BLACK HISTORY MONTH
CHIN: Take our struggle to the streets
MOOREHEAD: Dr. King & the warmongers
Following are excerpts from talks by P. Chin and
Monica Moorehead at a Workers World Party Black History Month
forum in New York City on Feb. 15.
P. Chin
Historian Carter G. Woodson, born in Virginia in 1875,
ushered in Black History Month. In 1915, Woodson took on the
task of documenting the accomplishments of Black people in the
U.S. Years later, on Feb. 19, 1926, he launched "Negro History
Week." It was celebrated during the second week of February to
correspond to the birthdays of Frederick Douglass and Abraham
Lincoln.
Before then, Black people were mentioned only to reinforce
the racist less-than-human myth of inferiority. This central
aspect of racist ideology had been invented to justify the
trans-Atlantic slave trade--the 400-year holocaust against
African people that took an estimated 70 million lives.
In 1976 Black History Week was expanded into Black History
Month as part of the country's bicentennial celebration--a
country that, to this day, refuses to pay reparations for the
tremendous damage caused by the slave trade, and that has
sought to turn back the limited remedies of affirmative action
under the guise of the absurd notion of "reverse racism."
Then there's the attempt by big business to manipulate Black
History Month. So now you see multinational giants like
Coca-Cola, Mobil and Exxon--that exploit us at home and
super-exploit our sisters and brothers abroad--coming out in
support of Black History Month.
Now it goes without saying that it's good to study, reflect
on and celebrate history. This is especially important to we
who have faced the systematic, centuries-long attempt to
destroy our history and culture. But if we revolutionaries
could adjust things, we would change the focus of February to
Black History Month of Struggle.
If we simply study without struggling to change the world
our history will be obliterated. "Power concedes nothing
without a demand," in the words of Frederick Douglass. This is
most true at this particular time, with imperialist wars raging
abroad and the domestic assault on our civil rights to destroy
our movement for social and economic justice.
What if Black History Month organizers decided to hold their
meetings in the streets? Imagine the impact if all the
participants decided to demonstrate against the war and the
racist "Patriot Act," against racial profiling or in solidarity
with our Arab and Muslim sisters and brothers.
Monica Moorehead
I thought it would be appropriate to look back at a speech
made by Dr. King 35 years ago, entitled, "Beyond Vietnam: A
Time to Break Silence." King's speech dealt with the
imperialist war and its devastating impact on the masses here
and abroad.
King wanted to show the capitalists the error of their ways
in order to help them save their system--that unless they
ceased making war against the oppressed and became more humane,
they ran the risk of having their system overthrown by peoples'
revolutions.
King exposed the unspeakable horrors taking place in
Vietnam. King stated, "Increasingly, by choice or by accident,
this is the role that our nation has taken--the role of those
who make peaceful revolution impossible by refusing to give up
the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense
profits of overseas."
He continued, "When machines and computers, profit motives
and property rights are considered more important than people,
the giant triplets of racism, materialism and militarism are
incapable of being conquered."
Dr. King was not a Malcolm X or a Huey P. Newton, because
while he was passionately against the symptoms caused by the
capitalist system, he was not against the system that created
those symptoms.
As long as King restricted his program to winning bourgeois
democratic rights for Black people in the South, the ruling
class tolerated King. They hoped he would go no further than
fighting for concessions like voting rights and ending
desegregation, which posed no real threat to the stability of
the capitalist system.
But once King began to link U.S. foreign policy, which was
causing so much suffering abroad, to the suffering of the
oppressed masses at home, the bourgeoisie could tolerate him no
longer.
So what was the U.S. government's answer to Dr. King's pleas
to give reform a chance? They killed him. The lesson is that if
the ruling class won't listen to some one like King, someone
who shares their ideology, they won't listen to anyone.
The rulers of capitalism have had so many chances to right
the wrongs they have inflicted upon humanity. But because of
capitalism's innate drive to make profit, it has held back
social development and progress for humanity by
institutionalizing racism, sexism, lesbian, gay, bi and trans
oppression and deep-seated chauvinism.
Thirty-five years after Dr. King's speech, the ruling class
and its repressive state machinery are not for peace, harmony
or sharing the enormous wealth created by the workers, but are
more bloodthirsty, genocidal and monstrous than ever in the
quest to dominate the world.
But one of the main contradictions is that while this
capitalist system has globalized oppression, exploitation and
poverty, it has also globalized production. The capitalist
system has created its own gravediggers: the mighty
multinational working class.
And even though we may be commemorating Black History Month,
our concern is not only for the liberation of Black people. As
a Black communist, I am proud to say that all those on the
front lines battling the forces of imperialism are Black. And
the best way we can honor Black history is to be out in the
streets on April 27 for the national march on Washington, D.C.,
to mobilize against Bush's war at home and abroad by demanding
money for jobs and human needs, not war and racism.
Reprinted from the Feb. 28, 2002, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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