Re: Black support for Mumia? (exchange on LBO-Talk)

["Chris Kromm" <ckromm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I believe the Freedom Road Socialist Organization has a pamplhet on Mumia
that talks about lack of support in the black community, and how best to
organize there. Try www.freedomroad.org


----- Original Message -----
From: Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, February 10, 2000 8:45 AM
Subject: Black support for Mumia? (exchange on LBO-Talk)


> Doug Henwood: "Maybe one of you could explain why Mumia's cause has failed
> to find >any significant black support."
>
> Yoshie Furuhashi:
> 1.  *General retreat of the Left from all things Leftist.*  Socialism,
> feminism, anti-racism, anti-imperialism -- you name a Left cause, and you
> find *a lot* of leftists who have turned conservative, retreated, given
up,
> or are now busy looking for an *excuse* to retreat or give up.  The most
> important cause for the lack of support, as far as I can see.
>
> 2.  The segment of black people who are the most likely to support the
> cause of Mumia -- the unemployed, intermittently unemployed,
> under-employed, frustrated with low wages; in other words, the strata who
> made the 60s radical -- are either in prisons themselves, caught somewhere
> in the web of criminal justice, beaten back by cuts in welfare, overworked
> & exhausted, (of all things!) employed in the security industry (e.g., law
> enforcement, prisons, private security, etc.), and so on.  The war on
> crime, more intense labor discipline, & widening inequality -- both within
> black communities and in America in general -- have taken their toll.
>
> 3.  Some black people have made significant advances in employment, and
> many black college students probably feel they have a "career" they can
> look forward to.  During the heydays of the Communist Party and black
> radical politics (with tensions and overlaps between them), Naison argues
> that many black people who became radical leaders were actually _very_
well
> educated, more educated than average white radicals probably, because few
> profitable employment opportunities _befitting_ their credentials were
open
> to educated black men & women.  Unlike now, educated black men and women
in
> the radical past had a reason to come to conclude that their talents and
> efforts were and would forever be _wasted_ because white & capitalist
> America had _no use_ for them.  Though, even now, many privileged
> African-Americans often feel slighted, insulted, humiliated, and generally
> treated as if they were still poor -- at work, on the road, in social
> settings -- they are keeping the stiff upper lip; they figure whites won't
> belive them, so they don't mention hidden injuries in public.  Confronting
> such hidden injuries in public has a consequence; you'll be seen as a
> "politically correct whiner with a victim mentality"!  So, they only talk
> about them amongst similarly situated blacks, when whites are not around.
>
> 4.  As with other workers, many black workers have moved to working-class
> suburbs, too, in the process becoming atomized.  Urbicide has weakened
> radical politics.  A new social base of solidarity has yet to be built up.
>
>
> Louis Proyect
>
> (The Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org)