FIGHT FOR COMMUNISM!
International Communist Workers Party
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FIGHT FOR COMMUNISM! |
International Communist Workers Party | |
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Vice-President Biden’s recent West Los Angeles College visit illustrates the lie of “opportunity for all.” It shows how community colleges, like all of capitalist schooling, reinforce the racist system of capitalist exploitation.
Biden’s photo-op with the WLAC Dental Hygiene program was carefully staged. Seeing the coverage, you’d think the program trained mainly black and latina students for high-paying jobs. Actually, practically the only two black Dental Hygiene students were both shown on camera (under 5% of all students in the program). About half of the DH students are white, compared with only 13% of all WLAC students. In Los Angeles County, almost 60% of all dental hygienists are white and 4% are black.
The same college division also trains Home Health Aides, who average $12/hr., compared with $48/hr. for Dental Hygienists. About 20% of the students in this program are black – the same percentage of HHAs in LA County who are black.
So we can see how colleges feed racist divisions in the workplace.
Racism is a class issue. The Biden coverage emphasized that Dental Hygiene students “only” pay about $2000 in tuition. But additional up-front costs are at least $10,000 for the first year and another $5,000 for the second.
Students must buy uniforms and expensive equipment. They must pay for licensing exams and travel to conferences. Financial aid checks wouldn’t come soon enough to help. And they can’t work at a paying job for the two years it takes to finish!
Capitalists created racism to exploit, divide and paralyze the working class. Today, we workers are not divided between “slaves” and “servants” – we are all wage-slaves. The US no longer has laws that legally bar black workers from certain careers.
But the material basis of racism is still the capitalist wage system. This means the segmentation of work into job categories. These are often “color-coded,” labeled as “male” or “female,” and paid differently.
Those who are not as intensely exploited are supposed to feel “superior” and be glad that they’re not worse off, even if they can’t pay their bills. This is where racism comes in and sexism too.
Those who are more intensely exploited are supposed to aspire to “better” jobs and think of themselves as personal failures if they don’t get a college degree to qualify for one. Fact: In the US today, the average white man who never finished high school earns more than the average black man who attended college.
College is part of the problem, not part of the solution.
In communism, pay will not be an issue because there will be no wages or money at all. We’ll meet everyone’s needs, whatever they are and whatever work they do.
We’ll reorganize work so that everyone at any work site will have the chance to learn all the skills involved. Everyone will take turns doing necessary but less-desirable tasks.
We’ll fight to develop everyone’s commitment to work where we’re most needed. Early on, we’ll have to wage a conscious political struggle to break down racial and gender stereotypes of who is “supposed to” do what. Young people will explore many kinds of work. We’ll continue to learn new skills throughout our lives.
This starts now. Maybe you don’t think of yourself as a writer or editor, as a public speaker or an organizer, as a computer specialist or artist or mechanic. But you can learn, as we are all learning, by helping to build the International Communist Workers’ Party!