Black History Month and new ideas of class unity

 

 
The French author Victor Hugo wrote, “Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come.” This holds special significance for African American History Month 2014.
American slavery, and the ideas of white supremacy and racism find their origins in capitalism. But today’s new technology is setting the basis for the elimination of these ideas and the development of new ideas of class unity.
New technology is killing jobs and in the process, destroying the capitalist system of buying and selling. This process is creating a commonality of poverty among a new section of workers who are losing their former position in society.
It is now becoming possible to unite a section of the working class, those who are permanently thrown out of the labor market by electronic production, and those who are working for low wages in jobs created by electronics.
Under these conditions, we have to ask how long old ideas of racial division will make sense to those who share a common poverty, destitution and homelessness. However, old ideas don’t just go away on their own. New ideas of class unity must be fought for.
Events over the last year serve as constant reminders of the past while also pointing the way forward.
The acquittal of the murderer of Trayvon Martin shocked the nation and sent hundreds of thousands into the streets in protest. The nationwide massive school closings targeted inner city working class Black communities. The Supreme Court gutted the 1965 Voting Rights Act, opening the door for the disenfranchisement of Black workers not just in the South, but all over the country.
At the same time, something new is happening.
The “Moral Mondays” movement, comprised of tens of thousands of blacks and whites, continues to sweep across the South. Victims of the lack of jobs and cuts to unemployment insurance, food stamps and health care, are directly confronting legislators in the state capitols. They are being arrested together and going to jail together by the hundreds. Their slogan is “forward, not one step back.”
It is clear the American people are beginning to slowly awaken. Society is polarizing around wealth and poverty to an extent never seen in human history. The so-called “middle class,” once the pillar of America, is being rapidly destroyed. Dispossessed of full time good paying jobs, home ownership, health care and good education for their children; they are moving into a poverty that is cutting across color lines.
The fact that an abundance is being produced today, but remains in the private hands of the capitalist class, places this movement in opposition to the private property of the capitalist system.
The role of revolutionaries is to spread the new ideas that reflect the new reality. This means moving people’s thinking from racial division to uniting around the demands of the new poor for survival. It means turning the abundant productive power of the country into public property and distributing the means of life equally to all based on human need. And finally, it means that we must not fight to reform the old dying society, but build a new one that will end the legacy of slavery, white supremacy and racism, forever.