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Communism Will Destroy Racism and the Idea of “Race”

Workers’ Unity Will Destroy Capitalist Exploitation

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LOS ANGELES – “Where are the white workers in Los Angeles?” asked a comrade. 
The most run-down neighborhoods and the worst jobs are filled mainly with “black,” “latino/a” and immigrant workers.  This leads some to believe the bosses’ lies that “white” people are all racist, “privileged” and untrustworthy.  It’s no accident that young activists hear this in colleges and supposedly “anti-racist” organizations. 
For over 400 years, capitalism has organized society around invented “racial” categories that divide the masses.  It uses racist terror to super-exploit one section of the working class, creating a material basis for its “divide-and-conquer” politics. 
By mobilizing the masses for communism we begin to smash these divisions in practice.  The victory of communism will create the material basis for ending racism and racial categories forever. 
The capitalist US government categorizes the work force by “race” and “ethnicity.”  In December 2014 nearly 5 million people were counted in the Los Angeles County labor force. They were 44% Latino/a, 31% White, 14% Asian and 8% African-American (Black).  The remaining 3% included Native Americans, Hawaiian and other Pacific Islanders, and people identifying as “mixed.”
Not all of these are workers.  Out of 1.5 million whites, 188,000 are “managers” or school administrators.  Thirty thousand are chief executives and legislators, and 31,000 are lawyers and judges.  White people are over-represented in these categories.  Twenty thousand are cops or jailers (whites are not over-represented here). 
None of these occupations will exist in communist society. 
But neither will the “jobs” we wage-slaves have today.  We’ll all do many different kinds of work.  We won’t identify ourselves with a particular occupation.   Eventually we’ll all identify ourselves as “comrades” instead of by “race” or “ethnicity” or “nationality.”

Who are the white workers in Los Angeles County?
Some are among the worst-paid and worst-treated wage slaves.  About 5700 workers in Los Angeles are classified as “combined food preparation and serving workers, including fast food.”  About 1400 of them (24%) are white.  Another 5600 are “counter attendants, cafeteria, food concession and coffee shop” workers.  Fifteen hundred of these (27%) are white.
Twenty-six thousand white workers wait tables or tend bar.
Thirty-two thousand work in transportation.
Thirty-seven thousand install, maintain or repair engines and machinery.
Forty thousand are in computer fields, overrepresented in almost every job category.
Over forty thousand work as hairdressers, personal-care aides, child-care workers, or related occupations.
Fifty thousand (mainly women) work in offices as secretaries, administrative assistants, etc.
Fifty thousand (mostly men) work in construction.  Of these, 9000 are first-line supervisors.  White workers are more likely to be better-paid wage-slaves like electricians, plumbers, boilermakers, inspectors, sheet-metal workers, and heavy-equipment operators. 
Sixty-four thousand are in retail sales.
This is Los Angeles:  86,000 are in the arts, sports, and entertainment.  White people are extremely overrepresented here, even in blue-collar jobs like camera operators.
Almost 100,000 work in health care.  They are overrepresented in the higher-pay, higher-status categories (like physicians) and underrepresented in the lower (home health aides).
Over 100,000 are teachers.
Many work in financial, scientific or technical fields where white workers are strongly over-represented.   This includes 26,000 engineers and 29,000 accountants and auditors.

Industrial workers and soldiers have a leading role in mobilizing the masses for communism.   
Los Angeles has 340,000 employees in “production occupations.”  About 73% of them are latino/a, 12% white, 11% Asian and only 3% black. 
Almost a quarter of white production employees, about 6500, are first-line supervisors. 
Five thousand are inspectors, testers, or sorters. 
Almost 6000 work in metal and plastic, where they are just 11% of all workers.  However, 2500 of them are machinists (21% of category), 110 make models and patterns (29%) and 485 are tool-and-die makers (41%).  White workers are also over-represented in other highly skilled jobs such as computer control programmers and tool grinders and sharpeners.
None perform the dangerous jobs of working with extruding and drawing machines or heat-treating equipment.
Only 4% of Los Angeles textile, garment and shoe workers are white.  Over half of those are tailors or dressmakers.  Many are probably in specialties like costume production.

The “racial” segmentation of the labor force today is not absolute, as it was under slavery, but it’s still the material basis of the bosses’ racist system.  Communism will end it by abolishing the wage system. 
The difference between $10 per hour and $50 per hour may seem big.  But it’s tiny compared to the capitalist executives who get $5 THOUSAND per hour and the wealthy stockholders who reap the profits.  All workers will have better lives when we produce for our collective needs and get these parasites off our backs.
Comrades in relatively integrated workplaces like LA Metro (mass transit) are strategically situated to build ties across the boss-created “racial” lines by joining and building the International Communist Workers’ Party.

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