Connexions Other Voices - February 14, 2017 - Race & Class

February 14, 2017

The February 14, 2017 issue of Other Voices, the Connexions newsletter, is now out. The theme of this issue is Race and Class.

Class conflict -- first and foremost, the relationship between the capitalist class and the working class -- is the fundamental contradiction that defines capitalist society. Class is a reality which simultaneously encompasses and collides with other dimensions of oppression and domination, such as gender and race. The relationship between race and class, in particular, is the theme of this issue of Other Voices.

The concept of "race" is a relatively recent invention, born out of the need to invent a justification for the enslavement of black Africans. Race theorists developed pseudo-scientific biological theories to 'explain' why Africans were 'inferior' and therefore could justly be enslaved. Race theory was then also used to justify and explain social hierarchy in other contexts. It is worth remembering that conservative European social thinkers long held that working people and the poor belonged to a biologically different 'race' than their social superiors. The French aristocrat and race theorist Gobineau wrote "Every social order is founded upon three original classes, each of which represents a racial variety: the nobility, a more or less accurate reflection of the conquering race; the bourgeoisie composed of mixed stock coming close to the chief race; and the common people who live in servitude or at least in a very depressed position. These last belong to a lower race which came about in the south through miscegenation with the negroes and in the north with the Finns."

It was in the Americas, and especially in the United States, a society founded on slavery, that ‘racial’ divisions were cultivated and sharpened to their highest degree. After Bacon's Rebellion in 1676, when black slaves and white indentured servants rose up together, the colonial elite began consciously to foster 'racial' divisions by granting poor whites a few social privileges (but not, in most cases, money or power). Immigrants who had been considered non-white and racially inferior, such as the Finns, the Irish, and Slavs from Eastern Europe, were 'promoted' into the "white race."

In the eyes of Karl Marx, the division between whites and blacks within the American working class (which in his analysis encompassed slaves as well as wage-workers) was the fundamental contradiction which stood in the way of developing class consciousness and creating a socialist movement.

In the 20th century, Communists and Trotskyists in particular stressed the central importance of challenging racism in order to build a united working class movement. In the last few years, this insight has been carried forward by other social movements. The concept of 'intersectionality' has recently come into vogue in some circles, though others argue that 'intersectionality' is actually a step backward in that it assumes that there are separate 'identities' that 'intersect', an approach which can end up seeing the differences but missing the whole.

These are questions which will continue to challenge us. In this issue of Other Voices, you’ll find a small selection of resources from a vast and ongoing social movement.


For more information contact:
Ulli Diemer
Connexions
Phone: -
Website: www.connexions.org/Media/CXNL-2017-02-12.htm