Activism – The Multiracial Unity Blog

What Follows the Wondrous Student Encampments?

by Ellen Isaacs

May 6, 2024

I suspect that many of our readers have either visited, participated in or in some way supported these wonderful student encampments to protest the genocide in Gaza. Over 2500 students and faculty have now faced arrest, suspension or other penalty and, in some cases, injury. They have been maligned by administrators, Zionists, law enforcement, the media and many politicians. But most important, they have courageously exposed the murderous Israeli onslaught and the complicity of the American government and institutions for all to see. Many demonstrators have also been educated themselves about the nature of this collusion and the nature of imperialism itself. They have had to ask themselves why is Israel so important to the US that it tolerates, that it enables, such heinous behavior, and they have had to consider the importance of this sole nuclear ally in the Middle East to US rulers.

But we must wonder what will happen to this movement once the school year ends? What will happen when the military conflict in Gaza ends, as it will? As the thousands chant “Free Palestine,” do they actually believe that this will happen? I think many do because it seems so right, so necessary. I do not. Zionists have been dedicated to eradicating Palestinians since the late 1800s, be it by displacement or destruction, a position held by every one of their leaders of the right or “left” through the present. When the expulsions of 1948 failed to displace one out of seven Palestinians from their new state, the Israelis created a second class citizenship and, not long after, a military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. Now that Palestinians have come to outnumber Jews in the overall territory, the drive to decrease their number is amplified. So I foresee that a great number of Gazans will be killed or maimed or scarred physically and psychologically, perhaps forced into a much smaller enclave, perhaps exiled to the Sinai, but not free. Meanwhile, killing, arrests and seizure of land continue in the West Bank, as the Zionists and the US promote the survival of their corrupt Palestinian Authority (PA) partner. There is not a working class based movement in Palestine that can lead Palestinians nor a strong enough movement in other countries to achieve a better ending.

Who Rules the Universities – and WHY?

Corporate control of higher education. Student uprisings for Palestinian liberation and solidarity. Lessons learning.

Introduction

Picture

Free Palestine! Occupation No More! Divest Don’t Arrest!

Demonstrators shout these chants during protests to end Israeli genocide and oppression of Palestinians. Students at over 120 US campuses are demanding an end to university collaboration with Israel through investments, military research, and co-sponsored research. Students in France and England have also erected encampments and occupied buildings. Administrators have sent in police to arrest and beat students and faculty, revealing the myths of academic freedom and free speech. Militant Zionist groups have also harassed and threatened protestors as they falsely spread lies that the anti-Zionists hate Jewish people despite their involvement, including Jewish Voice for Peace.

Students have catalyzed and inflamed many struggles from opposing the war on Vietnam and South African apartheid to supporting the civil rights movement. The editors of this blog salute our newer comrades who are risking injury, jail, expulsion, and deportation if they lose their student visas. They are showing true working-class anti-racist solidarity, not just narrow identity politics. An injury to one is an injury to all!

It is important to analyze the roles of universities and their Boards to understand who our friends and enemies are.

This article will discuss the role of the university under capitalism, its leadership, ideology, labor conditions, and ability to tolerate dissent. It also cites support statements from related groups and ways to fight back with union partners.

March on May Day for Working Class Liberation, 2024

By Karyn Pomerantz, 4-14-2024

May Day is the most important day for workers everywhere. It is commemorated on May 1^st throughout the world when millions march to smash capitalism, abolish wages, and take power.

Maybe you never heard of it. There are no May Day greeting cards or TV ads. The US ruling class doesn’t want us to celebrate it and know that the struggle for the 8 hour day in Chicago in 1887 inspired it. The media, therefore, hides this important holiday and separates US workers from our brothers and sisters by turning May 1 into “Law Day” and creating Labor Day in September. The time has come to end this division and join the millions of workers throughout the world in demonstrations, marches, and social gatherings. As WWIII threatens and millions of workers live in squalor, it is more important than ever to build this movement! It is critical to support workers in Palestine, Sudan, Ukraine, and many others under attack by capitalist powers who want to control resources and dominate other countries.

Fighting Zionism in Education

By Karyn Pomerantz, April 9, 2024

Introduction

Education has a powerful influence in our lives. It prepares students to become workers, parents, and soldiers. It indoctrinates us with a country’s values and history. For example, every country teaches an “origin” story of its founding. The US presents its Pilgrims benevolently breaking bread with Native American tribes; Israel celebrates its founding as “a land without people for a people without land.” These stories present the conquest of lands as normal and justified, whether the West Bank or the Wild West. They are strongly ingrained and difficult to unlearn. Education can also liberate workers from stereotypes and distorted histories.

This article presents the ways capitalist, specifically Zionist, education pushes capitalist lies and racism, and the repression of educators who resist. It begins with a struggle of public-school teachers in Maryland, other examples of repression, and the role of racism in curriculum. It ends with visions of education under communism.

HAITI IN CRISIS

by Tousen J. Jacques and Alexis Mulman

April 5, 2024

It’s almost a bitter cliché by now to say that Haiti has descended into complete and utter chaos. Rival gangs, armed by rival factions of the local bourgeoisie and politicians and financed by ransoms and the drug trade, are raping, killing, kidnapping, burning and looting with impunity. They control 90% of the capital, Port-au-Prince, and in the last week have continually attacked several of the surrounding suburbs.

Since what happens throughout Haiti is determined by what happens in the capital, the whole country is at grave risk. In recent days, the US, Canada, France and other countries have been evacuating their citizens. And members of the Haitian elite are fleeing as well, which costs $500US for a helicopter to the Dominican Republic or a plane to the US, wherever they hold visas. Two small provincial airports in Haiti are functioning: Sunrise Airways currently charges $350 for a flight from Les Cayes in the South Department to Cap Haitian in the North, and $500US from le Cap to Miami. For now, it is the masses and the pauperized middle class who have nowhere to run and are suffering.

Long Covid Capitalism-Support Disability Justice

by Karyn Pomerantz, 3-30-2024

The 2024 Anniversary of Long Covid, People’s CDC’s Community Workgroup

“We recognize the millions of people living with Long Covid and their efforts for visibility and accessibility. Billions of dollars are needed yearly for research and treatments to meet the disability and economic burden. The continued weakening of CDC guidelines will lead to more cases and further harm among those already living with Long Covid, directly and indirectly.”

On March 15, 2024, Long Covid activists around the US commemorated Long Covid Awareness Day to remind us that Covid is not over. Millions of people still suffer debilitating conditions from Covid infections without any treatment and care. As memories of masks, empty offices, and zoom classrooms fade, the public pays little attention to Covid, let alone Long Covid. Yet for the millions of people around the world, Long Covid has created new physical, social, and economic complications in their lives. Combined with the daily hardships of capitalism, Long Covid has become a serious disabling condition.

Long Covid (also called post-acute sequelae of SARS CoV-2 or PASC) is commonly defined as a constellation of signs, conditions, and symptoms that develops when a Covid 19 infection persists for four months or longer. They range from poor cognition and trouble breathing to neurologic problems and altered immune function. Chronic fatigue or chronic myalgic encephalomyelitis (MCE/chronic fatigue syndrome) and post-exertional exhaustion are major symptoms. Recovery time is variable and can last for years. Longer term effects such as heart disease, dementia and cancer may yet be identified and quantified. Researchers and clinicians are still trying to develop a case definition to facilitate diagnosis and treatment.

This article reviews some of the characteristics of Long Covid and the role capitalism plays in its development and consequences. It has become another disease of despair that treats its survivors as disposable. The fight for care and treatment of Long Covid is part of the overall struggle for health that will benefit the entire multiracial working class.

Movie Review: Pride and Billy Elliot and the UK Miners Strike 40th Anniversary

by Juliana Barnet, 3-26-2024 (from 2023)

Introduction (ed):

This year, British workers are commemorating the 40^th Anniversary of the strike. These two movies remind us of this enormous struggle.

Movies have a tremendous impact on the public’s understanding of politics and history. This year, Oppenheimer and Killers of the Flower Moon presented strong portrayals of the development of the atom bomb, the theft of Native American lands and oil, and the role of the FBI. In the past, Birth of a Nation promoted racist tropes of sexually aggressive black men that live today.

In this blog post, Barnet reviews two older films, Pride and Billy Eliot, that feature the UK Miners strike of 1984-85 when Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher closed 20 mines, threw 20,000 miners out of work, and ripped apart social programs as President Reagan was doing in the US. The closures inspired a massive, militant strike of 140,000 miners across the UK that was supported by workers around the world.

Here, Barnet depicts activists, unions, and social movements in a political context. She contrasts the disparaging of the union in Billy Elliot with the positive portrayal of union people, organizing and building solidarity in Pride.

Musings on Being a Jew and on Antisemitism

By Juliana Barnet, 1-31-24

A sign I made at one of our local group’s art-making gatherings for an action to urge our representative Glenn Ivey to support a cease-fire.

Editor’s Comment: From time to time, the blog will publish personal responses to issues of racism. In this post, Juliana Barnet reflects on her analysis of the current war on Gaza, including the role of religion in polarizing people and the rejection of identity politics. The multiracial unity blog argues for solidarity of workers in Israel, Palestine, the US, and all countries. See many other articles on this site to learn the history of the region, and the class nature of the ruling classes, the imperialist impetus for US support, and recommendations for a solution.

My ancestry is one hundred percent Jewish on both sides, but I was raised Jewish Christian. My European Jewish grandparents became Christians not to assimilate or hide their Jewishness but because friends and personal revelations had convinced them. When I was a kid, people who asked me about my family’s religion looked puzzled, though (as is usual with children) this combo seemed normal to me.

Palestinians Thank Jews Who Oppose Racism and Colonialism

Our comrades in the One Democratic State Initiative (https://www.odsi.co/en/) have sent this beautiful letter signed by 14,432 Palestinians, in gratitude to Jews around the world who are fighting against the genocide in Gaza. They recognize that Zionism is colonialism, that many Jews avow their common humanity with Palestinians, and that racism also tears apart the fabric of the imperialist nations. They call for a democratic multiracial society in all of Palestine and throughout the world. We continue to participate with this movement and only would like to add that the struggle has to be openly anti-capitalist, for it is capitalism that necessitates racism and colonialism. Workers of the world unite! The Editors, 12/9/23

For hundreds of years, colonialism has weaponized identity to justify its atrocities. Today, the Zionist settler colonial project claims to be a Jewish endeavor, and claims the Palestinian liberation struggle to be an antisemitic endeavor. This is why you, our dear Jewish allies, can make a difference—and why we address this letter to you. We first of all thank you for the courageous stances you have taken, not only in words but in deeds. What has pained us Palestinians most over the past weeks was not the enemy’s bombs—we have been living under occupation for 75 years, and know its horrors well. What has grieved us most is the silence of the silent. Amidst this stillness, your voices, your cries, as well as those of countless others, have warmed our hearts. Even more importantly, “not in my name” is more than a moral stance: By laying bare the double lie of conflating colonialism with Judaism and accusing liberation of antisemitism, it hits at the core of Zionism’s alleged “legitimacy”. As such, it is crucial.