A friend of ours was defending the idea of a black nation one evening. He pointed out that our theory of racism “was not enough” to explain the super-exploitation of non-whites in the U.S. “After all,” he said, “racism itself is idealistic. It has no material basis. Anthropologists can prove that there are no pure races in the world.” He argued that without races, there can be no racism. That is like saying that because there is no God, there is no religion.
Obviously, capitalist pictures of reality and objective reality itself are not the same thing, for the interests of the capitalist class lie in distorting the proletariat’s consciousness of the real world. But that does not mean that there is not an objective reality to be explained. Our friend, in insisting that we cannot recognize racism without accepting capitalist lies about races, must also say that discrimination against women and Jews is based on the fact that they are really inferior!–unless, of course, he would like to call them oppressed nations.
Male supremacy and religious intolerance are consciously built up by the bourgeoisie. The ruling class constructs such theories at every turn to confound the revolutionary proletariat, especially to divide us. Racism is certainly one of the most prevalent of these theories. That does not mean it has no material basis, and in fact its material basis can be easily identified.
Businessmen use racism to increase profit. The primary function of racism is to keep workers divided, economically and politically. Super-exploitation and the differential create the illusion of actual division on which to build ideological division. Divided, workers’ ability to struggle for higher wages and better conditions decreases. Lower wages represent higher profits for capitalists. Racism benefits big business and hurts wage and salary earners of all races.
What can this be but a material basis for racism, even if the ideology around it is a lie and a fraud? Where we find the material interest of the exploiter, we–those of us who look at things in class terms–know that the interest of the exploited lies on the other side. Racism means profits–not just the superprofits gained from lower wages paid minority workers, but the entire structure of monopolistic profits sweated from the whole working class. Anyone who looks for the explanation of discrimination in the national question does not see the full pernicious effect of racism on the working class. The prime characteristic of the pro-nationalist analysis is that it dwells only on part of the material interest of minorities in fighting discrimination. That limitation holds back the struggle and dwarfs its scope.
When the working class is split on the basis of race, it is also less effective politically. Not only are our political organizations weaker, but different proletarian groups often end up fighting each other and letting the real exploiter off the hook altogether. Racism helps the businessmen keep from being identified as the enemy.
We have spoken of the two types of racist ideology which arise from the concept of minority nations. One is nationalism, the idea of non-whites that all whites are the enemy. The flip side of that line is liberal racism, the idea that only racial minorities suffer from racism. White workers are seen as benefiting from discrimination against minorities (white skin privilege). On that basis, the only reason a white worker would oppose racism would be for ethical or moral reasons, not for economic ones.
The manifestations of liberal racism are familiar to all of us. Many typical expressions reflect this idea in one way or another. (1) “The subject of Shockley’s talk is insulting to the Black Community.” (2) “Racism is a problem in the heart of White America.” (3) “We must fight the racism in all of us.” (4) “The principal bulwark of racism and its principal beneficiary is the white worker.”
Variations on this line occur time and again in the pro-nationalist materials. One example is the long passage in Red Papers V (P. 36) where the R.U. constructs an imaginary conversation between a black worker, a white worker and a black separatist. The separatist tries to win the black worker to support a Black Nation in the South, when the white worker protests! “Now look, there are a lot of white people in the South, too. What right do you have to set up a Black country down there and force all the whites off their land and out of their homes!”
This is the R.U.’s idea of a non-class-conscious reply from the white worker. It is indeed non-class conscious, but it tells us more about the R.U. than the imaginary worker. As we have pointed out, a real question confronting pro-nationalists involves not ”what to do with white Southerners,” but how any Marxist–Leninist, can believe in nation where over half the population in the candidate territory belongs to another “nation.” We would not expect the R.U. to deal with this question, aside from their vague allusion to the Palestine analogy which does not apply. In fact, they go on to postulate the black worker’s response to the white worker’s protest:
The class conscious Black worker will not agree with the separatist; he will oppose separation, and he will understand that for the Black people to win real freedom, it is necessary to unite with white workers. But he will not say all this in front of a white worker who has just denied the right to separation for Black people. The Black worker will not have confidence in this white worker and will hold back from uniting with him–for good reason!
What that reason is, we are not told. But the R.U. has already made it plain that the interest of both the white and black worker lie in unity, so if the black worker “holds back” he cannot be acting out of class interests. Yet his reason is a good one! The R.U. lives in a world where “c1ass-consciousM black workers react out of sheer subjectivism! Not agreeing with separation, seeing the need for unity–but supporting the separatist because the white worker denied the right to separation. Such are the qualities of class consciousness for the R.U.
And what, according to the R.U., could the white worker have said had he been class-conscious? He would squeeze in something about “unity” and needing a “government run by the whole working class– Black, brown, and white, all of us together.” Then he would sermonize:
But I know that I have not suffered the brutal treatment and discrimination that Black people must still fight today. And so even though I think we should all join together as class brothers and fight for a government that represents our class interests, I know damn good and well that it’s up to the Black people to decide whether or not to separate, and you certainly have the right to do it.
Class-conscious blacks ignore the needs of the working class because they’re miffed. Class-conscious whites beat their breasts and preach liberal racism.
These words straight from the R.U.’s mouth tell us volumes about their practice, for in concocting their phony conversation, they betray how they themselves approach the politics of racism when they go among the working class: subjectivity and morality. Not a word about material interests or economic reality.
How would a class-conscious white worker really have reacted in this situation? He would tell the separatist that forming a separate black nation would do nothing to combat racism, the super-exploitation of black people, because it does nothing against the material basis of that super-exploitation. He would explain how that super-exploitation is an attack on the entire working class and that concerted political agitation is necessary to bring workers of all races into action against differentials. He would propose that he and the class-conscious black brother undertake that agitation and action in their class interest.
He certainly would not have been satisfied with a testimonial to future revolution and a passive statement of “support” for the right of black separation.
The businessman is the only one who benefits from people believing the R.U.’s liberal racist pitch. Consequently, he supports it and propagates it through his schools and media. He wants the white worker to believe that he profits from racism and racial discrimination, that he has a privileged position being hired first and fired last, getting the better jobs and education, getting higher pay. The businessman wants the white worker to think that his economic interests are different and opposed to that of the blacks, Chicanos, native Americans, etc. He wants the white worker to think that the only basis for fighting racism is for ethical and moral reasons and that only non-whites have any economic reason for opposing racism.
Basically, groups which advocate national separation along racial lines encourage such beliefs. They imply that whites (all whites) are responsible for the super-exploited condition of non-whites and if given the chance will always dominate and exploit them. These groups say that whites must do this because they profit from it, economically and politically, and therefore non-whites can avoid this exploitation only by removing themselves entirely into a separate nation.
Such rationalization ties the nationalists and the liberal racists together. Both agree that white workers–80% to 90% of all whites–profit from racism. What are the real facts of the matter?
The appearance that white workers derive some benefit from racist discrimination is the basis for the “divide and conquer” tactic. Non-whites make out worse than whites. But both white and non-white workers make out worse than if they were united. To verify this, one need only look at the southern United States. We have already seen that the problems of that region do not come from some status as an oppressed nation. Here, supposedly, the white worker is more highly privileged vis-a-vis the black worker than in any other region. But the white working class in the South has the lowest wages and least political power of white workers in any part of this country. Only racist propaganda can account for this degraded position of the whole working class in the South. We must be clear on the point that people like Jensen and Shockley attack us all when the popularize racist ideas. No one benefits from racism but the capitalist ruling class!
Mr. Businessman’s song to the black worker carries a different tune. The capitalist insists that the black’s main enemy is the white worker. He or she is the one with whom you have to compete for jobs, he or she is the one you most often hear express racist remarks, and he or she is the one hired first and fired last. This distortion is pushed at all non-whites, especially by the liberals (“All in the Family,” for example). On the other hand, who is the black’s truest friend? You guessed it–the well-educated white businessman. You seldom hear him uttering racist remarks in public. Instead, he sponsors brotherhood weeks, and he is always happy to hire racial minorities in case of strikes. All this talk addressed to black workers represents the other side of the “divide and conquer” coin.
Both liberal racism and nationalism parade as anti-racist theories. In reality, their effect is pro-racist. They reflect the assumptions that (1) only non-whites suffer from racism, (2) the interests of white and non-white workers are opposed, (3) whites profit from racism, and (4) racism is a moral problem, not an economic or political problem. Thus, liberal racism and nationalism are just as racist and just as much a part of the businessman’s strategy as “white chauvinism.” These views fail to attack the super-exploitation of minority workers, preferring instead to divide the working class on behalf of the bourgeoisie. Businessmen are aware of this and pump large amounts of money into nationalist movements through their “public service” foundations (Ford, Rockefeller, Carnegie, etc.).
As all Marxist-Leninists know, the basis of modern capitalist society is class. All analyses and all Marxist movements must be based on class. Race is only one aspect of labor/capital class conflict.