International Strategy No.

Winter 1996

THE BLACK ISSUE IN USA TODAY

Eva Guerrero and Gustavo Dunga

The Negro question under capitalism The question black and III International American blacks in the decline of the empire Black struggle resurfaces ... and the preparations of the fascists The failure of affirmative action and the need for a revolutionary policy The revolt of Los Angeles, tension and subsequent uproar after the OJ Simpson trial, the march of "a million black men" are clear examples of the appearance with all sharpness of "black issue". It's not just the U.S. We have seen the emergence of "black problem" also in countries such Brazil where there was no tradition of fighting for the rights of black people with much continuity as in the U.S. The reappearance of this political phenomenon is explained by the imperialist crisis hits first on the oppressed. The black population that suffers both in Africa-the poorest in the world, and among its members scattered throughout the imperialist countries and the semicolonies.

THE BLACK ISSUE UNDER CAPITALISM

The imperialist plunder the African continent immersed in true barbaric conditions. In past centuries, black 200 million were transferred to serve as slaves in the colonial plantations that enriched the metropolis, killing nearly half of them on the road, in the infect holds of slave ships. All this to stand up to industrial capitalism. In the imperialist era, Africa was spoils of England, France, Portugal, Belgium, Germany and Italy and one of the centers of their rivalries that led to these powers to the First World War. About 200 million blacks were uprooted from their homeland and brought as slaves for 300 years to the American colonies. From here served to raise capitalism in Western Europe and then to build the most powerful imperialist country in the world, United States. It was a process that caused death, disease and misery aberrant recoil more inhuman levels of an entire continent squeezed as the price development of the imperial powers, of which ate crumbs for decades the labor aristocracy, which he turned his back to the looting, destruction, to the reality of a black nation divided and plundered. The question black U.S. should be seen as part of the struggle of black people throughout the world to end their oppression. Yankee Imperialism, which stood since the late nineteenth century, had as a condition of its emergence the establishment of "apartheid" for freed blacks, while posing as the champion of democracy to the world. Industrialization in South Africa, looked at the phenomenon of the rise of the proletariat hand colored segregationist measures culminating in the establishment of a kind of "apartheid", supported by the state and the South African army, leaders of the counterrevolution in the continent. The anti-colonial struggles after World War II led to the formal independence of all continental Africa. It was the time of the fall of empires British, French and Belgian, and the emergence of new power indisputable: U.S. But the anti-colonial revolutions were frozen by being led by bourgeois nationalists (Egypt, Algeria, Sudan) or Stalinist addresses such as Mozambique and Angola, and backed up to the current situation, in which these countries are imperialist and semi again sink under the direct exploitation of the imperialist monopolies, under the burden of foreign debt under the imposition of bloody dictatorships that guarantee that prey (as in Nigeria), tribal wars fueled by various imperialist powers (Rwanda, Liberia, etc..) 1 .

QUESTION BLACK AND III INTERNATIONAL

The "black issue" remains highly topical today to grant him the Third International at the time. It is one of the clearest signs that imperialism is the decadent phase of capitalism and that after more than a century, commitment to the oppressed peoples output other than the collapse in extreme misery and condemned to suffer the worst diseases, recurring wars and massacres. To delve further into how the black matter manifested today in the U.S. we start to reclaim the vision of the Third International on the Negro question as one people struggle manifested across continents and borders, and the essential role that lies with black Americans in the struggle for the liberation of black people as a whole: "The Civil War brought out not to free blacks, but to maintain the industrial supremacy of northern capitalists, put the black obliged to choose between southern slavery and wage labor in the North. muscles, blood, black tears 'liberated', helped the establishment of American capitalism, and when, become a world power, the America was drawn into the world war, the black American was declared the same target to kill and be killed for democracy. Four thousand workers of color have been enrolled in American troops, where they have formed regiments' Jim Crow ". Just came out of the war, black soldiers, who returned home, they were persecuted, lynched, deprived of all freedom, murdered and nailed to the pillory. They fought but to assert themselves, they had to pay dearly. They have been persecuted even more than before the war, to teach them to 'stay in place'. The broad participation of blacks in the industry after the war, the spirit of rebellion that aroused in them the brutalities of the victims, puts blacks in America and, especially, to North America, to the forefront of the struggle against oppression Africa "(Theses on the Negro question).

AMERICAN BLACK AMERICANS IN DECLINE OF THE EMPIRE

Workers in the U.S. since '81 are quickly losing their conquests. Reagan, after the defeat of the strike of air traffic controllers, advanced without brakes. School grants, unemployment insurance, loans to minorities, health insurance, job programs for youth, were limited or eliminated. The Bush era did not only accentuate this trend. Some figures prove it: the deficit in 1988 was U $ S 155 100 000 000 was doubled in 1992 to U $ S 290 billion, with the worst average annual growth of the country since the '30s: 0.7% . Following the weakening of the economy and the recession, Clinton can only display a brief cyclical economic rebound. The reality is that in the last sixteen years Republicans and Democrats have managed to accentuate social polarization. All of the richest greatly increases their profits, while at the other end fall poorest income. The unemployment and wage cuts hit many important sectors of the working class and within the class, the most affected are blacks and Hispanics. Historically the area of the black minority employee received a salary between 60% and 70% of whites receiving. By 1994, 35.6 million Americans were below the level of the "poverty line". Those companies owned 11% of the total white population, 25% of Hispanics and 33% of blacks. Blacks Being 12% of the total population, life expectancy is 10% less than whites. Are 80% of the prison population and 95% of those sentenced to death, 30% of military troops. A third of young black men is in prison or on parole. 60% of black children live in households where the head of household is a woman alone, there are three times more black single mothers (33%) than white (12%). Three million fatherless black children rely solely on handouts from the state to survive and remain without it through the joint efforts of Republicans and Democrats (Sources: The Economist, 02/24/96, Newsweek, 8/30/93; Workers Vanguard No. 631, 20/10/95). Blacks are the preferred prey of the police raids. Although they have a drug effect proportional to the whites, they are seen as the main users and traffickers. Police repression exerted on them with special brutality being black, especially black and young is to be suspicious, but young blacks are three times more likely to be victims of murder than whites of the same age, their expectations upward mobility have declined from half to be the third of that of whites. They form part of a greater proportion of the sectors that have only state aid (in the form of food stamps, hospitals, schools, etc..) And therefore will suffer-and suffer-the drastic reduction of social expenditures. They are also those who suffer the consequences of rising unemployment.

Black workers are and have always been privileged victims of company closures and layoffs "restructuring", for example, in the "Ring of Steel" in Detroit.

RESURGE BLACK FIGHT ... AND FINISHING OF FASCIST

This increased social polarization and degradation of the situation of blacks in the U.S. revolt broke out in Los Angeles in 1992. With unprecedented violence, where not only blacks, but also Hispanics, destroyed everything they had at their disposal, expressing his hatred and fury against racist justice had to acquit the cops who beat Rodney King savagely, and against everyday misery and repression. The verdict in the criminal trial of former football player OJ Simpson was found not guilty that showed the two extremes: on the part of the whites, and especially of the publishers of the bourgeois press, all his indignation. Instead blacks and oppressed minorities came to celebrate by thousands to the streets in various types of demonstrations. For them, the ruling marked a victory for those who are trampled daily by racist justice and police. The "march of a million men" was one of the highlights of the new development of the black movement in the U.S. and the blooming of a true "national consciousness" of black people in this country, we can also see on your cultural event in the lyrics of hundreds of songs, rap, or the appreciation of the figure of Malcolm X. In return for the actions of the black population have seen a large increase in the shares and members openly fascist organizations. Examples are the militias of Michigan, who blew up the building of the Bureau of Snuff, Firearms and Alcohol in Oklahoma. Or the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan in the state of Mississippi in 1996 so far burned 16 churches where it meets the black community. Or the "Freemen Militia" in Montana. It is calculated that 100,000 members of these militias, recruited middle-class sectors hit by the crisis, claiming the superiority of the white man, calling for an end to tax the federal government and blame blacks and immigrants from the crisis. For those who came to predict the "end of history", the struggle of blacks and the development of a future fascist gangs very convulsive displayed in the very heart of the empire, showing the inability of capitalism in its decadent phase of integrating the black people and other oppressed minorities.

THE FAILURE OF AFFIRMATIVE ACTION AND THE NEED A REVOLUTIONARY POLICY

During the '50s and '60s were developed civil rights struggles. These struggles forced the imperialist bourgeoisie to promote "affirmative action", ie formal removing all limitations of civil rights and access to public office and larger quotas in education. Thus, a minority sector of the black population joined the establishment consolidating a sector of small black bourgeoisie and bourgeoisie, and being planted in the whole community the illusion that could be fulfilled the aspirations of equality of blacks in the framework of democracy imperialist. The formidable force staged by the black masses, who dragged large sections of the proletariat and its allies white student, was diverted and aborted by the work of the reformist and the absence of a revolutionary leadership that raised a prospect to join these fights the formidable global mass upsurge that began to develop from the late '60s and in the United States included the radicalization of youth (mainly against the Vietnam War) and a major labor struggles cycle. The politics of Martin L. King, who dragged his followers behind the flags of the Democratic Party, the policy of radical groups like the Panthers, Black Power, Malcolm X, etc.. -That even glimpsed a tie with the exploited peoples of the world, could not overcome stagist utopian aspects, together with the repression by the imperialist state (killing or jailing these leaders when they began to aim at even more radical positions, raising the unity with the working class or colonial peoples), bled these struggles. Once headless black movement, demoralized or missing their top activists co-opted by a small sector dividends "boom", and

excited the rest of the formal concessions, the black masses for political earned only as a source of bargaining imperialist electoral . A truly revolutionary politics, not drag after the reformists or after radical utopianism, might have helped to define the best elements of the black movement, including many of his radical youth cadres honest, incorporating the internationalist revolutionary struggle in itself within the main imperialist power, at the same time when it was defeated in Vietnam and flourishing worldwide a powerful proletarian mass ascent. The hopes raised by the small gains of the "affirmative action" for the majority of the black community long gone, washed away by the reality of the ghettos, police repression, unemployment, discrimination and lack of future, as figures show life expectancy, crime, differentiated wages, social mobility, etc.. Because the dynamics of the imperialist epoch, every conquest wrested from capitalist-imperialist state which does not destroy the source of misery and oppression (the imperialism itself) ends losing by the same attack of operators in their insatiable thirst for profits. Not only was false bourgeois project of integrating blacks, but have run out of real support base black reformist leaderships proposing this way. The facts above mentioned objectives have been greening nationalism and separatism. Farrakhan addresses as reactionary attempt to give an outlet to the movement and prevent them from developing their full potential. The resurgence of nationalism expresses a legitimate feeling product of objective conditions of oppression and exploitation suffered by black people, an attempt to build an identity that free exploitation of imperialism and racism. For us there can be no truly revolutionary party in the U.S. if not fed by the most oppressed and exploited the proletariat, in this case, blacks and Latinos. Every revolutionary party should aspire to join their ranks with these sectors. To achieve this, it is imperative that the Trotskyists lift up blacks the right to selfdetermination (and even separation from their own state if they intend). As Trotsky pointed out, this would allow us to talk to the black masses are saying that because they are the ones who decide whether to stay in a common state with whites, or want to build a state. While we explained that we as Trotskyists, we believe it would be better to give the fight against imperialism in the context of the same State with white workers. This policy is the only one that will allow us to win the trust of the black masses, undermined by centuries of racism and exploitation. Defending the right to self-determination of black people (including the construction of a state of their own), must be one of the shafts to lift in a program of action for the whole proletariat intervention Yankee program that articulating democratic demands of oppressed minorities to claim white proletarian socialist directly, we tried approach in International Strategy No. 2.