Abayomi Azikiwe, editor of the Pan-African News Wire, at the Labor Monument in Hart Plaza in downtown Detroit on September 27, 2008. (Photo: Alan Pollock).
Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos
Programmatic Struggle to Fight the Capitalist Economic Crisis
Responses to SB 1070, racial and gender inequalities as well as
worsening social conditions warrant mass action
By Abayomi Azikiwe
Editor, Pan-African News Wire
Workers and oppressed peoples in the United States are responding to the escalating racism and political repression that is taking place
amid the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Even during an election year, where the corporate media is dominated by
competition between candidates for the two ruling class parties who do
not in most cases address the underlying causes of the mounting social problems facing the majority of the population inside the U.S.,
various organizations and movements have come out into the streets to
engage in demonstrations and civil disobedience.
On July 29, thousands across the United States demonstrated against
the enactment of Arizona’s racial profiling law, SB 1070. In Phoenix
and throughout Arizona, over 500 people were arrested for defying
police who attempted to suppress their protests aimed at overturning
this draconian statute.
In the Bay Area of California, demonstrations took place which not
only expressed solidarity with the immigrant communities in Arizona,
but also opposed the so-called “Secure Communities” federal program
which identifies immigrants for criminal prosecution and deportation.
According to government records, some 4,000 people have been fingered by the program and handed over to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Rev. Phil Lawson, who is the founder of the Black Alliance for Just
Immigration, noted that “President Obama is deporting more people than President Bush ever did. Seventeen hundred a day. That’s got to stop. It’s destroying families. In Arizona, it’s destroying churches,
congregations.” (San Jose Mercury News, July 29)
Last year the Obama administration set a record number for
deportations of immigrants with a reported total of 387,790 people.
The numbers for 2010 are expected to surpass those of 2009.
The Secure Communities program allows for detainees at county jails to be finger-printed with the records immediately sent to a federal
immigration database. The San Jose Mercury News pointed out that “The program targets what the government calls criminal aliens, who are immigrants—legally or illegally in the country—who can be deported because of crimes they have committed.” (July 29)
This same article continues saying that “Last year, 35 percent of
those deported had a crime on their record. This year, about half of
those deported were convicted of a crime.” Despite attempts by
right-wing political forces and law-enforcement agencies to label the
immigrant communities, both undocumented and documented, as criminals, statistics indicate that the majority of those who are targeted for detention and deportation do not have outstanding criminal charges and convictions. Even with these criminal convictions, the inherent racist character of the legal system in the United States typically results in many more people of color being subjected to targeted prosecutions and disparate sentencing by the courts.
Demonstrations took place also on July 29 in Raleigh, North Carolina,
where hundreds of immigrant workers, youth and other progressive
forces demonstrated at the State Capital. The crowd chanted and held
placards saying “Stop deportation,” “No to SB 1070,” and “No more
racism!” (FightBack! News, August 1)
In Detroit, 150 demonstrators gathered outside the McNamara Federal
Building downtown to express their solidarity with the immigrant
community in Arizona and to denounce efforts within the state
legislature to pass a bill similar to SB 1070 in Michigan. A broad
coalition of organizations endorsed the July 29 action in Detroit
including the Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injustice,
Latinos Unidos, Centro Obrero, the Detroit Coalition Against Police
Brutality, the Moratorium NOW! Coalition and the Michigan Welfare
Rights Organization.
Racism and Class Oppression Worsens Amid Broadening Economic Crisis
Even though the corporate media, the Obama administration and
spokespersons for capitalist interests have continued to falsely claim
that an economic recovery is underway in the United States, statistics
indicate that joblessness, home foreclosures, cutbacks in public
services and education are continuing. In addition, there is a
widening gap in income and wealth between whites and people of color.
Although there has been unequal income and wealth between men and
women as a whole in U.S. society, the character of national oppression
coupled with the economic crisis has magnified the differences along
racial lines. In a recent article by Christine Bork in the Huffington
Post, she writes that “The result of this racial segregation of
poverty is stark—29 percent of households headed by white women with children live in poverty, compared to 43 percent of African-American women and 46 percent of Latina women.” (Huffington Post, July 30)
Bork continues by pointing out that “Factors such as industry sector,
wage growth, access to health care benefits, and even zip code
contribute to a woman of color’s ability to accumulate enough to
support her family. Without critical wealth and/or asset building
opportunities, families of color are relegated to living paycheck to
paycheck, edging one step closer to financial ruin when they encounter
job loss or an illness.”
Such income and wealth inequalities require a struggle against
gender, national and class oppression. These issues are not even
addressed seriously by either the Democratic or Republican parties in
the U.S., consequently, requiring independent political action based
on a program designed to overturn inequalities based on gender, race
and class origins.
Bork concludes her article by stating that “Wealth and poverty both
accumulate over time, growing exponentially with each passing
generation.” Even the Brookings Institute, Bork notes, said in a
recent study that “white children are more likely to surpass their
parents’ income than black children at a similar point in the income
distribution.”
This income difference based on race is compounded by the fact that
“In the United States, the top 10 percent own approximately 76 percent
of all wealth; under this structure, the children of wealth will
continue building and accumulating it, while the children of those who
are unable to accumulate wealth will likewise grow poorer.”
(Huffington Post, July 30)
The Significance of August 28, October 2, and October 7 Mobilizations
There are plans underway for mass mobilizations both locally and
nationally in the next few months. On August 28, the UAW and the
Rainbow/Push Coalition have issued a call for a demonstration in
downtown Detroit to demand Jobs, Justice and Peace.
The UAW website states in a July 9 press release that “This campaign
will call on our national leaders to 1. Rebuild America by enacting
industrial and trade policies that will create jobs, encourage
manufacturing in America and put workers first and 2. Enforce the law
regarding workers’ rights, civil rights, industrial regulation and the
creation of fair and just educational, economic, and health policies
and finally 3. End the ongoing wars in the Middle East and redirect
the war budget to rebuilding America.” (uaw.org)
On the Rainbow/Push Coalition website in says in relations to the
August 28 mobilization that “No group has suffered more from America’s economic meltdown than working men and women. The auto industry was decimated and workers paid the price.” (rainbowpush.org)
The Rainbow/Push Coalition website also notes that “Poverty is on the
rise. Home and church foreclosures continue to mount and student loan defaults are increasing. Cities are under siege. Public transportation services are cut, workers laid off, but fares go up. Teachers are laid off and programs are cut as education budgets are slashed.” (rainbowpush.org)
This demonstration on August 28 in Detroit will build momentum for a
national mobilization scheduled for October 2 in Washington, D.C. The
One Nation coalition, which has called for the demonstration, is made
up of several organizations including the National Council of La Raza,
the Service Employees International Union, the NAACP, the AFL-CIO and the United States Student Association.
According to Paul Starr, a professor of public affairs at Princeton
University and co-editor of American Prospect magazine, “There is no
choice but for these groups to get together. The historical pattern is
that voter turnout falls disproportionately among minorities and young
people at these midterm elections, so they are fighting a historical
trend.” (Washington Post, July 11)
The Necessity of Building a Programmatic Struggle
These efforts by leading labor and civil rights organizations reflect
the growing pressure from their constituencies to address the concrete
conditions faced by people in the United States. Yet it is important
that grassroots organizations emphasize the need for independent
political action and specific demands related to immigrant rights, an
end to police brutality and political repression, and a real jobs
program that will put the 34 million unemployed and underemployed back to work with decent wages and benefits.
It will not be adequate enough to call for reforms without advancing a
political fight back program to win demands that are essential for the
improvement of conditions among the working class, women, youth and the nationally oppressed. The One Nation coalition should also endorse the October 7 National Day of Action to Defend Education, which is a follow-up to the successful protests on March 4 that mobilized hundreds of thousands of students and educational workers.
In Detroit the Moratorium NOW! Coalition and MECAWI will work to build the August 28 demonstration by stressing the urgency of both labor and the community to forge a working alliance aimed at advancing the struggle to win jobs, housing, quality education, workers’ rights, an end to police terrorism and the acquisition of healthcare benefits for all.
No comments:
Post a Comment