June 25, 2012 |
At the Working-Class Studies conference last weekend, I heard an
amazing dialogue about class, race and movement-building by five
progressive journalists and activist scholars: Juan Gonzalez of
Democracy Now!, Frances Fox Piven, Bill Fletcher Jr. of
Blackcommentator.com, and former
New York Times columnist Bob Herbert of Demos, with conference organizer Michael Zweig, author of
The Working Class Majority moderating.
I was struck by how openly they disagreed with each other in front of
us 200 listeners, by how passionate all five of them are about creating a
more just society, and by what vast depth of experience they brought to
the panel. Here are some highlights:
Juan Gonzalez: We have to start saying “working class” again.
When politicians say “the middle class,” their purpose is to exclude
poor and immigrant labor from the American people. The key
responsibility of progressives is to reject this concept of the middle
class.
Frances Fox Piven: The Citizens United Supreme Court decision
(allowing corporate personhood and unlimited secret spending on
elections) raises the problem of propaganda in the US. We’ve always had
corporate and elite propaganda, but now the problem is much worse. The
complexity of the financial crisis makes populist organizing difficult.
The Citizens United decision is responsible for the defeat of the
Wisconsin recall vote (to remove anti-union Governor Scott Walker); we
are watching the downfall of representative democracy. A
disruptive movement is needed.
Bill Fletcher: Just as in the movie
When Worlds Collide,
in which only a few people can escape a collision of planets, the
capitalist class senses an impending disaster – and the disaster is all
of us! They learned from Obama’s election and the Wisconsin recall (47%
is a lot of people) that they can no longer rule through electoral
politics, and they are debating among themselves what other means they
should turn to. That’s the implication of the Citizens United ruling.
The chickens are coming home to roost on unions’ failure to educate
their own members.
Bob Herbert: The US is in much worse shape than the media reveal. My next book is called
The Wounded Colossus.
100 million people are poor or near poor, one-third of the US
population. Even the solidly middle class are in deep trouble, heading
towards poverty, with the cost of college,homes under water, debt,
health care costs and no job security. We already were not a functioning
democracy before Citizens United. President Obama won’t even say the
word “poor,” only “the middle class.” There’s no way to replace 14
million lost jobs.
Frances Fox Piven: To revive working-class movements, don’t start with existing unions.
Juan Gonzalez: Latin America has broken free of the US and
gone in a different direction; so have parts of the Arab world, charting
their own course. US capitalists are desperate and are turning to
re-conquering Europe by taking away its social progress. Immigrants are
the most progressive portion of the US working class. Think about the
Republic Windows and Doors occupation!
Bill Fletcher: Economically precarious white people must come
to see that Mitt Romney is not their champion. How can that happen? The
difficulty in building working-class solidarity is race. Saying “middle
class” symbolizes escape from the bottom, from poverty. It’s not about
tactics; first we have to re-shape the concept of unions by re-defining
class.
Bob Herbert: There’s no coherent message, no definition of
“working-class.” The one unifying issue is employment. If you don’t
address race you’re lost from the jump. If people aren’t educated about
divide and conquer tactics, about how their interests coincide, about
the common interests of all who work, we won’t be able to fight back
against divide-and-conquer.
Michael Zweig – If we buy into the idea that “most Americans
are middle-class, except for the poor and the rich,” we’re buying into a
racialized concept, because “middle-class” is presumed white and “poor”
is presumed black. It’s wrong: two-thirds of the poor are white, and
three-quarters of African Americans are not poor. In New Orleans, John
Edwards stood in the Ninth Ward [a mostly black neighborhood] to
announce his “Two Americas” campaign, but there are more poor whites
than blacks in Louisiana. When you allow that to stand, then poor whites
say, “What about me?”
Bob Herbert: That’s an intellectual argument that won’t
persuade white racists. Some whites don’t want to be associated with
poor blacks. Just talk about jobs for all.
Frances Fox Piven: Bob says the two unifying issues are jobs
and avoiding divide-and-conquer – but jobs have long been the Right’s
issue; stressing them will lead to President Romney. We over-rely on
jobs, but we do care about what kind of jobs, paying how much, producing
what, how ecologically. Pay more attention to race. When the Tea Party
members yell “Take it back!,” they mean take it back from people of
color. We have to have a dialogue on race to get solidarity across race.
Bob Herbert: It’s not going to happen. Racism is too
entrenched. The evil-doers are too well-funded. Blacks will get more by
fighting for themselves, like in the 1950s and ‘60s. We have a black
president who won’t even say the word “black”! Cross-race solidarity
won’t happen.
Bill Fletcher: A militant African American movement is
not
inconsistent with working-class solidarity. When blacks are passive,
racism and division increases. When blacks are active, they chip away at
racism. A majoritarian block won’t include all whites, but will include
some. To deconstruct the racial myth held by so many whites, we need a
strong left, not wishful thinking about a “kumbaya moment,” but really
dealing with the class divide.
Bob Herbert: They are still two separate issues: a militant
black-initiated movement for racial justice and a working-class
movement. If you focus on race, whites will bolt; they won’t enter.
Audience member: There were several historical moments when many whites stood up for black rights, in the 1930s, the 1960s.
Bob Herbert: I vehemently disagree. Most whites voted against
Barack Obama. Look at the voting rights attacks now, and the police
doing stop-and-frisk in New York City.
Juan Gonzalez: The persistence of racism is amazing. It used
to be that the US was segregated in two homogeneous worlds, white and
black. Today’s young people are different, even young whites; they live
mixed-race lives. But the ruling circles need those divisions. We fail
to understand the critical role of the mass media, the absence of
working-class perspectives in the media. What newspaper is waging a
campaign against inequality? We need independent media.
Democracy Now!
is a phenomenal success, but it’s just one show.
The discussion after the panel was heated, with lots of arguing about racism, unions and movement-building strategy.
I noticed that the most pessimistic panelist, Bob Herbert, was also the
one with the least activist experience; the most hopeful panelists were
those who have been social change practitioners as well as political
observers.
For myself, my reaction was to agree with Bill Fletcher and Frances Fox
Piven that the solutions won’t be found just in electoral politics and
existing unions; change will come primarily from movement-building and
strategic campaigns of (nonviolent) disruptive direct action.
It would be great if this dialogue could continue here in the Classism
Exposed comment section. What are your reactions to what these 5 diverse
renowned progressives said?
Betsy Leondar-Wright is a long-time
activist for economic justice and former Communications Director for at
United for a Fair Economy. She co-authored “The Color of Wealth: The
Story Behind the US Racial Wealth Divide” and authored “Class Matters:
Cross-Class Alliance Building for Middle-Class Activists.”
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