Fight Racism with Communist Relations, Not Identity Politics
LOS ANGELES (USA), July 11— “As a young Black /Latinx LGBT individual, I was always encouraged to see myself through the lens of identity politics. I read Che Guevara and the autobiography of Malcolm X in high school. I began to develop a consciousness of revolutionary Black-Brown unity,” said a comrade.
“Then I met ICWP through a teacher. It changed my thinking. I now see working-class unity as the only way to end racism by destroying capitalism and building a communist society.”
A class-conscious line protects the working class from the venom of identity politics. The main division in capitalist society is workers versus bosses. You either own the means of production or you have only your labor power to sell.
This remains true whoever you are or wherever you come from. Racism is the main way that the capitalists divide the working class.
Identity politics is deeply ingrained today, especially in academia and among working-class youth. Universities encourage students to see racial identity as the main aspect of who they are.
Many liberal Americans admire Barack Obama as a person of color who became US President. This ignores that he did exactly what the ruling class needed.
That included deporting more immigrants than any other president. It included continuing the US imperialist agenda of sending working-class men and women of all colors to Afghanistan. That war was to protect the capitalists’ profits. Obama started the “Pivot to Asia-Pacific” to prepare for war against China.
Mainstream media uplift racial and ethnic ties as a “revolutionary” statement. This helps keep the masses divided. Competition for jobs places different groups against one another. Capitalism promotes the lie that workers should “look out for your own.” They mean that you can only relate to people who look like you or come from the same place.
Representation: Only Skin-Deep
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, a Nigerian economist, has served as the Director-General of the World Trade Organization since 2021. She is the first woman and the first African in this position. The WTO’s trade policies continue to totally undermine the lives of workers worldwide.
“Many people I talk to think that it would be great if countries were just run by women or by people of color rather than white men,” commented a comrade. “Well, here is a Black woman who is a fellow of multiple US ruling-class institutions, so definitely a class enemy.”
Being a particular gender, race, or nationality does not automatically make someone a friend of the working class.
Another example of identity politics is the Black Student Achievement Plan (BSAP). The Los Angeles Unified School District approved it during the 2020-21 school year. It aims to “increase Black students’ academic achievement and create a positive cultural identity to address the historic and ongoing social and economic conditions experienced by Black people.”
Programs like this assume that the problem is students’ “negative cultural identity.” And that identity politics is the solution.
In fact, the problem is capitalism. It’s the racist and exploitative conditions the capitalist rulers consciously construct. The real solution is working-class unity to overthrow the capitalist system.
Programs like BSAP divide our school communities. A teacher denounced “Black Students’ Graduation and field trips only for Black students to visit Historically Black Colleges and Universities in Atlanta. These show how the school I work for indoctrinates students into racial divisions.”
Racial/ethnic-based “equity plans” exclude students. They divide us and weaken the solidarity that we need.
The Path Forward
Liberalism teaches us to “honor our cultural roots.” It says to preserve the memory of horrors capitalists have inflicted on a particular group. This divides workers by telling them that atrocities towards “their people” are far greater than anyone else’s.
The true division in this capitalist world is workers and bosses. Workers must sell their labor power for survival at a price the bosses set. By design that’s to protect the bosses’ interests. No one group can overcome the oppression by capitalism and racism without the mass mobilization of the entire working class.
Class consciousness is knowing which side of the fence you’re on. Class analysis is figuring out who is there with you to fight against oppression.
In that fight we learn to trust each other. We create the possibility of a communist world. Communism will eradicate the material basis that capitalism creates to build distrust among workers. We will work together to build our new world.
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