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About This Blog

The Multiracial Unity Blog presents a class perspective on racism and calls for multiracial organizing to build unity among the workers of the world. It will explore the origins of racism and nationalism, the history of multiracial struggles, and the defeats due to capitulation to racist and nationalist ideas.

The blog includes an analysis of racism and white skin privilege, stories where workers engaged in multiracial organizing and where they rejected it, and posts on more current anti-racist activities around the world.

We hope our readers promote unity among workers regardless of nationality, racial categories, sexual orientation, and the many ways people identify themselves. We have much to learn from one another to make our class stronger.

As supporters of struggles against racism, we commend the Progressive Labor Party for its emphasis on multiracial fight backs against racism and nationalism. PLP (www.plp.org) is an international party, founded in the U.S. 50 years ago, that believes that capitalism must be overthrown in favor of communism and that racism and nationalism are the main obstacles that inhibit this struggle. We welcome information about other groups that engage in class-based anti-racism.

“The Road Not Taken” by Lerone Bennett

(From Lerone Bennett, The Shaping of Black America. Chicago: Johnson Publishing Co., 1975, pp. 61-82. Originally published in Ebony, vol. 25 (August, 1970), pp. 71- 77).

A nation is a choice. It chooses itself at fateful forks in the road by turning left or right, by giving up something or taking something — and in the giving up and the taking, in the deciding and not deciding, the nation becomes. And ever afterwards, the nation and the people who make up the nation are defined by the fork and by the decision that was made there, as well as by the decision that was not made there. For the decision, once made, engraves itself into the landscape, engraves itself into things, into institutions, nerves, muscles, tendons; and the first decision requires a second decision, and the second decision requires a third, and it goes on and on, spiraling in an inexorable process which distorts everything and alienates everybody.

Continue reading ““The Road Not Taken” by Lerone Bennett”

Migration: A Reflection of Capitalism

MIGRATION: A REFLECTION OF CAPITALISM

By Ellen Isaacs

Appearing in Zmag, July 2016

The news is full of tragic and shocking stories of the flight of refugees, such as the 12.6 million Syrians internally or externally displaced and over 1000 drowned in June in the Mediterranean Sea. Today, more desperate refugees are seeking shelter in Europe than at any time since World War II.

In this article we will examine why so many people in the world have been driven to flee their homes, the status of migration in the world today, and why capitalism and imperialism are responsible for this phenomenon. We will also explore how nationalism and racism, inventions of capitalism, are used to justify mass displacements and make them more acceptable. Continue reading “Migration: A Reflection of Capitalism”

What is racism?

The Editors

Racism is a system that disadvantages one group over another through economic, political, and ideological practices and policies. Structural racism reflects the history of US policies that serve those in power in a society. Those in power who own companies or control financial institutions (the ruling class) need to increase their profits by holding down costs and speeding up production. From the beginning of US history, the planters looked for the cheapest labor and chose African men and women to work their land. To justify their choice, they promoted the concept of race-that African people deserved enslavement while European white people could be “free” and earn wages. The ruling class, the landowners and bankers of that time, structured society to give themselves power and access to wealth while relegating the workers to low or no wages based on what they defined as “race.” Continue reading “What is racism?”

RACISM HURTS ALL WORKERS

THE FALLACY OF WHITE SKIN PRIVILEGE

The Editors

The concept of white skin privilege acknowledges the differences in exploitation and oppression faced by blacks and whites; yet it frames the lower levels of exploitation as a benefit for whites. This either encourages white workers to support the system because they get a bit more, or to believe that they are part of the system that is exploiting blacks, or to feel guilty because they are less exploited. None of these suppositions are true, and all may decrease the motivation of whites to unite with blacks to fight back. Continue reading “RACISM HURTS ALL WORKERS”

Sailors, Slaves, Pirates Revolts in the 16th-17th Centuries

by The Editors

From: The Many-Headed Hydra: Sailors, Slaves, Commoners, and the Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic by Peter Linebaugh and Marcus Rediker. Boston: Beacon Press, 2000.

Today, massive unemployment and wars force millions of people to flee their homes. In the US cities, developers are building luxury residences, pushing people out of their neighborhoods and homes. In New Orleans, Louisiana State University leveled miles of newly-renovated houses to build its new medical center. Continue reading “Sailors, Slaves, Pirates Revolts in the 16th-17th Centuries”

“Labor: Free and Slave”

Labor, Free and Slave by Bernard Mandel explores the effects of slavery on white workers. It describes how white workers (“free labor”) responded to slavery and the abolition movement. It holds many lessons we can apply to today’s movements against police brutality and xenophobia.

by Karyn Pomerantz

The Unity of “Free” and Enslaved Workers during the Civil War Period

(From Labor, free and slave by Bernard Mandel, 2^nd ed, Chicago: U of Illinois Press, 2007

Labor, Free and Slave by Bernard Mandel explores the effects of slavery on white workers. It describes how white workers (“free labor”) responded to slavery and the abolition movement. It holds many lessons we can apply to today’s movements against police brutality and xenophobia. Continue reading ““Labor: Free and Slave””