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About Street roots. (Portland, OR) 1998-current | View Entire Issue (May 11, 2018)
Street Roots • May 11-17, 2018 News FLETCHER, from page 5 enough to just win. It’s like, how do we deepen this? When we see that, then we’ll know if we have a new labor movement. E .G .: Finally, I was hoping you could speak about racism’s role in capitalism and your thoughts on whether we can have a capitalist society without it. No. I will speak about it, but my answer is no. One thing that many forces in the black freedom movement did not appreciate was that you can’t get rid of racism without getting rid of capitalism. And one of the things that many white progressives and leftists don’t appreciate is that you can’t get rid of capitalism unless you take on racism. You won’t end racism until we’ve ended capitalism, but in order to end capitalism, you have to engage in the fight around racism. Because what happened in the very foundation of this country was the interpenetration of race into the construction of capitalism. The settler colonialism, who was defined as legitimate and illegitimate - the construction of racial slavery out of indentured servitude as a mechanism as both social control - as well as obtaining incredible amount of unpaid labor, was necessary for the construction of capitalism. It’s what Marx talked about in terms of primitive accumulation, and what David Harvey talks about in terms of accumulation by dispossession. All of these things were critical, and so you can’t remove the stains of racism without addressing U .S . L IB R A R Y O F C O N G R E S S icial justice is a Progressive presidential candidate Robert M . LaFollette S r (left) and capitalism. ilonism that says we need a The problem with Samuel Gompers in 1924. ovenaenl Io* the class, a the Bernie Sanders ovemenl that goes beyond campaign, which I white. For the Irish, it went on for a while, supported in jilting lot Individual When I went to in part because the English hated the Irish, general, was that »»gaining «nits and not Just Ireland in 1988, I’d race was not central and the Irish, when they first came here, hear this term, “anti- »lending those people who to Bernie Sanders’ always stirred up trouble. It was really Irish racism.” Now, ippen to be ration members, narrative, neither remarkable. They’d give guns to the as this African- 's a trade nnlonlsm that Indians, help the slaves and all this stuff - it was gender. This American radical »visions a labor movement ol great book called was wonderful. from the United The problem is after the potato famine, “The Many-Headed States who always they came en masse, and they made a Hydra” puts it all associated racism decision to become white people, which together, about the with color, it was meant helping to suppress the Indians, way that race and like, “How the hell is helping to suppress the African Americans. gender were there ‘Irish’ racism?” from the very beginning. That was the price of admission. That Walking around Northern Ireland, as my It wasn’t like there was some sort of pure wasn’t part of the narrative of the Sanders father would say, “No bout-a doubt it. You capitalism that was developed, and then all campaign. We have to introduce that could see it. It penetrated everything in of a sudden someone said, Let s bring in narrative; it’s got to be part of everything terms of the way Irish were treated, in this racial thing.” What the British did we talk about. People have to understand Northern Ireland and in Britain. But not though, is that they introduced a certain that. Otherwise there’s no emancipation, when it comes to the United States. So form of racism that was based upon what there’s no victory, because race becomes what happens in the United States? They they had succeeded doing in Ireland with the skeleton in the graveyard, the hand become white people. They are no longer the racialization of the indigenous Irish comes out from the grave and grabs you by an inferior race as they were in Ireland. population. What most people in the United your ankles and won’t let you out of the Now, when you become white people, you States don’t understand, and what most graveyard. That’s where we are. have to prove it. There is a probationary Irish Americans don’t understand, is that period for all European immigrant groups when the British said that the Irish are an E .G .: Can you explain what you mean during which time they are not considered inferior race, they meant it. Page 7 when you speak about “social justice unionism”? Let me do it in reverse. In the late 19th Century, Samuel Gompers, out of the cigar workers union, an immigrant, former socialist, rose to lead the newly-formed American Federation of Labor, and he rejected his socialist background and rejected a certain current in trade unionism and advanced what has come to be known as “bread and butter unionism” or “pure and simple trade unionism.” The idea was that unions should fight for wages, hours and working conditions, they should not form or try to form a labor party, they should deal pragmatically with the existing party structures, and among other things, they should constantly reaffirm their patriotism to the United States. Particularly after 1898, what that meant was supporting U .S. foreign policy. That brand of unionism became hegemonic in the United States. It didn’t mean that there weren’t other currents - Industrial Workers of the World had a very different approach to trade unionism and the left wing within what came to be known as the Congress of Industrial Organizations had a different notion - but Gompers’ view was really the dominant force. With the Cold War of the 1940s, the left wing in the labor movement was, to a great extent, crippled; in some cases absolutely destroyed, and Gompersism rises. Social justice unionism is a unionism that says we need a movement for the class, a movement that goes beyond fighting for individual bargaining units and not just d e fe n d in g th o s e p e o p le w h o h a p p e n to b e union members. It’s a trade unionism that envisions a labor movement of the working class. Clearly, that includes fighting for wages, hours and working conditions, but it also includes fighting for the broader interests of the working class, whether that is the homeless, the unemployed, people that frequently find themselves in the informal (gig) economy. It’s a different vision of unionism, and it says that all of that is part of a labor movement. Gompers rejected that. For Gompers, the labor movement and the trade union movement were synonymous, and the trade union movement happened to be, during his time, largely white and dominated by males, so the social justice unionism is embracing diversity and a fight for power. The final point is that we need a movement that is proactive and that puts an agenda for working people at the heart of its political and legislative efforts. That does not necessarily mean setting up a third party. That’s a whole other discussion, but it means whether you are operating within the Democratic Party, nonpartisan situation, or a third party, that the issue of a working people’s agenda needs to be central. emily@streetroots. org Twitter @greenwrites
