FIST: Youth want change now
From a talk given by Stephanie Nichols to the Nov. 13-14
National Fightback Conference.
More voters overall went to the polls on Nov. 2 than they
did four years ago--but only 17 percent of them were young
people between the ages of 18 and 29. That was the same
percentage as the youth vote in 2000.
The number of young voters increased by only 1.8 percent
over the last election. And the youth vote was split, with 54
percent for John Kerry and 44 percent for George W. Bush.
However, when you hit the streets with a radical, militant
and politically charged protest such as the Million Worker
March, the percentage of youths who come out to fight increases
dramatically.
Youth want change. Now. Youth are the most affected by this
destructive system. Our futures are being destroyed by
imperialism. We are the ones being sent to war. We are the ones
being killed by war and globalization, on both sides.
In this country, 39 percent of the homeless population is
under the age of 18. At least 1.35 million U.S. children are
actually homeless on any given night. The average age of a
homeless person in the U.S. is 9 years old. On top of that, the
National Network of Runaway and Youth Services estimated that
20 to 40 percent of youths who become homeless each year are
lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans.
And what does minimum wage mean for us? Even though youth
between the ages of 16 and 24 account for only about 20 percent
of all documented workers, they make up about 50 percent of all
workers who earn minimum wage. And that's not counting how many
young people are affected by their parents being forced to work
low-wage jobs.
Many youths under the age of 16 also work earning minimum
wages or below. Child labor under harsh and often deadly
conditions still exists in this country. Many are undocumented
immigrants sending money home to their families, often working
cheaply in factories and on farms.
So, why should youth join a revolutionary party? What
distinguishes our party from other tendencies such as
anarchism, which many progressive-minded youths tend be
attracted to?
Young people have always led independent struggles
worldwide--from Iraq to Palestine to South Africa to Northern
Ireland--everywhere willing to fight, often giving their lives,
for what limited rights are gained for the working class and
oppressed under the capitalist system.
FIST, Fight Imperialism--Stand Together, is a revolutionary
youth movement. Several young members of Workers World Party,
including me, formed FIST as a way for youth interested in
socialist ideas to get involved in something with solid
politics to fight back against the repressive capitalist system
as a whole.
In our relatively new existence, there has been a big demand
from youth across the country to learn more about FIST, and to
get involved and fight with FIST.
Youth need answers. What differentiates us from many other
youth groups is that we have the solid politics of a strong
socialist party behind us. Workers World Party developed many
of its leading revolutionaries through YAWF--Youth Against War
and Fascism--during the militant struggles of the 1960s and
1970s.
Our party is a multi-national, multi-gender force because we
fight in solidarity with every struggle against racism, sexism
and lesbian/gay/bi/trans oppression. This is because we know
that all of these things are the results of capitalism and are
used to divide the working class in an effort to keep us from
uniting together and rising up to demand our human rights to
education, health care, a job, housing and a living wage.
We also join the anti-war movement because we know that
imperialism not only steals from peoples around the world, but
steals from the working class at home as well. The billions of
dollars pumped into war are directly stolen from working
people. And it is from the poorest and most oppressed youths
that the military gathers its cannon fodder.
We have nothing against anarchists. They are a very
important part of the movement, with revolutionary potential.
But anarchy doesn't offer any actual solution to this system.
It draws in many youths because of its association with direct
action and rebellion. But it is just that and only that, a
spontaneous reaction to the effects of capitalism, without
giving a complete political analysis or understanding of this
system or the ruling class.
FIST is here to unite and educate all working-class and
oppressed youths through struggle, and through action.
What drew me to Workers World Party is the fact that not
only do we fight for the rights of all oppressed and working
people, but we offer and fight for the real solution to the
exploitation of the working class, racism and national
oppression, sexism, LGBT oppression, war, poverty and
homelessness. The solution, if you have not already guessed, is
socialism.
I sat down next to Bobby T. at my first coalition meeting in
early January this year. I leaned over and asked him, "Are you
a communist?" He answered, "Yes I am." "I want to be a
communist," I told him. He said, "Well, you came to the right
place." I've been a communist ever since.
Reprinted from the Dec. 2, 2004, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
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