USA—The US Government is waging a brutal class war. It has many fronts and, like all wars, the racist and nationalist propaganda it produces is as dangerous as the bullets it discharges. On one front, according to the Washington Post, the cops killed some 987 people (mainly men) in 2017.
It is a brutal class war but its full scope has been hidden from us. The task of Red Flag is not only to project a communist future, but also to confront the lies that divide and weaken us today. We must bring a materialist understanding of the world: capitalist society is based on the exploitation of the masses. The minority (the capitalists) need oppression to continually exploit the masses. Racism, sexism, nationalism are key tools of that oppression.
Whether it is the government, the universities or the mainstream media, the liberal voices of capitalist America sing the same song: “Identity Politics.” Society to them is a mixture of sometimes competing, sometimes co-operating, racial or ethnic groups. In this way they hide its exploitation and marginalize the need for class consciousness.
The arguments that dangerously mislead come from liberals like George Soros. They look at the numbers (like the Washington Post article) and point out that while blacks make up about 12% of the US, they account for 23% of the victims of police shootings. Hispanics are 18% of the population but make up 21% of the victims. Whites, they point out, make up about 61% of the population but account for only 48% of the killings.
This gap between Black and white victims shows the racist character of the police force. Since police shootings overwhelmingly target Black men, the fight against them has been carried out primarily by the Black community. However, if Black workers (12% of the population) think they are alone, they will think it unrealistic to join with other workers to fight for revolutionary solutions. Instead, they will look for allies in a fight for body cameras, sensitivity trainings, more minority recruiting and so on.
Racism is not principally a cultural expression as identity politics argues. It is the necessary product of capitalism. A society where a minority (the capitalists) exploits the majority (the workers) has to divide that majority in order to rule. Historically in the US, racism plays that divisive role. Capitalist relations of production (a minority exploiting a majority) are the material basis of racism.
And racism is central to the US. It doesn’t matter whether it’s spouted crudely by Donald Trump or by a refined liberal like Soros, racism is central to the survival of US capitalism.
All of which brings us back to the 987 people the US cops killed in 2017. All the killings took place in working-class neighborhoods.
$52,218 per year is the cut off figure. No matter whether you are white, Black or Hispanic, $52,218 is the all-important statistic. If you are male and live in a neighborhood where the median household income (mhi) is $52,218 or less, then you live in an area where the cops shoot and kill you. If the mhi is above $52,218 in your neighborhood then you live where there are no killings by cops.
About 92 million people, over ¼ of the US population, live in sub-$52,218 neighborhoods. About 41 million, (44%) are white, 17 million (19%) are Black and 24 million (27%) are Hispanic. Racism results in Black and Hispanic families being over-represented in these more oppressed neighborhoods. That same racism also tends to separate these neighborhoods geographically. Blacks are concentrated in inner-cities while poorer whites are concentrated in small rural towns and Hispanics in both rural and city neighborhoods.
All 987 victims of the Washington Post report lived in the “other” America. Using this class analysis, we see whites are shot at a rate of 1.2 per 100,000; Blacks at a rate of 1.4 and Hispanics at a rate of 0.9. Blacks are still murdered at a higher rate than whites but the disparity is much less stark compared to the class divide: 0 to 987!
It makes as little sense for white workers not to join or lead protests against the cop killings of their Black or Hispanic brothers and sisters, as Black or Hispanic workers not to join or lead protests against cop killings of white workers. In fact, building such class consciousness is a necessary step for building the communist revolutionary world we are need.
April 18. Students at San Diego State University protest recent racist incidents, including vandalism of the Black Resource Center. They demand that the University improve security and hire more black and Latinx faculty and staff. Reforms like “security” can easily turn into intensified policing. That will increase attacks on students and workers, especially those of color. Instead, students should ally with workers, soldiers and sailors to fight for the communist society that can defeat racism.
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