons tout

[manic expression]

There are two things wrong with this: there are many Black nationalisms that do portray white workers as the enemy or at least as sharing in the enemy's profits--this is part of the Maoist obsession with the labor aristocracy. Look at J. Sakai's works specifically. Second, I'm really not trying to slander.
True, but there are also some socialists who portray capitalists as our friends (CPUSA for one). It doesn't mean anyone should say all socialists do the same. I don't deny that there are plenty of politically suspect positions within Black nationalism, but I think we need to be sympathetic to these viewpoints as working-class concerns, we need to open avenues of dialogue with them so they can become better informed.

And I do apologize for that, you're not slandering them.


Hampton definitely moved away from the worst sorts of nationalism but Carmichael, their honorary Prime Minister from 68 to 69 was specifically not interested in the solidarity of white workers with Black "people" (http://marxists.org/history/usa/workers/black-panthers/unknown-date/black-power.htm). I think, however, that even when the BPP moved away from this kind of thing, the fact that their rhetoric continued to appeals to "Black and oppressed" people (which must include the Black petit-bourgeoisie and nascent bourgeoisie, right?) and not to the working class left these assumptions unchallenged for many of their more casual followers.

It was probably unfair of me to lump together the BPP with one-time memberes' views, but I'm also hard pressed to find the "official line" on these things. My impression is that Hampton's line is the one upheld to more marxist folks and a more nationalist one is upheld elsewhere, but I have not studied it as much as I could have, and I may be the victim of misleading publicity.

Regardless, I do think that nationalism divides a working class that needs to unite and the use of terms like "black people" as opposed to "black workers" obfuscate the class issues, and leave unchallenged a very obvious way that the bourgeoisie has of controlling the movement (affirmative action and the sponsorship of a black bourgeoisie, and more importantly the not-as-big-as-you-might-think leap from black nationalism to black separatism--which is effectively the isolation of a minority of the US working class from its class brothers whose material interests are best defended by defending the material interests of their black class brothers)
A few things here. There isn't really an official line because Black nationalism isn't monolithic and can mean a lot of different things to different people. The common denominator, though, is that Black nationalists seek the liberation of the Black nation. That is exactly where we share common ground with them. Also, another common thread is that Black nationalism reacts and opposes racism and hatred; this may bring them to different conclusions (sometimes unhelpful conclusions), but it also means that they can relate to our movement in that we are fighting the same things. That being the case, we would be amiss to not act as allies, because, if nothing else, if we don't act as allies then we'll only encourage the things we disagree with.

Yes, I agree that workers must unite. However, the path to revolution is not always a straight one. Black workers oftentimes carry a lot of suspicion of whites due to the brutality against them, and if we cannot deal with these problems sensitively, those wounds will never fully heal. That's why recognizing the right of Blacks to theorize, organize and agitate as Blacks is important for unity. If the Black nation must first come to terms with its unique conditions of oppression, then that will be a step forward in the long run.

If a Black worker says "my people have been denied a voice for so long, and I want to make that voice heard...I'll work with fellow revolutionaries regardless of their ethnicity, but I want to build an organization that speaks for us"...we have to respect that out of revolutionary solidarity. Anything else would be counterproductive.

Also, most Black nationalists have rejected the Black bourgeoisie as Uncle Toms. Malcolm X's words on the "house negro" were basically aimed at the Obamas of his day, and from what I can tell this has been echoed by the Black nationalists of our own.

An old military maxim goes: march divided, fight united. We cannot ignore the scars of national division that capitalism (and slavery) has caused, so we must recognize them so we can heal them. That's really what I'm trying to say.


The only high point was discovering that Manic Expression is a college student when he regually insinuates that other people know little of the working class/are disconnected from the working class when they disagree with him.
Yes, because we all know that being a college student disqualifies you from being a Marxist. Karl Marx included. :lol: Your post is quite a "high point"...or a point made by someone who sounds high.

[counterblast]

One of them also helped form and score a record contract for the MC5! Which is great, but doesn't help spread consciousness of the necessity of revolution throughout the working class or increase the self-confidence of the working class in its capacity to struggle. Blowing up CIA buildings doesn't either, although it pretends to.

-soyons tout

Yes, because the ONLY component to revolution is informing the working class to prepare them for the "big revolution", as we all know.

Attacking the institutions that oppress the working class until them is completely out of the question.

And being in bands of course makes you reactionary....

[REVLEFT'S BIEGGST MATSER TROL]

Yes, because we all know that being a college student disqualifies you from being a Marxist. Karl Marx included. :lol: Your post is quite a "high point"...or a point made by someone who sounds high.

No, I'm not saying that.

My comment pointed out that I found it a "High point" (i.e. enjoyable) that you were found to be a college student after you rountinely attack people because of their class. Clearly, even you cannot miss something as in face as that. And clearly, you do possess the levels of reading comprehension to know that nowhere in my statement do I imply that you cannot be a Marxist or a communist when you are a college student, but was pointing out that it is hypocritical of you to attack others for their class background (especially as in this case, Devrim clearly is more "working class" than you) when you are not of one.)

So this is just another case of you having deliberately misinterpreted what someone else was saying so you don't have to address their actual point, but a strawman you've created.

Doubly ironic here, is that you then resort to claiming that Devrim (and now myself) where claiming that your ability to comment is compromised by your class background, where nobody ever said that, but merely pointed out that your accusations were both hypocritical and flawed. So you just made that up. The further problem here being that you clearly don't rate the arguments you've just spouted in your defense, because you saw fit to imply others views were badly affected by their class background in the past.


Now back on topic - in my own very uneducated opinion, the Panthers seemed to be good at resisting the bullshit that capiatlist/rascist america threw at black people in those days, but lacked any coherent idea of an alternative beyond some vague maoist musings or reformist demands. I'd consider them more of a pressure group to defend black people than anything "revolutionary". I think people mabye mistake willingless to defend yourself via violence with actual revolutionary character?

[theblackmask]

Yes, because the ONLY component to revolution is informing the working class to prepare them for the "big revolution", as we all know.

Attacking the institutions that oppress the working class until them is completely out of the question.

And being in bands of course makes you reactionary....

I did say "virtually nothing." The White Panthers had very little impact beyond the legacy of a hipster scene in Detroit now.

"Literally the plan was to win over Sinclair then we’ll win over the hippies and then we will be big stars! It was all about stardom as the motivating force" -Wayne Kramer of MC5

Maybe not reactionary, but definitely opportunist.

[soyonstout]

Yes, because the ONLY component to revolution is informing the working class to prepare them for the "big revolution", as we all know.

Attacking the institutions that oppress the working class until them is completely out of the question.

And being in bands of course makes you reactionary....

A minority of people (as opposed to a mass movement) physically attacking the "institutions that oppress the working class" in a way that doesn't structurally alter them and doesn't materially benefit the working class in the end is not revolutionary, moreover it is not a good thing for the workers movement to spend any time on because it doesn't change anything. If capitalism can be overthrown by getting rid of a few capitalists, we'd have a much simpler situation on our hands. Social Revolution (not just political revolution) isn't about shooting people who drink martinis and wear monocles, it's about transforming the world production process to abolish exploitation. You can't blow up a social relationship and blowing things up (except indirectly in contexts of an actual insurrection or post-revolutionary civil war) is usually not a part of changing a social relationship.

I never said being in a pop group makes you reactionary--I know revolutionaries who play pop music (and other genres as well). I just said it's neither here nor there in terms of the class struggle. Many artists and musicians have inspired me politically over the years but I don't think playing in a rock band is revolutionary, even if you're in a group like the Refused or Rage Against the Machine--you can get people thinking but entertainment industry personalities (which is what the above groups are) cannot create a revolution any more than small groups of students in southeast Michigan. More to the point, the MC5's politics, if you only look at the lyrics, are pretty bad. I've found that the kind of politics you can fit into a 3-minute pop song, generally only take you so far, to the point of asking a question--well-reasoned arguments for revolutionary political positions usually don't make great lyrics. I believe Kurt Weill said that he quit working with Bertolt Brecht because he couldn't make Capital into an opera libretto, and there may be some truth to that.

-soyons tout

[Emile Armand]

My original point was that we need to COMPLETELY abandon all racial labels.
By taking a simple look at the 10 point plan or the black panther website you can clearly see they not only acknowledge race labels but openly use them and believe in race. They are racialists and not the friends of the left.

[Emile Armand]

I think this is 100% incorrect comrade. White pride (actually racism) is used to prop-up the capitalist status quo. "Black pride" was an expression of the confidence people began to gain from the civil rights victories and a RESPONCE to racism. Black people were told by society that they were not as good as white people, not as pretty, not as smart, and just not worthy of rights. So it's perfectly natural, in my view, that people fighting for their rights would also want to counter being told they are worthless with pride.

So while racism against blacks is cultivated by the system in order to justify crackdowns on people's rights (more cops, more prisons, voter disenfranchisement) as well as justify and excuse the systemic inequalities of capitalism ("black poverty comes from blacks being lazy" etc*) the system has no use for a "black pride" which is actually challenging these assumptions that the system rests on!

Nationalism is problematic even in the best examples (and the BPP had a whole set of political and organizational problems in my view - Maoism etc), but there is a huge difference between the nationalism of the oppressor and the nationalism of the oppressed.
I respectfully disagree, Black Pride, White Pride, Brown Pride, etc.
It doesn't matter what race or colour you are, racial pride is ignorant. By defending racial pride (regardless of the race) you're going against the statement "race is a social construct", in my eyes someone who doesn't believe in that statement and accepts race as fact cannot be a revolutionary leftist.

[manic expression]

I respectfully disagree, Black Pride, White Pride, Brown Pride, etc.
It doesn't matter what race or colour you are, racial pride is ignorant. By defending racial pride (regardless of the race) you're going against the statement "race is a social construct", in my eyes someone who doesn't believe in that statement and accepts race as fact cannot be a revolutionary leftist.
But it's not about race, it's about nationality, which is scientifically a concrete entity. Having pride in your nation is, in many cases, fully progressive, and this is one of those cases. To take pride in the Black nation is to advocate for its liberation, and all revolutionaries do the same.

The Black Panthers only accepted that they were being brutalized, murdered, humiliated and denied human dignity based on the fact that their ancestors were from Africa instead of Europe. That was, is and will be a cold hard fact until we join hands with our Black sisters and brothers and fight with them instead of judging them.


My comment pointed out that I found it a "High point" (i.e. enjoyable) that you were found to be a college student after you rountinely attack people because of their class.
Clearly, this is quite a high point. I did not attack anyone because of their class background. Sorry, better luck next time.

[Franz Fanonipants]

My original point was that we need to COMPLETELY abandon all racial labels.

Are you white, bruh?

[black magick hustla]

Are you white, bruh?
oh no a colored radical. man, idk i agree race is real but i dont agree with identity politics at all nor i agree with the whole onemanupmanship of some brown/black radicals with the whole "u r a whiteboy" thing.

[scarletghoul]

Not really sure what is your problem with some comrades from the black community organising the people of the black community for the liberation of the black community ? It's pretty simple.

If the blacks weren't kept in ghettoes and oppressed and segregated but were in fact fully integrated with white America, then you would of course be correct in condemning an exclusively black organisation. However the fact is Black America is trapped in oppressed decaying communities seperate from White America and subject to a huge amount of racism. So you see, the racial line has already been drawn by the ghettoisation and such. A Black community (or nation as some call it) exists, this is an indisputable fact; and any organisation aimed at liberating that community must be composed of people from that community (black people).

Do you oppose things being organised at a country-wide level too ?

[Franz Fanonipants]

oh no a colored radical. man, idk i agree race is real but i dont agree with identity politics at all nor i agree with the whole onemanupmanship of some brown/black radicals with the whole "u r a whiteboy" thing.

Don't misread me. I'm not trying to dismiss his argument on the basis of him being white, but rather say that as a member of a dominant group what he perceives as dangerous "racial pride" is actually a legitimate revolutionary agenda.

plus, telling any group of non-white working people that they need to abandon their racial identifiers is a surefire way to alienate the fuck out of them.

[black magick hustla]

Don't misread me. I'm not trying to dismiss his argument on the basis of him being white, but rather say that as a member of a dominant group what he perceives as dangerous "racial pride" is actually a legitimate revolutionary agenda.

plus, telling any group of non-white working people that they need to abandon their racial identifiers is a surefire way to alienate the fuck out of them.

first, telling ANY group of working people to abandon their patriotism is alienating, we are not in a revolutionary situation where consciousness abounds.

why do you think "racial pride" is a legitimate revolutionary agenda? what happened in the african colonies was "revolutionary"? was lumumba able to destroy imperialism? why are there so many idi amin dadas, mugabes, and mobutus? i think the tragedy of national liberation shows clearly that these type of movements do not destroy imperialism.

[soyonstout]

The common denominator, though, is that Black nationalists seek the liberation of the Black nation. That is exactly where we share common ground with them.

I don't have this as common ground, though.

the communist revolution ... is carried through by the class which no longer counts as a class in society, is not recognised as a class, and is in itself the expression of the dissolution of all classes, nationalities, etc. within present society Communists are seeking the abolition of nations and national distinctions. And I like this quote from the German Ideology (found here: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/ch01d.htm under "The Necessity of the Communist Revolution" section), because I think Marx is onto something about the nature of the working class, namely, that it has to overcome all its divisions in its fight against capital, and as its struggle moves forward, it continually rejects the categories that capitalism has fragmented it into, nation, religion, sex, age, etc., because in the end, any workers you don't unite with can become scabs and so it is the working class' concrete material interest to overcome these distinctions, whereas alliances with a part of the ruling class to try to get a "bigger crumb" from the table than your fellow workers can only come back to screw you, when the boss decides to either relocate the workplace to where all those workers you excluded from your struggle live and will work for much less, or to simply hire them and let you go. This is why the working class has an inherent interest in doing away national/regional/linguistic divisions: because you need the solidarity of the whole class and you can't count on any part of the bourgeoisie to do jack squat for you. I think this attitude is fundamentally different from even the most vocally 'socialist' nationalism.

-soyons tout

[LC89]

I don't understand why people support groups like the Black Panthers and then make statements like "Race is a social construct" etc. You can't have it both ways... If I'm not mistaken the Black Panthers were a racially EXCLUSIVE organization, as in blacks only. The black power/pride movement only further divides the working class, portraying "black pride" is no better than portraying white pride, your skin colour is nothing to be proud of. Don't get me wrong I'm ALL for supporting the African-American (In my case Canadian) community but the a large amount of Black Panthers members were also black nationalists and supporting black nationalism is NOT leftist, and if you read the ten-point plan they make it very clear they are racialists.
RACE IS A SOCIAL CONSTRUCT, ABANDON RACIAL IDENTITIES.

I met one of those black panther guy promoting their group during the last Anti-War protest in Los Angeles. The guy was a white middle-age guy.

[counterblast]

Fuck this racist victim-blaming.

I do not choose to be viewed on racial terms.

I do not choose to live in the ghetto.

I do not choose to have the way I act or dress reflected on my race.

I do not choose to be tokenized when I act in a way that isn't seen as "standard" for someone of my race.

I do not choose to be harrassed by police.

I do not choose to be called racial slurs.

I do not choose to be seen as a shoplifter when I shop in white neighborhoods.

I do not choose to have my heritage excluded from textbooks.

I do not choose to be expected to answer questions on behalf of my entire race.

I do not choose to be held to an unattainable (white) standard of beauty.

I do not choose to be seen as a terrorist every time I criticize the government.

I do not choose to be exoticized.

I do not choose to see Brown people and other people of color unrepresented in the media.

I do not choose to be seen as "less than white."


WHITE SUPREMACY CHOOSES THAT FOR ME.

[Franz Fanonipants]

why do you think "racial pride" is a legitimate revolutionary agenda?

because racial shame amongst the colonized is a legitimate counterrevolutionary agenda.

that said, you're putting words in my mouth, brah. i don't think "racial pride" is a very worthy goal.

militant anti-capitalism based around the identities of the colonized can be pretty powerful, but calling that racial pride is basically as facile as calling marxism "economic freedom inhibiting."

you leftcoms.

[Widerstand]

Being European, with absolutely zero contact to the Black Panthers, and somewhat loosely following the debate, I'm curious: is the original argument that the Panthers are a racially exclusive organisation (either because only blacks are allowed or because whites are disallowed) actually true? What are their attitudes towards white anti-racists, whether it be left wing reformists, communists, anti-fascists, anarchists, etc? Is there any actual cooperation between the Black Panthers and other groups? It would be great if any Black Panther - or supporter - could give some information on this.

[Franz Fanonipants]

"black power! all power to all people!"

a lot of American racists (including reactionaries around here) are also choosing to focus on the racial component of the Black Panthers, rather than the very real focus the Panthers put not only on Fanon, but also on Maoism. They were a legitimate Marxist group, not solely focused on national liberation.

[Robocommie]

Being European, with absolutely zero contact to the Black Panthers, and somewhat loosely following the debate, I'm curious: is the original argument that the Panthers are a racially exclusive organisation (either because only blacks are allowed or because whites are disallowed) actually true? What are their attitudes towards white anti-racists, whether it be left wing reformists, communists, anti-fascists, anarchists, etc? Is there any actual cooperation between the Black Panthers and other groups? It would be great if any Black Panther - or supporter - could give some information on this.

The Black Panthers were hugely influenced by Franz Fanon's writings in both Black Skin, White Masks and The Wretched of the Earth. Seeing blacks in America as a colonized people in Fanon's sense of the term, they felt it was absolutely essential for blacks to rise up on their own, and liberate themselves. This comes straight from Fanon, as he argued that decolonization was in part the moment when the colonized stood up to the colonist and said, "To hell with you." It was a moment of repairing the damage to self-esteem and spirit that had been done through colonization.

The Black Panthers didn't have anti-white attitudes though, not really. They frequently worked with white activists. They coined the slogan, All Power To All The People, similar to "All Power to the Soviets" and included whites and Latinos in this vision of universal struggle against oppression.

[Franz Fanonipants]

Also, Indians.

[Zanthorus]

a lot of American racists (including reactionaries around here) are also choosing to focus on the racial component of the Black Panthers, rather than the very real focus the Panthers put not only on Fanon, but also on Maoism. They were a legitimate Marxist group, not solely focused on national liberation.

And yet we're still waiting for any concrete proof that they were a legitimate Marxist group.

[counterblast]

And yet we're still waiting for any concrete proof that they were a legitimate Marxist group.

What constitutes a legitimate Marxist group?

[Zanthorus]

What constitutes a legitimate Marxist group?

A half-decent grasp of the critique of political economy as well as it's implications for the kind of world we need to build to replace capitalism and some form of program which encapsulates the two would be nice.

[Reznov]

"The blacks, those magnificent examples of the African race who have maintained their racial purity thanks to their lack of an affinity with bathing, have seen their territory invaded by a new kind of slave: the Portuguese."

"The black is indolent and a dreamer; spending his meager wage on frivolity or drink; the European has a tradition of work and saving, which has pursued him as far as this corner of America and drives him to advance himself, even independently of his own individual aspirations."
- Che Guevara, White Argentine Marxist Revolutionary

[Robocommie]

"The blacks, those magnificent examples of the African race who have maintained their racial purity thanks to their lack of an affinity with bathing, have seen their territory invaded by a new kind of slave: the Portuguese."

"The black is indolent and a dreamer; spending his meager wage on frivolity or drink; the European has a tradition of work and saving, which has pursued him as far as this corner of America and drives him to advance himself, even independently of his own individual aspirations."
- Che Guevara, White Argentine Marxist Revolutionary

Hi, troll.

[Lumpen Bourgeois]

Given the amount of racism against blacks and the perceived and real lack of serious concern for their travails among the left at that time, it should come as no surprise that segments of the black community(the majority of whom were indeed working class) decided that the best course of action to promote their interests was to organize racially. I don't understand the desire to knock them for this. Additionally, it is well documented that certain state actors such as the FBI played a prominent role in fomenting racial tensions among the left, thus pertpetuating racial divisions.

With all these factors accounted for, I think this "lefter-than-thou" antipathy towards the Black Panthers is somewhat misplaced.

[gorillafuck]

This is a worthwhile discussion (that I'm not fully decided on and so I'm paying attention to) but it's bullshit that people on this site accuse eachother of being racists for not supporting the black panthers. And it takes away from the actual discussion.

[Barry Lyndon]

What constitutes a legitimate Marxist group?

To left communists, white armchair intellectuals.

[Barry Lyndon]

Fuck this racist victim-blaming.

I do not choose to be viewed on racial terms.

I do not choose to live in the ghetto.

I do not choose to have the way I act or dress reflected on my race.

I do not choose to be tokenized when I act in a way that isn't seen as "standard" for someone of my race.

I do not choose to be harrassed by police.

I do not choose to be called racial slurs.

I do not choose to be seen as a shoplifter when I shop in white neighborhoods.

I do not choose to have my heritage excluded from textbooks.

I do not choose to be expected to answer questions on behalf of my entire race.

I do not choose to be held to an unattainable (white) standard of beauty.

I do not choose to be seen as a terrorist every time I criticize the government.

I do not choose to be exoticized.

I do not choose to see Brown people and other people of color unrepresented in the media.

I do not choose to be seen as "less than white."


WHITE SUPREMACY CHOOSES THAT FOR ME.


This!
I usually don't approve of writing really big and all caps, as I find it annoying. But maybe it is necessary to ram these facts of life through some of these idiots thick skulls. Of course, some are well-trained pseudo-intellectual racist liars, so it may be all in vain. They'll probably just see that as an example of "those people" being over-emotional and "paranoid".

[Barry Lyndon]

"The blacks, those magnificent examples of the African race who have maintained their racial purity thanks to their lack of an affinity with bathing, have seen their territory invaded by a new kind of slave: the Portuguese."

"The black is indolent and a dreamer; spending his meager wage on frivolity or drink; the European has a tradition of work and saving, which has pursued him as far as this corner of America and drives him to advance himself, even independently of his own individual aspirations."
- Che Guevara, White Argentine Marxist Revolutionary

Che wrote those things before he was a revolutionary and a Marxist. He grew up in Argentina in the 1940's and 50's, which was about as racist as the USA was at the time.
After Che became a revolutionary, Che fought alongside black people in Cuba and in the Congo, was an active supporter of the African nations struggles against colonialism, and denounced apartheid in South Africa and Jim Crow in the US from the podium of the UN. If anything, Che is an example how the process of becoming a revolutionary not only changes your ideas, but can make you evolve into a better human being.

[Barry Lyndon]

A half-decent grasp of the critique of political economy as well as it's implications for the kind of world we need to build to replace capitalism and some form of program which encapsulates the two would be nice.

Note how there is nothing in here about actual revolutionary practice. Just theoretical masturbation.

[Franz Fanonipants]

What constitutes a legitimate Marxist group?

whiteness (lol)

[Franz Fanonipants]

This is a worthwhile discussion (that I'm not fully decided on and so I'm paying attention to) but it's bullshit that people on this site accuse eachother of being racists for not supporting the black panthers. And it takes away from the actual discussion.

The thing is, honestly, when I say someone is a racist it's really only instinctual white privilege that would make you feel like saying an attitude or belief is racist somehow takes away from a discussion on race.

"Hey guys lets talk about the toll of capital on the proletariat!"
"I am so offended you had to ruin this conversation about class by insisting on demonizing CAPITAL!"

is basically the equivalent.

[Jimmie Higgins]

And yet we're still waiting for any concrete proof that they were a legitimate Marxist group.

The Panthers were uneven and, like much of the New Left, their politics were informed by Maoism - and so they lacked a focus on the working class, but they were still "socialist" in the broad sense even though I personally think that these kinds of politics are highly problematic. Generally the BPP said "the people" and not "the workers" and this illustrates some of their weaknesses... without a focus on workers and the ability to strike capitalism that way, they saw revolution in the Che/Mao sense of "arming the people".

Never the less, coming out of the civil rights movement and the black power movement... the BPP represents a definitive shift towards socialism in the black liberation struggle and that legacy (and the potential it represents) alone makes the BPP significant and an important part of revolutionary history in the US.

Not only did the Panthers emphasize the link between racism and capitalism, they also were able to bring a revolutionary critique of other factions in the black power movement such as the ones that became dominant: "cultural" militancy and "black power" through accommodation to capitalism (running for political office, black-owned business). Both types are criticized below in this famous Fred Hampton speech.


A lot of people get the word revolution mixed up and they think revolutions a bad word. Revolution is nothing but like having a sore on your body and then you put something on that sore to cure that infection. And Im telling you that were living in an infectious society right now. Im telling you that were living in a sick society. And anybody that endorses integrating into this sick society before its cleaned up is a man whos committing a crime against the people.

If you walk past a hospital room and see a sign that says "Contaminated" and then you try to lead people into that room, either those people are mighty dumb, you understand me, cause if they weren't, they'd tell you that you are an unfair, unjust leader that does not have your followers' interests in mind. And what were saying is simply that leaders have got to become, we've got to start making them accountable for what they do. They're goin' around talking about so-and-so's an Uncle Tom so we're gonna open up a cultural center and teach him what blackness is. And this n****r is more aware than you and me and Malcolm and Martin Luther King and everybody else put together. That's right. They're the ones that are most aware. They're most aware, cause they're the ones that are gonna open up the center. They're gonna tell you where bones come from in Africa that you can't even pronounce the names. Thats right. They'll be telling you about Chaka, the leader of the Bantu freedom fighters, and Jomo Kenyatta, those dingo-dingas. They'll be running all of that down to you. They know about it all. But the point is they do what they're doing because it is beneficial and it is profitable for them.

You see, people get involved in a lot of things that's profitable to them, and we've got to make it less profitable. We've got to make it less beneficial. I'm saying that any program that's brought into our community should be analyzed by the people of that community. It should be analyzed to see that it meets the relevant needs of that community. We don't need no n*****s coming into our community to be having no company to open business for the n*****s. There's too many n*****s in our community that can't get crackers out of the business that they're gonna open.

We got to face some facts. That the masses are poor, that the masses belong to what you call the lower class, and when I talk about the masses, I'm talking about the white masses, I'm talking about the black masses, and the brown masses, and the yellow masses, too. We've got to face the fact that some people say you fight fire best with fire, but we say you put fire out best with water. We say you do'nt fight racism with racism. We're gonna fight racism with solidarity. We say you don't fight capitalism with no black capitalism; you fight capitalism with socialism.

We ain't gonna fight no reactionary pigs who run up and down the street being reactionary; we're gonna organize and dedicate ourselves to revolutionary political power and teach ourselves the specific needs of resisting the power structure, arm ourselves, and we're gonna fight reactionary pigs with INTERNATIONAL PROLETARIAN REVOLUTION. That's what it has to be. The people have to have the power: it belongs to the people.

We have to understand very clearly that there's a man in our community called a capitalist. Sometimes he's black and sometimes he's white. But that man has to be driven out of our community, because anybody who comes into the community to make profit off the people by exploiting them can be defined as a capitalist. And we don't care how many programs they have, how long a dashiki they have. Because political power does not flow from the sleeve of a dashiki; political power flows from the barrel of a gun. It flows from the barrel of a gun!

[gorillafuck]

The thing is, honestly, when I say someone is a racist it's really only instinctual white privilege that would make you feel like saying an attitude or belief is racist somehow takes away from a discussion on race.
Saying that not supporting a group is fundamentally racist obviously takes away from a discussion on race, because not supporting the black panthers is not an inherently racist position. Also, at least 2 out of 4 of the left communists in this thread arguing against the BPP are not white. I personally am not decided on the BPP.

A more accurate comparison of saying that not supporting the black panthers is racist is like saying that not supporting all groups fighting for Palestinian national liberation is pro-zionist.

[Franz Fanonipants]

If you don't wanna support a maoist group, that's your perogative.

There's been little criticism aimed at their maoism, but rather the fact that they were aimed at liberating an internally-colonized group within the US. "Black Nationalism is anti-revolutionary" seems to be the broader consensus, is it so hard to see why I think parts of this discourse are affected by racism.

[Emile Armand]

"Black Nationalism is anti-revolutionary" seems to be the broader consensus
Black Nationalism IS anti-revolutionary, we need to unite the working class by abolishing the races, no more black and white, just PEOPLE. We can't have racial communist groups.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Black Nationalism IS anti-revolutionary, we need to unite the working class by abolishing the races, no more black and white, just PEOPLE. We can't have racial communist groups.Where do you think racism comes from in society?

[Widerstand]

Where do you think racism comes from in society?

Does it matter that it comes from Non-Blacks, when Blacks reinforce it by adopting it, thus strengthening the already existing frontiers?

[manic expression]

I was going to post something long, but other posters already smacked it out of the park.


Does it matter that it comes from Non-Blacks, when Blacks reinforce it by adopting it, thus strengthening the already existing frontiers?
We can only talk of Blacks adopting the ruling-class ideology when they align themselves with the capitalist class and the capitalist state. That's certainly not what the BPP did, and it's not what the New Black Panther Party is dong, either. Some other groups might say racist stuff against whites (I'm thinking of the NoI), but we have to deal with that as it comes, there's no silver bullet on this.

But other than that, it's not a hatred against whites, it's by and large a distrust of whites...something that comes from capitalist oppression. We can work with that. We need to first listen, show our fundamental support as sisters and brothers, and then show the way forward.


Black Nationalism IS anti-revolutionary, we need to unite the working class by abolishing the races, no more black and white, just PEOPLE. We can't have racial communist groups.
Is it anti-revolutionary for me to say that I'm not Filipino or Bangladeshi? Blacks aren't whites, and they aren't treated as whites. In light of this, what do you expect Blacks to do? Pretend to be white and ignore the dynamics of capitalism? Ignore Marx's words on constituting themselves the nation?

[soyonstout]

A Black community (or nation as some call it) exists, this is an indisputable fact; and any organisation aimed at liberating that community must be composed of people from that community (black people). The question again comes down to are you trying to liberate every class within a 'nation' or 'community', and if so, liberate them to do what? What do we hope that the liberated bourgeoisie and petit-bourgeoisie in a racially oppressed group does once 'liberated' (however that is defined)? Or, are you trying to liberate the working class of that community? If its the latter, the question must be asked, can one segment of the working class liberate itself from its particular oppression without destroying capitalism worldwide? For example, if say blacks in the United States founded a black nation by conquering some part of the US, would this new nation not immediately come under the (financial) domination of stronger imperialist interests due to the way the world market works in the age of imperialism? How 'sovereign' can any nation be in the age of imperialism, when economies of entire nations are controlled by market forces in which the stronger imperialisms dominate the weaker ones? Can this situation be changed other than by the destruction of the world market, or should we just support whichever side is losing until all imperialisms have an equal chance on that market--and given the nature of imperialism, isn't that an impossible utopia?


Do you oppose things being organised at a country-wide level too ? certainly the working class must begin organizing somehow. I think the real questions are about the value of the workers maintaining their class independence, as opposed to making alliances with a bourgeoisie that can offer them...what exactly?, and the possibility for workers to liberate themselves without uniting together all as workers for the liberation of the whole working class worldwide.



Fuck this racist victim-blaming.

I do not choose to be viewed on racial terms.

I do not choose to live in the ghetto.

I do not choose to have the way I act or dress reflected on my race.

I do not choose to be tokenized when I act in a way that isn't seen as "standard" for someone of my race.

I do not choose to be harrassed by police.

I do not choose to be called racial slurs.

I do not choose to be seen as a shoplifter when I shop in white neighborhoods.

I do not choose to have my heritage excluded from textbooks.

I do not choose to be expected to answer questions on behalf of my entire race.

I do not choose to be held to an unattainable (white) standard of beauty.

I do not choose to be seen as a terrorist every time I criticize the government.

I do not choose to be exoticized.

I do not choose to see Brown people and other people of color unrepresented in the media.

I do not choose to be seen as "less than white."


WHITE SUPREMACY CHOOSES THAT FOR ME.
I really don't see how it's 'racist' or 'victim-blaming' to argue against strategies and conceptions held by particular groups. I don't see where the 'blame' comes in. Secondly, I don't think very many posters on here would deny that racial oppression exists and I also don't think many would argue that the nationalism of oppressed groups causes their oppression. What I am saying is that nationalist ideologies obscure the issues and lead people to strategies and alliances that can't end national oppression and often away from what really could. I'm not saying that I can't believe people who suffer from racial oppression are nationalist, especially in the situation of blacks in the US, which has one of the most deeply divided working classes in the world and maybe the worst case of racial oppression within a modern nation in the world too. It makes sense to me that black workers would feel resentment towards even their own class brothers who are not racially oppressed, but, I still think the unity and class independence of the proletariat is the only real weapon against this--and as I said in the end of post #71, all parts of the working class (even the high-paid, the skilled, the relatively well-off, and the non-racially oppressed) have a concrete material interests in common with the rest of the whole working class which are best achieved with complete class unity and class independence. That is what's so revolutionary about the situation the working class faces--if one segment of the working class allows another to be paid less or face worse conditions, the existence of lower paid workers acts as downward pressure on the wages of the higher-paid workers so they have a direct interest in protecting the most exploited and precariously employed of their class brothers. To me this is the whole hope of marxism. Divisions, however, are <i>constantly<i> used by the bourgeoisie to keep all segments of the working class down, by playing them against each other.



a lot of American racists (including reactionaries around here) are also choosing to focus on the racial component of the Black Panthers, rather than the very real focus the Panthers put not only on Fanon, but also on Maoism. They were a legitimate Marxist group, not solely focused on national liberation. From what I can tell, most of the people arguing against nationalism on this thread would not consider either Fanon's ideas or Maoism to be "legitimate Marxism." Marxism being a theory about the social class relations and the position and revolutionary nature of the proletariat.


-soyons tout

[Zanthorus]

Note how there is nothing in here about actual revolutionary practice. Just theoretical masturbation.

"Revolutionary" practice that doesn't base itself on solid theory usually leads to attempts at restructuring capitalism in a new form managed by someone other than the bourgeoisie (State-capitalism and worker managed capitalism being the two most common ones). Just doing agitational work and shouting about how "capitalism" causes bad things to happen is worthless if you haven't got a clue how abolishing "capitalism".

[Hiero]

This is a worthwhile discussion (that I'm not fully decided on and so I'm paying attention to) but it's bullshit that people on this site accuse eachother of being racists for not supporting the black panthers. And it takes away from the actual discussion.


What discussion?

This is just an embarrassment.

Supporters are saying that the BPP organised in the oppressed African-American communities (psychical and symbolic) and based on class lines.

The criticism is like saying the Communist Party of (insert country) is nationalist because nations are imaginary. People's arguements against the Black Panthers are getting beyond stupid.

Emile Armand is just lazy and making mistakes I would assume some 18th centuary European utopian socialists would make.

[Zanthorus]

The criticism is like saying the Communist Party of (insert country) is nationalist because nations are imaginary.

That is actually a fairly decent criticism, and there is a school of thought that would argue for a single International Communist party rather than scattered national ones.

[Emile Armand]

Is it anti-revolutionary for me to say that I'm not Filipino or Bangladeshi? Blacks aren't whites, and they aren't treated as whites. In light of this, what do you expect Blacks to do? Pretend to be white and ignore the dynamics of capitalism? Ignore Marx's words on constituting themselves the nation?
I'm not asking for blacks to pretend to be white! I'm stating race as a whole should be pushed to the side when It comes to the revolution, race is a social construct and has no place in a communist or anarchist society.

[Franz Fanonipants]

Black Nationalism IS anti-revolutionary, we need to unite the working class by abolishing the races, no more black and white, just PEOPLE. We can't have racial communist groups.

The problem is that because of your white privilege you see a Marxist group focused on helping some of the people most immediately oppressed by capitalism and its cohort racism, and shout how evil they are for focusing on how capitalism oppresses by race. The Panthers have already been shown to have broader anti-capitalist tendencies but they believed building up communal infrastructure (free breakfasts, other social programs) within the Black community would help mobilize and create consciousness among Black folks.

The fact that you continue to dismiss a Marxist analysis of both race AND class makes me really presume you have a lot of internalized racism to work through. And that's ok, I'm not white brah, I recognize that different people have different levels of privilege and prejudice gifted to them by their social roles, and I think racism is something that needs to be worked through. But you've got to start by acknowledging you're racist.

[Franz Fanonipants]

I'm not asking for blacks to pretend to be white! I'm stating race as a whole should be pushed to the side when It comes to the revolution, race is a social construct and has no place in a communist or anarchist society.

Ok. No.

This is where you're wrong, you cannot tell colonized people we have to push one of our primary identities aside so you can be comfortable with us. As a (presumable) white man, you're an inheritor of a privileged position in relation to capitalism that we don't have. Your privilege here is showing.

[Franz Fanonipants]

From what I can tell, most of the people arguing against nationalism on this thread would not consider either Fanon's ideas or Maoism to be "legitimate Marxism." Marxism being a theory about the social class relations and the position and revolutionary nature of the proletariat.


-soyons tout

In the American context you cannot separate race/culture from class. Black folks are mostly, by demographic, proletariat or even lumpen. To act like an important part of the American proletariat needs to give up its identity in order to more fully support your "color blind" (read: white) revolutionary sentiments is basically racist.

Instead, how about this, all white people interested in the revolution need to only speak Spanish, since the vast majority of anyone who resembles an actual proletarian in the United States speak Spanish. And after all, isn't your ridiculous insistence on speaking english anti-revolutionary cus you're privileging your group membership?

[Hiero]

That is actually a fairly decent criticism, and there is a school of thought that would argue for a single International Communist party rather than scattered national ones.

Yeah and it is nonsensical. All it does is allow reactionary politics take the leadership of the working class. How can someone in Frace have coherent opinion on the policy in a Alabama? It has zero practicallity, which would explain why it doesn't exist as any strong international force, ironically where it does exists it is localised.

There should be solidarity and exchange of experience. However, like in seperate industries for example, we don't expect the working leadership in the maritime industry to speak for the foresty industry or vice versa. However ironically, the working class leadership in the maritime speaks indirectly for all workers regardless of industry but at the same time it speaks directly as the workers of the maritime industry. In that it speaks directly about conditions within the leaderships industry, but speaks about conditions of relationship of capital and labour and also speaks about working class leadership in general. The same for Communisty and Marxist-Leninist Party and the same for the BPP (which is one of the former). It spoke directly for working class in the Black community, but also for all working class at the same time.

It is amazing we would criticise leadership from within, yet praise
leadership from outside. It seems to me a case of white paranoia and anxiety of losing position in the white supremacy. It is just a lack of trust and more of suspicion, that a leadership from a migrant and ethnically dominanted group won't have the best thoughts for the wider ethnically "neutral" group. That is the fear of losing ones symobolic community. In this imagined future of the lost community, one wont be able to communicate with the rest of the society once the minority groups take over, one will have to order kebabs instead of pies, say salam instead hello, not have one 's beauty and aesthetics recognised. Ironically this the daily existance for people outside of white hegonomy.

Now of course white people on this website are going to say "that is not me, just the miniroty White redneck". But regardless of what you perceive your ideology to be, you are a social being within a social community. What has been learned and naturualised can't always be shaken away by thought alone, but has to be abolished or whither away following material change. Everyone has a symbolic community that feels threatened time to time, whether it is imagined or real.

Secondly, the opinion of race as just a social construct, is purely idealist. I mean if we are going to claim that we are good Marxist, then we see how the social/idea has it's foundations in the material, the racial divisions are divisions of labour and divisions of nations. This are really existing divisions in the material and social. Workers are divided, that is just a fact. Unless aparthiad was just an illusion, and if that is the case then we might as well give up fighting for material change and just spread the word that no one is in a class, no one is race, no one is a gender.

Honestly I think Emile Armand has only just come to revleft thought and should not be dictatating to anyone what should or shouldn't be without the slightest bit knowing what he is talking about.

[Barry Lyndon]

"Revolutionary" practice that doesn't base itself on solid theory usually leads to attempts at restructuring capitalism in a new form managed by someone other than the bourgeoisie (State-capitalism and worker managed capitalism being the two most common ones). Just doing agitational work and shouting about how "capitalism" causes bad things to happen is worthless if you haven't got a clue how abolishing "capitalism".

And I could say the exact opposite-revolutionary theory divorced from practice is nothing but the political equivalent of masturbation.
Also, many leftists have an annoying tendency to blame every defeat on the left itself, usually coming down to that they didn't have the correct 'theory'. The hard truth is that sometimes that doesn't matter, and the best ideas in the world are not going to stop bullets. This is especially true with the Panthers.
I suggest that you actually read some of Huey P. Newton's and other Black Panthers writings. They were not just screaming about 'capitalism causing bad things to happen', many were deep and thoughtful theorists who were quite well educated. You may not agree with their analysis, but crude it was not. The fact that you presume that it was reveals disturbing racist tendencies on your part.

[gorillafuck]

I'm not asking for blacks to pretend to be white! I'm stating race as a whole should be pushed to the side when It comes to the revolution, race is a social construct and has no place in a communist or anarchist society.
But how can you get rid of racism without acknowledging racial oppression?

It's not like suddenly when there's an international socialist revolution everyone's going to be like "Wait a minute, race is just a social construct! Man, was I being a dumbass!"

[Franz Fanonipants]

It's not like suddenly when there's an international socialist revolution everyone's going to be like "Wait a minute, race is just a social construct! Man, was I being a dumbass!"

Well you see there will be no racism cus WORKER SOLIDARITY...

It's an incomplete answer that in many ways necessitates groups like the BPP or the Brown Berets (minus all the wacky idealization of Anahuac) in a pre-revolutionary or revolutionary period. Certain beliefs and prejudices need to be addressed as baggage of capitalism.

[gorillafuck]

Well you see there will be no racism cus WORKER SOLIDARITY...

It's an incomplete answer that in many ways necessitates groups like the BPP or the Brown Berets (minus all the wacky idealization of Anahuac) in a pre-revolutionary or revolutionary period. Certain beliefs and prejudices need to be addressed as baggage of capitalism.
I don't think that tackling racism necessarily means having seperate groups though (especially in a revolutionary period), while I think that it'd be sweet if people would all just be not racist, practically and realistically speaking I'd think that racism can probably be best overcome by working together in the same organizations while consciously trying to abolish it.

[Widerstand]

It's not like suddenly when there's an international socialist revolution everyone's going to be like "Wait a minute, race is just a social construct! Man, was I being a dumbass!"

But will racism vanish while we have groups explicitly defining themselves by race?

[counterblast]

What I am saying is that nationalist ideologies obscure the issues and lead people to strategies and alliances that can't end national oppression and often away from what really could. I'm not saying that I can't believe people who suffer from racial oppression are nationalist, especially in the situation of blacks in the US, which has one of the most deeply divided working classes in the world and maybe the worst case of racial oppression within a modern nation in the world too. It makes sense to me that black workers would feel resentment towards even their own class brothers who are not racially oppressed, but, I still think the unity and class independence of the proletariat is the only real weapon against this--and as I said in the end of post #71, all parts of the working class (even the high-paid, the skilled, the relatively well-off, and the non-racially oppressed) have a concrete material interests in common with the rest of the whole working class which are best achieved with complete class unity and class independence.


Again, BPP is not and was not nationalist. They linked their struggle to a worldwide network of people oppressed on class, race, and sexual lines. The BPP transcended any nationality.

And to call the organization of Black people fighting racism counterrevolutionary, and that they should simply "ignore racism and work along class lines with whites to end racism", is quite frankly an extremely privileged position to take.

Black people (and other people of color) simply cannot be expected to work with the white working class, so long as a large portions of the white working class are as explicitly racist as the white ruling class.

Racial oppression is as real and immediate as class oppression; and demanding that the two be addressed simultaneously is not an unreasonable demand, until there is evidence that racism magically disappears under a Marxist society.

[counterblast]

But will racism vanish while we have groups explicitly defining themselves by race?

Race =/= Racism

[black magick hustla]

Again, BPP is not and was not nationalist. They linked their struggle to a worldwide network of people oppressed on class, race, and sexual lines. The BPP transcended any nationality.


I think people confuse BPP leadership with the rank and file. Most of the rank and file where nationalists and maoism is extremely overplayed by leftists who analyze the BPP. Bobby Seale told me this.

[Barry Lyndon]

I think people confuse BPP leadership with the rank and file. Most of the rank and file where nationalists and maoism is extremely overplayed by leftists who analyze the BPP. Bobby Seale told me this.

Yes, and Lenin, my personal friend, told me that your a pompous dick. Off the record, of course.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Does it matter that it comes from Non-Blacks, when Blacks reinforce it by adopting it, thus strengthening the already existing frontiers?That was not what I was asking or suggesting. I don't think racism comes from white people, it comes from the ruling class and you can trace the development of 2nd class status for blacks through laws that were passed and regulations on mixed groups of servants, inter-marriages, and so on.

I was trying to find out where the OP thought racism in society comes from as a way to get at a different way of debating this issue because it has basically become a "Yeah"/"Nuh" argument.

And the BPP did not reinforce racism - they organized with other revolutionaries as has been said many times in this thread. "Yeah!"

[Jimmie Higgins]

People are looking at this issue without any historical context. No one has acknowledged that there was a lot of justifiable suspicion of white radicals in the 1960s. The CP was seen to have betrayed the black cause after doing good work and attracting many blacks to the party. White liberals had tried to tone-down the civil rights movement and this led to many young black radicals to argue for separate organizations. At that point the pre-dominantly white new-left shifted from civil rights work to the free-speech movement and then the anti-Vietnam war movement.

It was in this context that the BPP was formed and emerged. The movements were already racially divided (not to mention the society which was significantly divided and segregated) and so the BPP's formation was influenced by that social and movement context. BUT the BPP actually cut AGAINST a segregated movement by seeking out and working with radicals from other ethnic groups. They didn't even blame hippies which automatically makes them less divisive and more open-minded than 65% of members on this board (including myself... fucking hippies:mad:)...

Read in "Sieze the Time" by Bobby Seale about the BPP and their relation to black nationalists (the "paper panthers" as the BPP called them) who also called their nationalist group "the Black Panthers".

http://books.google.com/books?id=CJX_JX9jENgC&pg=PA113&lpg=PA113&dq=paper+panthers&source=bl&ots=jw0qpOCuE8&sig=G5XUKCGuiIJuwPv9TOFrKsflD-Y&hl=en&ei=IhU6TOfsC5GmsQOXpshR&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7&ved=0CDYQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=paper%20panthers&f=false

And from the BPP Newspaper, "the Black Panther":


Warning to So-Called “Paper Panthers”

Black brothers stop vamping on the hippies. They are not your enemy. Your enemy, right now, is the white racist pigs who support this corrupt system. Your enemy is the Tom nigger who reports to his white slavemaster every day. Your enemy is the fat capitalist who exploits your people daily. Your enemy is the politician who uses pretty words to deceive you. Your enemy is the racist pigs who use Nazi-type tactics and force to intimidate black expressionism. Your enemy is not the hippies. Your blind reactionary acts endanger THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY members and its revolutionary movements. WE HAVE NO QUARREL WITH THE HIPPIES. LEAVE THEM ALONE. Or – THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY will deal with you.

[black magick hustla]

Yeah and it is nonsensical. All it does is allow reactionary politics take the leadership of the working class. How can someone in Frace have coherent opinion on the policy in a Alabama? It has zero practicallity, which would explain why it doesn't exist as any strong international force, ironically where it does exists it is localised.
.

Yeah. I suppose, that like Stalin, you think the Comintern was a silly idea.


Yes, and Lenin, my personal friend, told me that your a pompous dick. Off the record, of course.

Considering the fact the man tours colleges all the time, its not really that crazy.


It's an incomplete answer that in many ways necessitates groups like the BPP or the Brown Berets (minus all the wacky idealization of Anahuac) in a pre-revolutionary or revolutionary period. Certain beliefs and prejudices need to be addressed as baggage of capitalism.

I don't think you can adress prejudices by organizing through ethnicity. In your personal life, has this ever worked?

[black magick hustla]

In the American context you cannot separate race/culture from class. Black folks are mostly, by demographic, proletariat or even lumpen. To act like an important part of the American proletariat needs to give up its identity in order to more fully support your "color blind" (read: white) revolutionary sentiments is basically racist.

Most whites are workers too, and there is a disproportionate amount of comfortable jews too, and the president of your country is a black man.


I don't think anybody calls for color blindness though. We think organizing a long ethnic lines is alien to communism though.



Instead, how about this, all white people interested in the revolution need to only speak Spanish, since the vast majority of anyone who resembles an actual proletarian in the United States speak Spanish.

This is bullshit. Most english speaking people are workers.

In

[Zanthorus]

How can someone in Frace have coherent opinion on the policy in a Alabama?

Because it's all socialism.


And I could say the exact opposite-revolutionary theory divorced from practice is nothing but the political equivalent of masturbation.

Well I would also agree to that.


I suggest that you actually read some of Huey P. Newton's and other Black Panthers writings. They were not just screaming about 'capitalism causing bad things to happen', many were deep and thoughtful theorists who were quite well educated. You may not agree with their analysis, but crude it was not. The fact that you presume that it was reveals disturbing racist tendencies on your part.

I didn't say their analysis was crude. I said that no-one had given any convincing evidence that their analysis was Marxist.

I will read some writings by the Panthers though.

[incogweedo]

the way i see black pride/power and the black panthers is they are no better at all than the white power/pride and KKK. Nationalism and ALL ethnic pride is just a bunch of bullshit. For some reason, homo-sapiens have this undying desire, something that they want more than anything else as a human being. This desire is the need to have power over each other. And all racism against blacks, whites, asians, muslims, etc. is just one more attempt to be better than someone else. Like the KKK looks down on the blacks, and see themselves better than them. and the Black panthers look down on the whites and the think they are better than them.

[gorillafuck]

the way i see black pride/power and the black panthers is they are no better at all than the white power/pride and KKK. Nationalism and ALL ethnic pride is just a bunch of bullshit. For some reason, homo-sapiens have this undying desire, something that they want more than anything else as a human being. This desire is the need to have power over each other. And all racism against blacks, whites, asians, muslims, etc. is just one more attempt to be better than someone else. Like the KKK looks down on the blacks, and see themselves better than them. and the Black panthers look down on the whites and the think they are better than them.
This is just false. Black power is a response to white dominance and is in no way at all similar to klansmen or nazis. The BPP didn't dislike white people. Debating the strategies or the helpfulness of the BPP is one thing, but saying that they are like the KKK is outrageous.

[Jimmie Higgins]

the way i see black pride/power and the black panthers is they are no better at all than the white power/pride and KKK. Nationalism and ALL ethnic pride is just a bunch of bullshit. For some reason, homo-sapiens have this undying desire, something that they want more than anything else as a human being. This desire is the need to have power over each other. And all racism against blacks, whites, asians, muslims, etc. is just one more attempt to be better than someone else. Like the KKK looks down on the blacks, and see themselves better than them. and the Black panthers look down on the whites and the think they are better than them.

Hi comrade, this subject has already been brought up in the debate. I think that there is no inherent reason for racism or ethnic hatred in humans. There is a specific reason that some "attempt to be better than others" and that is because a small percentage of the population controls the welfare of the vast majority - to keep the majority from rebelling, we are kept divided. We are also told that the majority is too stupid, too racist, too selfish, or too lazy to know what's best for society in order for us to doubt our own instincts and look on our brothers and sisters with suspicion.

So racism is one tool used by the small elite in society to keep the working class divided and fighting amongst ourselves. It is also used to justify repression and the elimination of rights. The rich landowners in the US South after the civil war were outnumbered by both the poor white farmers and the poor black freemen, and so it was not in the Southern elite's interests to have popular democracy - so they passed restrictive laws like literacy tests for voting and so on. This effected the poor whites as well as the poor blacks. In addition, by convincing some of the majority to take on racist or elitist ideas, the ruling class is able to convince some people that less rights for people is actually beneficial for them. The modern version of this is the racism whipped up by politicians and the media about unreformable black and latino gangsters who will kill you for your shoes! So the media sensationalizes these crimes and politicians make it seem like we are under siege by sociopaths (as opposed to the truth which is, if people don't have jobs or futures, they turn to crime) and then use this hysteria to increase police power at the expense of education and social welfare spending. 3-strikes laws, billions of tax dollars spent on prisons and incarceration and courts (mostly for non-violent crimes) targets black and latino youth, but ultimately it also hurts all workers and only helps increase the power of the ruling people in society.

So groups like the KKK terrorize regular people in order to preserve an unequal status quo. Now compare that to the Black Panthers... the only people "terrorized" by them were the cops and the governmnet because the Panthers were CHALLENGING the racist status-quo.

[Devrim]

I think that it is quite interesting that the main argument being put forward here by those defending the BPP is that others are racists. That is pretty much all it amounts to, from Barry Lyndon's pure insults down to Franz Fanonipants more subtle suggestions, there is very little more to it.

Fuck this racist victim-blaming.


Of course, some are well-trained pseudo-intellectual racist liars, so it may be all in vain.


"Black Nationalism is anti-revolutionary" seems to be the broader consensus, is it so hard to see why I think parts of this discourse are affected by racism.

I don't think that their is anything at all inherently racist about the idea that communists should not organise based upon separate ethnic or national groups.

I think a lot of the arguments being used here are very specific to the US, a society where race is one of them central items of political discourse, and incidentally a society with a very low level of class struggle, which I don't think is at all unconnected. Let's take an example:


The fact that you continue to dismiss a Marxist analysis of both race AND class makes me really presume you have a lot of internalized racism to work through. And that's ok, I'm not white brah, I recognize that different people have different levels of privilege and prejudice gifted to them by their social roles, and I think racism is something that needs to be worked through. But you've got to start by acknowledging you're racist.


The fact that you continue to dismiss a Marxist analysis of both race AND class makes me really presume you have a lot of internalized racism to work through. And that's ok, I'm not white brah, I recognize that different people have different levels of privilege and prejudice gifted to them by their social roles, and I think racism is something that needs to be worked through. But you've got to start by acknowledging you're racist.

I think that the entire idea of 'race privilege' is an extremely unmarxist one and I would say is a complete dismissal of a 'Marxist analysis of race and class'. It is also very, very US-centric.

I'm white. I live in a society, where virtually everybody is white, to the extent that I probably only see a black person about once a fortnight, who will almost certainly be a foreign tourist or student. I am not quite sure what level of privilege I am supposed to have compared to these people, and if anything I imagine that they are more privileged than me. I left school at 15, and certainly didn't have a family who were well off enough to be able to afford to pay for me to go to university in a foreign country. Of course there are minorities in this country, who are oppressed, but it isn't something that is defined by colour.

I am not sure what level of privilege I am supposed to have here.

Devrim

[Hiero]

Because it's all socialism.


But it's not. And every actual socialist movement of the 20th found this out. Conditions are not the same everywhere. You statement makes a paradox, it would mean that every simultaneously we should be living in socialism or not.


the way i see black pride/power and the black panthers is they are no better at all than the white power/pride and KKK. Nationalism and ALL ethnic pride is just a bunch of bullshit. For some reason, homo-sapiens have this undying desire, something that they want more than anything else as a human being. This desire is the need to have power over each other. And all racism against blacks, whites, asians, muslims, etc. is just one more attempt to be better than someone else. Like the KKK looks down on the blacks, and see themselves better than them. and the Black panthers look down on the whites and the think they are better than them.

Are you from Arizonia?



I think that the entire idea of 'race privilege' is an extremely unmarxist one and I would say is a complete dismissal of a 'Marxist analysis of race and class'. It is also very, very US-centric.

I'm white. I live in a society, where virtually everybody is white, to the extent that I probably only see a black person about once a fortnight, who will almost certainly be a foreign tourist or student. I am not quite sure what level of privilege I am supposed to have compared to these people, and if anything I imagine that they are more privileged than me. I left school at 15, and certainly didn't have a family who were well off enough to be able to afford to pay for me to go to university in a foreign country. Of course there are minorities in this country, who are oppressed, but it isn't something that is defined by colour.

I am not sure what level of privilege I am supposed to have here.


What are you talking about? Yeah it is a US centred theory because we are talking about the US, not your personal conditions.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I think a lot of the arguments being used here are very specific to the US, a society where race is one of them central items of political discourse, and incidentally a society with a very low level of class struggle, which I don't think is at all unconnected.

First, leaving aside the BPP's focus on the lumpen, how is the struggle for black liberation in the late 60s not also part of the class struggle?

Second, why would it be good to talk about the BPP outside of it's specific historical and political context? If there had been genuine mass working class organizations that were fighting racism at the time the Panthers were organizing, then it would have been redundant for there to be a separate black organization. In addition, comparing a hypothetical organization focused on organizing only in the black community in the US today (let alone in Europe where racism developed differently than in the US) to the BPP's development at the height of the black liberation struggle after more than a decade of political developments in that struggle just doesn't make sense.

Third, you are correct - there is a connection between racism and the low level of class struggle in the US. Racism has been the achilles heel of the worker's movement in the US. The most obvious level is the way that bosses pitted native workers against chineese, irish, filipino, and mexican workers or used scabs of one ethnicity or race against workers made up of another. The US south remains largely un-unionized to this day because the CIO and the US CP failed to take on segregation because they did not want to upset their "allies" in the Democratic Party after WWII. The US has the most repressive state (the Death penalty and the most incarcerated prisoners per capita, police armed with shotguns) because ruling class racist ideas have convinced some American workers that prisons are more important than a welfare state.

I'd argue that racism is the number one tool of the US ruling class and so that is why seriously taking on racism is essential to building the working class movement here.


I think that the entire idea of 'race privilege' is an extremely unmarxist one and I would say is a complete dismissal of a 'Marxist analysis of race and class'. It is also very, very US-centric.I agree with this. The idea of social "privilege" is very popular in US academia and with the broad US left, but I think it looks at oppression upside-down... as if the problem is not racism and oppression, but that whites or straight people or men having their bourgeois rights respected. We need to unite the class on the basis of EVERYONE having their rights respected, not making sure that everyone looses the same rights.

The Panthers were actually an important part in organizing the black community and exposed a generation of black (and not-black) people to radical politics. To ignore this legacy today would not help workers in the US to build a united movement in the future.

[Emile Armand]

I don't think that tackling racism necessarily means having seperate groups though (especially in a revolutionary period), while I think that it'd be sweet if people would all just be not racist, practically and realistically speaking I'd think that racism can probably be best overcome by working together in the same organizations while consciously trying to abolish it.
THIS!
This was my point the entire time.

[Emile Armand]

In the American context you cannot separate race/culture from class. Black folks are mostly, by demographic, proletariat or even lumpen. To act like an important part of the American proletariat needs to give up its identity in order to more fully support your "color blind" (read: white) revolutionary sentiments is basically racist.

Instead, how about this, all white people interested in the revolution need to only speak Spanish, since the vast majority of anyone who resembles an actual proletarian in the United States speak Spanish. And after all, isn't your ridiculous insistence on speaking english anti-revolutionary cus you're privileging your group membership?
This is perhaps the stupidest post I've seen on any forum in my entire life.
You're not only completely defending racial divisions in the working class but you're saying that the majority of English speaking people in the united states are not oppressed working class? That in itself is a discriminatory statement. You are a racist.

[Devrim]

What are you talking about? Yeah it is a US centred theory because we are talking about the US, not your personal conditions.

It doesn't seem to stop people calling me a racist though.


But it's not. And every actual socialist movement of the 20th found this out. Conditions are not the same everywhere. You statement makes a paradox, it would mean that every simultaneously we should be living in socialism or not.

Conditions are not exactly the same everywhere, but talk of specific circumstances and conditions has always been the first sign of opportunism in the socialist movement. Communist ideas are either valid universally or not at all.

If it is correct to not organise on racial lines in one country, it is also correct in the USA, and vice versa.

Devrim

[Devrim]

I agree with this. The idea of social "privilege" is very popular in US academia and with the broad US left, but I think it looks at oppression upside-down... as if the problem is not racism and oppression, but that whites or straight people or men having their bourgeois rights respected. We need to unite the class on the basis of EVERYONE having their rights respected, not making sure that everyone looses the same rights.

The Panthers were actually an important part in organizing the black community and exposed a generation of black (and not-black) people to radical politics. To ignore this legacy today would not help workers in the US to build a united movement in the future.

It is quite difficult to even discuss this legacy though when people keep accusing others of racism.


Second, why would it be good to talk about the BPP outside of it's specific historical and political context?

Surely there are general principles though. For us one of them is no separate organisations or sections.

Devrim

[Jimmie Higgins]

It is quite difficult to even discuss this legacy though when people keep accusing others of racism.Yes, I think the conversations should be kept comradely.


Surely there are general principles though. For us one of them is no separate organisations or sections.

DevrimI don't disagree, but again, I think the relevant question is how do you do that when there is not solidarity in the working class already and there is a great deal of suspicion among black people of radical organizations because of mistakes made in the past or outright racism in the US radical movement.

Solidarity means building trust in practice - you can not force groups to have solidarity. So that is why in the context of the black power movement, I think the BPP represented the best aspects and the potential to eventually build a united class movement out of that. The support the BPP had from many white radicals was also key. The BPP were working with white radicals latino radicals and asian radicals and I think had the movements continued to grow then there could have been a united movement that eventually developed.

Keep in mind that the most visible "white-majority" new left revolutionary group was the SDS (i.e. "Students") and so it isn't like there were revolutionary mass organizations already in existence that black revolutionaries from poor communities could join.

[Jimmie Higgins]

It is quite difficult to even discuss this legacy though when people keep accusing others of racism.

While I think we need to keep the conversation comradely, I think these accusations are due to the current political situation in the US. I'd like to try and give some thoughts on the perspective from radicals in the US - of course this is just how I interpret it, so if other people disagree... you know what to do.

The reason I think it is easy for US comrades to get heated on this subject has a lot to do with how race and racism are discussed in the US mainstream right now. You know how crazy establishment politicians and the media are on the subject of "socialism" in the US? Well it's even more bizarre and upside-down when it comes to race and racism.

The ruling class strategy since the late 70s to break unions, gut the welfare state and so on also includes undoing the gains of the civil rights movement. In fact there has been a push from the top to re-segregate US society and replace jim-crow racism with different models for dividing the working class along racial lines.

Public schools in the US are currently more segregated than they have been at any time since 1964. If you examine incarceration rates and policing patterns, it also becomes clear that jim-crow was replaced by a coded-version of racism under the guise of a "war on crime". In addition, you can look at the "Southern Strategy" in mainstream politics as concrete evidence of the ruling class using racism in order to make their blatantly pro-corporate agenda attractive to a certain segment of the white US population. In the past, the ruling class couldn't come out and say: "We want to gut social programs" and so they have promoted myths about black "welfare mothers" who leech off the system (even though most welfare recipients were white). Now that there is a recession and many more people need health services and welfare, they blame "illegal (latino) immigrants" for wreaking a system (that was actually systematically dismantled by politicians). They can't say, we are going to build prisons instead of schools, so they promote myths of "unreformable" black and brown youth that will kill people for looking at them sideways. They can't say, "we want to control the middle east and protect US global hegemony for the next century" so they say that evil Arabs "hate our freedoms" and want to kill us all.

In addition because the US ruling class targets only certain groups for the hardest edge of repression (Arabs for the Patriot Act, Black and Latino and native Americans for police repression, and so on) it creates a "segregated" views of the world. If you ask most black workers about racial profiling, they will tell you it is a fact and that "Driving while Black" is enough for cops to pull you over. Since white people are not oppressed in this way, many white people, who live in essentially segregated suburbs, do not even believe that these things actually happen.

In addition, the only time the mainstream talks about racism these days is when it is the so-called "reverse-racism" myth. So according to the mainstream of US political discourse, disproportionate policing of minority neighborhoods is not racism, but white people are "oppressed" by minorities; straight people are "oppressed" by LGBT demands for the same rights as straights; Native workers are unemployed and "oppressed" because of Latino migrants selling apples by the freeway for $1 and hour.:rolleyes:

So when someone is pissing on your head (the obvious and blatant racism in US society) and they tell you it's raining (that we live in a "post-racial" society) it is easy for us to get heated when comrades from other countries make arguments that seem to overlap with similar arguments made by racists and people like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck. Obviously the arguments here are coming from a totally different political place, but I hope that this helps shed some light on why this subject draws anger from some of us in the states.

[Devrim]

Since white people are not oppressed in this way, many white people, who live in essentially segregated suburbs, do not even believe that these things actually happen.

Obviously I don't doubt that things like this happen. Nor do I think that white people are oppressed by minorities as you stated later.


So when someone is pissing on your head (the obvious and blatant racism in US society) and they tell you it's raining (that we live in a "post-racial" society) it is easy for us to get heated when comrades from other countries make arguments that seem to overlap with similar arguments made by racists and people like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck.

I don't think that either of those people are making the argument that communists shouldn't organise in separate groups according to ethnicity, are they? Of course, I don't know who they really are*, but I am pretty sure that that is the case.


Obviously the arguments here are coming from a totally different political place, but I hope that this helps shed some light on why this subject draws anger from some of us in the states.

Well obviously, it doesn't seem to stop people abusing people and calling them racists though.

Devrim

*I have heard of Glenn Beck. He is a talk show host, but I have never seen him, and I have no idea who the other one is.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I was not accusing you of racism or right-wing ideas, I was only trying to explain the situation in the US and why the arguments made by some people on the board overlap - in a surface way - with similar common arguments made in the US.

When you have to argue with co-workers that racism even exists and you have to hear the right-wing blame black people for causing racial divisions in the US ("why do they complain and play the race card all the time, don't they know that America is post-racial" say the right-wingers) and then you go and talk with revolutionaries who say things like "race is a social construct and so organizing along racial lines perpetuates racism" it's hard not to see them as similar arguments.

[Devrim]

I was not accusing you of racism or right-wing ideas, I was only trying to explain the situation in the US and why the arguments made by some people on the board overlap - in a surface way - with similar common arguments made in the US.

I know you weren't. It wasn't you in the first place. I do have an idea about the general discord in the US, and I tend not to think that this is why people use this line. I think people use it because shrilly screaming racist at people is their idea of political discourse.


When you have to argue with co-workers that racism even exists and you have to hear the right-wing blame black people for causing racial divisions in the US ("why do they complain and play the race card all the time, don't they know that America is post-racial" say the right-wingers) and then you go and talk with revolutionaries who say things like "race is a social construct and so organizing along racial lines perpetuates racism" it's hard not to see them as similar arguments.

As you may have noticed though nobody on here at all has suggested that America is a post-racial society. I don't think that it has been argued that it perpetuates racism either. I think the point that has been made is that it perpetuates divisions in the working class.

Devrim

[manic expression]

I'm not asking for blacks to pretend to be white! I'm stating race as a whole should be pushed to the side when It comes to the revolution, race is a social construct and has no place in a communist or anarchist society.
You say race has no place in a communist society. But we don't live in a communist society, now do we? So we can't rely on the dynamics of a society that does not yet exist, now can we? You might as well say: class has no place in a communist society, so it is wrong for us to organize along class lines. It's the exact same argument you're making, it makes about as much sense.

By the way, this about nationality, not race. Thinking this is just about skin tone is silly, the national question has long been recognized by the communist movement.

[manic expression]

I think the point that has been made is that it perpetuates divisions in the working class.
It recognizes the distinct identity of the Black nation, and gives that nation, at long last, a revolutionary voice of its own. You want Black (and probably Latino) identities to be swallowed up, to be lost, in the dominant American nationality...which would do a great deal to aggravate divisions in the working class, something the BPP never did.

So tell me, if your goal is working-class unity, why do you propose that we reconstruct the national makeup of the capitalist state in the working-class movement? Being open to Blacks organizing as Blacks is no more damaging than Basque workers having different organizations from French workers. Or do you think the Basques should shut the hell up and submit to the dominant nationality, too (because that's what builds working-class solidarity, you see)? I doubt you could even bring yourself to admit the Basques exist.

[Devrim]

I doubt you could even bring yourself to admit the Basques exist.

Of course Basques exist.


You want Black (and probably Latino) identities to be swallowed up, to be lost, in the dominant American nationality...

No, I don't.


Being open to Blacks organizing as Blacks is no more damaging than Basque workers having different organizations from French workers.

Actually over 90% of Basque people live in Spain, not France.


Or do you think the Basques should shut the hell up and submit to the dominant nationality, too

No, but then I didn't say that anybody else should either.

Devrim

[manic expression]

Of course Basques exist.
Then communists should recognize that by recognizing that Basque revolutionaries can organize as Basques.


Actually over 90% of Basque people live in Spain, not France.
And most Africans live in Africa.


No, but then I didn't say that anybody else should either.
It's what you're implying when you denounce the BPP for organizing as Blacks instead of as a minority to whites.

[Emile Armand]

You say race has no place in a communist society. But we don't live in a communist society, now do we? So we can't rely on the dynamics of a society that does not yet exist, now can we? You might as well say: class has no place in a communist society, so it is wrong for us to organize along class lines. It's the exact same argument you're making, it makes about as much sense.

By the way, this about nationality, not race. Thinking this is just about skin tone is silly, the national question has long been recognized by the communist movement.
Since when has "black" been a nationality?

[Evil Dead]

Well the original Black Nationalist movement had alot to do with the class struggle.

Alot of them felt that, the white community, were at the top of the racial class, and were putting blacks down as animals.

[manic expression]

Since when has "black" been a nationality?
Since its members underwent (and are undergoing) a unique historical experience, gave birth to a culture and compromised a community that are all entirely distinct from that of the rest of the US.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/haywood/negro-liberation/ch07.htm

[soyonstout]

I'd argue that racism is the number one tool of the US ruling class
In terms of preventing class identity I agree. I also think the bourgeoisie's discourse about its supposed anti-racism and the triumph of de jure integrationism (with the quick reversal to de facto segregation shortly thereafter for the majority of people) prevents this as well and perpetuates the democratic mystification and all kinds of illusions in bourgeois institutions--it's similar to the Popular Front in many ways and th way the European bourgeoisie uses anti-fascism in its self-congratulation to reinforce lots of illusions. But yes you are right--racism is probably the biggest millstone around the US proletariat's neck historically.

I disagree with Emile Armand's attitude because I think these are real problems that can't be ignored but, as I think I've made apparent, I also think nationalism leads to an abandonment of class politics.

-soyons tout

[Hiero]

Since when has "black" been a nationality?

Since before you were born.

[left communist]

Groups like the Black Panthers, the KKK and the various hosts of leftist and petit-bourgeois groups are all anti-working class. Groups like the Black Panthers, the KKK and the various hosts of leftist groups are all anti-working class. The fact ignored by most "leftists" is that white male American workers are more exploited than black/female workers in the United States, Chinese workers in Chinese sweatshops or Latin American workers in Latin American mines and factories. This is because of all the liberal anti-racism, liberal affirmative action, liberal anti-fascism and the other typical petit-bourgeois phraseology. This thread shows the extent to which leftists have gone to the side of capital by upholding the bourgeois anti-racism, anti-fascism, affirmative action and other typical bourgeois "leftist" garbage. This is the kind of capitalist leftism that has led to the vast divisions among the working class and the further alienation of white male western workers who constitute the most advanced working class because of the material conditions of production, on the basis of race which is upheld by most "leftists". Truly despicable and disgusting.

[Devrim]

Groups like the Black Panthers, the KKK and the various hosts of leftist and petit-bourgeois groups are all anti-working class. Groups like the Black Panthers, the KKK and the various hosts of leftist groups are all anti-working class. The fact ignored by most "leftists" is that white male American workers are more exploited than black/female workers in the United States, Chinese workers in Chinese sweatshops or Latin American workers in Latin American mines and factories. This is because of all the liberal anti-racism, liberal affirmative action, liberal anti-fascism and the other typical petit-bourgeois phraseology. This thread shows the extent to which leftists have gone to the side of capital by upholding the bourgeois anti-racism, anti-fascism, affirmative action and other typical bourgeois "leftist" garbage. This is the kind of capitalist leftism that has led to the vast divisions among the working class and the further alienation of white male western workers who constitute the most advanced working class because of the material conditions of production, on the basis of race which is upheld by most "leftists". Truly despicable and disgusting.

I presume that this is just a troll post.

Devrim

[counterblast]

groups like the black panthers, the kkk and the various hosts of leftist and petit-bourgeois groups are all anti-working class. Groups like the black panthers, the kkk and the various hosts of leftist groups are all anti-working class. the fact ignored by most "leftists" is that white male american workers are more exploited than black/female workers in the united states, chinese workers in chinese sweatshops or latin american workers in latin american mines and factories. this is because of all the liberal anti-racism, liberal affirmative action, liberal anti-fascism and the other typical petit-bourgeois phraseology. This thread shows the extent to which leftists have gone to the side of capital by upholding the bourgeois anti-racism, anti-fascism, affirmative action and other typical bourgeois "leftist" garbage. this is the kind of capitalist leftism that has led to the vast divisions among the working class and the further alienation of white male western workers who constitute the most advanced working class because of the material conditions of production, on the basis of race which is upheld by most "leftists". truly despicable and disgusting.

lol.

[redSHARP]

you might be confusing the NEW Black Panther Party and the Black Panther Party (old group). the NEW party are radical right winger fringe group that is racist and has been in actual fights with the OLD party (at least in my area). the OLD party would never allow black power become a slang term for racism. the OLD party fought to raise the black community through hard work, self reliance, and team work with sympathetic allies from across all races; on the outside, "black power" can seem racist, but dont let the right wing paint it that way.

[counterblast]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WczGIhmaJ_M

[Franz Fanonipants]

no u see being not-white is counter revolutionary cus

[Jimmie Higgins]

The fact ignored by most "leftists" is that white male American workers are more exploited than black/female workers in the United States, Chinese workers in Chinese sweatshops or Latin American workers in Latin American mines and factories.See, this is why I was saying American comrades get upset when people talk about the original BPP as being like the KKK in any way. Although this troll was probably just a NAZI, regular white right-wingers make similar arguments too. It's so crazy that people like this have been convinced that racial profiling is a myth, black racism doesn't exist it's just that blacks like to complain, and that straight white males are the "most oppressed" people.

[Devrim]

See, this is why I was saying American comrades get upset when people talk about the original BPP as being like the KKK in any way. Although this troll was probably just a NAZI, regular white right-wingers make similar arguments too. It's so crazy that people like this have been convinced that racial profiling is a myth, black racism doesn't exist it's just that blacks like to complain, and that straight white males are the "most oppressed" people.

No, I think this troll was somebody off here using a sock puppet to try to discredit left communist arguments. Obviously non of us have ever made those arguments, nor the argument in this thread that got thrashed:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/race-intelligence-controversy-t138436/index.html?t=138436

The admin who dealt with it though so too:


Banned left communist (http://www.revleft.com/vb/member.php?u=29786) and trashed its delightful trolling. If anyone fancies taking a crack at who made the sock account can give it a shot, I'm stumped.

In my opinion, it is a pretty low thing to do.

Devrim

[9]

99.99% sure it's the same chauvinist Stalinoid troll who always posts about "counterrevolutionary Trotskyites" and how anarchists are "white petty bourgeois children". Here (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1799183&postcount=70) are (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1798922&postcount=57) some (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1777657&postcount=48) other (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1774213&postcount=220) gems (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1778354&postcount=83) of his. Apparently a left communist bruised his ego and he was taking revenge.

[#FF0000]

I want to point out to OP that almost everything that is used to discriminate, divide, and subjugate people is a social construct. Race, class, gender, whether or not a people is "civilized" or not, all of these are arbitrary.

[samofshs]

No they don't. They constantly talk about 'black and oppressed communities', and occasionally mention the poor. They don't talk about the working class.

We don't try to speak for the working class. That is substitution. The communist left is part of the working class.

Just on a personal note about not knowing anything about the working class. I have been working since I was 15. I have worked as a postman (5 years), bricklayer (12 years), as well as various factory jobs, in a hospital...

Aren't you a college student?



I think that the word you are looking for is reactive meaning to react against.

Devrim
you're arguing ad hominim.

[727Goon]

Black power is not racism because blacks are disempowered in society, so black power just means equality and the promotion of black culture in society, while white power is racism because it advocates an expansion of white supremacy of both culture and government in this country. Black nationalism is a mixed bag, it can be either very positive and leftist or very right wing and racist. I wouldn't call the Black Panthers nationalists though, they were considered a Black Power group to my knowledge, not a nationalist one.