[Loot the labor and very being of people of African descent. When
they rise in response, resist, and give as little as possible. Then
wait for things to “calm down” and take back as much as possible.
] [[link removed]]

BLACK AMERICA: BEYOND 1968 THIS TIME  
[[link removed]]

 

Max Elbaum
June 4, 2020
Organizing Upgrade
[[link removed]]


*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
* [[link removed]]

_ Loot the labor and very being of people of African descent. When
they rise in response, resist, and give as little as possible. Then
wait for things to “calm down” and take back as much as possible.
_

, NYTimes.com

 

For four hundred years it’s been the American Way.

Loot the labor and very being of people of African descent. When they
rise in response, resist, and give as little as possible. Then wait
for things to “calm down” and take back as much as possible.

The tools have varied: Klan terrorism and poll taxes, real estate
redlining and school segregation, mass incarceration and militarized
police, last hired-first fired.

The pattern is the same. Racialize. Repress. Repeat.

It has recurred thousands and thousands of times since 1619. On
plantations and in factories, in rural hamlets and big cities, in
schools and business offices, parks, highways and city streets.

A CHANGE IS GONNA COME

The current uprising has galvanized a front against racism that is
wider and deeper than ever before. The defenders of white supremacy
are divided and anxiety-ridden, with hardly a tool left other than
naked force – a sign of their political weakness. If the energy now
evident in the streets can be organized, focused, and sustained, this
upsurge can make post-pandemic, post-uprising, and post-Trump America
a radically different place.

We have the experience and gains of previous upheavals against white
supremacy to build on.  The arc from abolitionism through the Civil
War to Reconstruction ended chattel slavery and gave us the landmark
13th, 14th and 15th Amendments. The Reconstruction-era state
governments in the South were the most progressive yet seen in these
Dis-United States, so infused with working class democracy that W.E.B.
DuBois termed them a dictatorship of the proletariat.

Reconstruction was overturned by the combination of white racist
terrorism and denial of the franchise to African Americans. The Jim
Crow system was set in place.

Eighty years later a new cycle burst forth from Montgomery, Alabama.
Powered by a decade of mass action, the Civil Rights Movement forced
an end to Jim Crow.  In its post-1965 Black Power/urban uprising
phase, the Black Freedom Movement added imperial war and economic
inequality to its prime target list.

In the two-decade arc of this Second Reconstruction, the African
American insurgency opened space for the birth or revitalization of
movements of all other oppressed constituencies. It was central to
ending racist immigration quotas, initiating Medicare, and providing
the anti-Vietnam War Movement with a heavyweight power punch.

Fifty years of backlash followed like night follows day. Rodney King.
Trayvon Martin. Michael Brown. Eric Garner. Ahmaud Arbery. Breonna
Taylor. George Floyd. And here we are.

2020 IS NOT 1968   

On the night of Martin Luther King’s assassination April 4, 1968
Black rebellions erupted in more than 100 cities. Flames came within
six blocks of the White House; 70,000 troops were called out to
“restore order.”

Tuesday, there were uprisings in 140 cities. President Trump
threatened to deploy the military. Trump’s top henchman, Attorney
General William Barr, ordered the teargassing of peaceful protesters
near the White House so Trump could pose for a photo-op holding a
Bible.

The pattern repeats, but several important things are different this
time around.

The millions who poured into the streets in the 1960s gave the
powers-that-were-then a damn good scare. More than a few of us
believed a final reckoning was near at hand.

Our ruling class opponents were divided on many things, but every
important faction saw the insurgents of 1968 – Black America first
and foremost – as a serious threat to their system of rule. They
were deeply worried about how much they would be forced to concede,
and what political price they would pay here and around the world for
the legalized murder they unleashed. But all sectors of the elite were
confident that when the blood dried, an imperial behemoth still
possessing unmatched economic muscle would prevail. Some unfortunate
adjustments would have to be made in their profit-making racket, but
the underlying structures they relied upon would stay mostly intact.

That is not the case today.

Ruling class unity and confidence has been badly shaken
[[link removed]]. Their
neoliberal economic order system is in tatters, still unrecovered from
the 2008 financial crisis and under fire from all quarters.
Washington’s global power has been steadily slipping away. The
government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic has made the U.S. a
global laughingstock, while casting a spotlight on this country’s
deep-rooted inequities. The current uprising has moved the country’s
longstanding racial fault line center stage and is generating a new
cohort of revolutionary fighters.

The result is a crisis holding greater danger but also greater
possibility than the high tide of 1968. The danger lies in the
potential imposition of a racist authoritarian state. The possibility
that exists is setting out on the path toward a Third Reconstruction
[[link removed]]
that will remake the country.

THE COUNTRY HAS CHANGED

In 1968, the Non-Hispanic whites made up over 80% of the U.S.
population. Today it is 60.4%
[[link removed]]. As of
2017, whites make up a minority of U.S. children
[[link removed]]
under 10 years old. If present trends continue the U.S. population
will be majority people of color in 20 to 25 years.

Generational politics are also working against defenders of the status
quo. Millennials (born 1981 to 1996) and Gen Xers (born 1997 and
after) are markedly to the left of older generations.  Half of white
Millennials
[[link removed]]
say racial discrimination is the main reason many Blacks are unable to
get ahead, 15% higher than any older white cohort.

The racial disparity in the impact of COVID-19 – who is dying, who
is infected, who is forced to work in unsafe conditions, who does not
have enough money to pay the rent or put food on the table, who makes
up a disproportionate share of the especially vulnerable incarcerated
population – has opened many eyes to how deep racism’s poison
runs.

A new cohort of creative racial justice activists, eloquent
spokespeople, tech-savvy organizers, break-new-ground researchers and
scholars, and radical elected officials has moved to the fore. Their
work has made organizations, titles, and phrases like these household
terms:

Black Lives Matter. Mass Incarceration. The New Jim Crow. The Squad.
The Half Has Never Been Told. Racial Capitalism. Selma. Sorry to
Bother You. Abolish ICE. Standing Rock. Islamophobia. The Movement for
Black Lives. Defund the Police.

The gender-inclusiveness of today’s upsurge is another huge
strength. Women and people whose sexuality did not fit into what was
considered “normal” have played indispensable roles in U.S.
movements since day one. But in 1968 those out front and setting the
tone were almost exclusively men, and the image of the rebellions was
frequently a black leather jacket. Today women, queer and trans people
[[link removed]] are out
front as well as behind the scenes, and the resulting
bring-your-entire-self welcome mat is a powerful magnet.

STRONGER ANTI-RACIST FRONT

All these factors and more have fed into the size, breadth of
participation, and passion visible in the streets. Today’s
anti-racist front enjoys broader public support for the protesters
than existed in 1968. A majority agrees
[[link removed]]
the police are more likely to use excessive force with a Black person
than a white person (up from only one- third four years ago) and 76% 
say that racial and ethnic discrimination is a big problem, up from
51% in 2015.

The result is a stronger and larger front against white supremacy. Its
strength is evident in the posture of most Democratic Party electeds.
Past cases of police murder followed by rebellions usually saw this
layer spend a hot minute condemning the abuse and then pivot to
condemning if not ordering repression of the protesters. The script is
somewhat different this time. At least so far, their main rhetorical
fire
[[link removed]]
is still directed at racism and the Trump administration’s push for
a harsh crackdown.

There is absolutely no room for complacency on this score. A raft of
fair-weather friends could defect at any time. But it is a sign of the
uprising’s strength that it has kept them mostly on board thus far.

TRUMP’S IRON FIST PLAYBOOK

The uprising’s diehard opponents are armed to the teeth. But they
are also gripped by fear.

Trump rode birtherism, immigrant bashing and anti-Muslim xenophobia to
the White House. His administration is the command post for racist
reaction today.

Even before the pandemic dented his re-election prospects, the
Trumpist bloc was moving in the direction of authoritarian rule. Big
sectors of his base really believe that if the country maintains even
its stunted electoral democracy (much less a genuine one person, one
vote system) “real (white, Christian) America” would come to an
end. (Public Enemy called out their mentality 30 years ago: Fear of a
Black Planet [[link removed]].) So Trump,
now facing another opponent he cannot bluff into submission, is
accelerating his attacks on the media, opposition voices inside and
outside of government, and all remaining democratic space. He slaps
the label of terrorist on Antifa and threatens ruthless repression,
while his Secretary of Defense calls for “dominating the battle
space.”
[[link removed]]

There could be a massacre tomorrow. And short of winning the demand
just raised by the Movement for Black Lives – ‘Trump Must
Resign’ – we are likely to see an effort to steal the 2020
election through some combination of voter suppression, vigilante
intimidation (or worse) at polling places, and refusal to accept the
results if a vote count says Trump has lost.

It will take a sustained effort – organized, focused and with the
same scale and militancy as the current uprising – to prevent that
from being successful.

TOWARD A THIRD RECONSTRUCTION

There is an anti-Trump wing of the ruling class. Their preferred
candidate prevailed in the March Democratic primaries, campaigning on
their then-consensus that winning in November should translate into
returning the country to normal.

As the COVID-19 pandemic deepened and mass discontent heightened, that
stance was abandoned. After getting Bernie Sanders’ endorsement,
Biden announced that he was for “sweeping economic change
[[link removed]],”
not a return to the past. As the uprising has unfolded, Biden and
other top-level Democrats have been scrambling to keep up, denouncing
Trump’s repression and promising action on several items demanded by
the protesters.

This scramble indicates that (1) they are susceptible to pressure; and
(2) they are not united around an overarching vision of their own
about where to take the country. They don’t like Trump; they don’t
like those who don’t think “proper channels” are sufficient to
dismantle white supremacy. But they are operating more out of inertia
than any coherent plan to tackle the interlocking crises of racial
injustice, neoliberal stagnation, unprecedented economic inequality,
COVID-19, and climate change.

This means the forces demanding systemic change and international
cooperation hold significant leverage. What will happen if Trump is
beaten depends less on what Biden or his inner circle prefer than on
the degree to which the righteous rage of today can be transformed
into a durable political force.

The motion of Black America will be decisive. The current uprising and
the response of different class and social forces ought to remove all
doubt that race and racism lie at the very center of this country’s
current polarization. It is overwhelming evidence that the Black
Freedom Movement is once again the driving, galvanizing force for
social change.

It is up to all movements and people of conscience to mesh with this
driving force. To join those who have been waging the workplace,
tenant, and public health fights during COVID-19 and those immersed in
the urgent fights against climate change and war with those rebelling
in the streets. The task is to forge a larger and more united version
of the surges that gave us the First and Second Reconstruction, with
clarity on the intimate connection between racism and capitalism.

The uphill climb will likely be slower and have more twists and turns
than we would like. That’s the messy world of politics. But the
building blocks for a Third Reconstruction
[[link removed]] that cuts deeper into every unjust
structure in the country are in place. Black America is leading the
charge that can propel us all into a new and better era.

_Max Elbaum has been active in peace, anti-racist and radical
movements since the 1960s. He is an editor of Organizing Upgrade and
the author of Revolution in the Air: Sixties Radicals Turn to Lenin,
Mao and Che (Verso Books, Third Edition, 2018)_

_Read original article to see and hear Tamika Mallory cut to the heart
of the matter in a great video._

Rebellions, repression, and elections will be the focus of our next
episode of THIS IS NOT A DRILL: LIVE. Join us for this important
conversation on WEDNESDAY, JUNE 10 AT 5 PT / 8 ET, when our all-star
lineup will include NELINI STAMP, JENNIFER EPPS-ADDISON, TAMI SAWYER,
and MAX ELBAUM.

JUNE 10, THIS IS NOT A DRILL LIVE: REBELLIONS, REPRESSION, ELECTIONS

 

[Image]
[[link removed]]

The explosion of the largest urban rebellions in the U.S. since the
1960s has sharpened the political and economic crises that were
already unfolding. In the backdrop of these overlapping crises,
November's election looms large, as Trump's promised escalation of
state violence and his drumming up of authoritarian sentiments puts
the high stakes of the general election into sharp relief.

How do these urban rebellions and the state's violent reaction reshape
the political terrain? What new capacities do we now have and what new
challenges must we grapple with to defeat Trump and grow our
movements? Join us for the next episode of This is Not a Drill: LIVE
as we talk political and electoral strategy in the face of uprisings,
pandemic, and crisis.

Hosts Adam Gold and Rishi Awatramani are joined by special guests
NELINI STAMP (Working Families Party), JENNIFER EPPS-ADDISON (Center
for Popular Democracy), TAMI SAWYER (Black Voters Matter), and MAX
ELBAUM (Organizing Upgrade).

*_ Organizations listed for identification purposes only_

Register
[[link removed]]


*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
* [[link removed]]

 

 

 

INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT

 

 

Submit via web [[link removed]]
Submit via email
Frequently asked questions [[link removed]]
Manage subscription [[link removed]]
Visit xxxxxx.org [[link removed]]

Twitter [[link removed]]

Facebook [[link removed]]

 




[link removed]

To unsubscribe, click the following link:
[link removed]