Gestapo Tactics Bring Out Protesters; and Where Racism Came From - Part 2

Special Guest Commentary by Bill Fletcher, Jr.

Jul 22, 2020

Federal SWATs in Portland are “a blatant abuse of power by the federal government” –Oregon Gov. Kate Brown

By James R Smith

—————————————Photo by Mason Trinca

Using Gestapo tactics more appropriate to Nazi Germany or Pinochet’s Chile, an elite S.W.A.T squad from ICE, the agency that is experienced in knocking down doors of immigrants, confronted several thousand Portlanders, Monday and Tuesday nights. Two years ago, massive demonstrations forced ICE to close their office and get out of town, but they have crept back, armed with the latest military garb from their pals at Ft. Benning, Georgia.

Their new attempt in the past week to terrorize the citizens of Oregon’s largest city has fallen flat. Their tactics, which include wearing no ID badges, unmarked cars, kidnappings on the street and holding residents incommunicado, just made leaders and protesters more angry. Tuesday was the 55th consecutive night of protest since the murder of George Floyd, and, along with Monday, among the largest turnouts, yet. Perhaps, because of the size of the crowd, the Trump Troops didn’t attack until after midnight, when many of the protesters had gone home. The Feds immediately went after the remaining Mons and Dads with clouds of tear gas and so-called, "less-lethal" munitions.

On Monday, in addition to the usual throngs of young protesters, the composition of the marchers had broadened with hundreds of “middle class” moms and dads, called a “Wall of Moms,” (clad in yellow) and “PDX Dads,” (clad in orange) who came out to support their kids and because they were incensed by illegal tactics on the streets of their town by the ICE men. If Trump follows through on his threat to use these para-military thugs in other cities, including Chicago, it could well backfire on him. In response to the criticism, Acting Secretary Chad Wolf of the Department of “Homeland Security” made a feeble response that Portland has been “under siege” by a “violent mob” of anarchists. Where are they, Chad? Congress should investigate the unconfirmed Chad and this rogue agency.

Trump will face the same problem in Chicago, as in Portland. That is, the local elected officials and informal leadership of the city, are dead-set against having their city torn apart by the Men in Camouflage. The ICE men were probably selected for this dirty job by Trump’s advisors because they are used to brutalizing people, and they are exempt from the Posse Comitatus Act which only prohibits the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines from operating within the United States.

Trump says he will bring this traveling road show to Chicago, and other cities. By so doing, Trump keeps digging his hole deeper. In 1968, there was a brutal police riot that attacked peaceful protesters in Chicago’s Grant Park, which led to a citywide eruption. It spelled the margin of defeat of the Democrats that year as voters chose the party out of power. Rampaging ICE men may seal Trump’s fate in November. The Portland Moms and Dads could be a new development that will further erode his base. The president is not known for his tactfulness under fire, and he’s already facing a raging pandemic and a failed economy. Secret police attacking American citizens. What could go wrong?

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Race is about more than discrimination – Part 2

Click for Part 1

Racial capitalism, the settler state
and the challenges facing
organized labor in the USA

By Bill Fletcher, Jr.

Ambivalence about race/denial of settlerism

The Industrial Workers of the World had the distinction of having been the only labor federation to not tolerate racial segregation. The IWW took a strong stand against displays of racism and refused to cave to white racism when it came to the organizing of workers.

That said, the IWW lacked anything approaching a comprehensive analysis of racist and national oppression in the USA other than to, correctly, identify it as a form of divide and conquer. Within the white majority labor movement this was, until the emergence of Communist-led formations in the 1920s and 1930s, the most advanced view.

The larger white majority labor movement either took an outright white supremacist stand, e.g., the Railroad Brotherhoods; the building trades, or would willingly organized workers of color though rarely tackle the racist divisions within the working class (and the various manifestations of the racial differential in treatment). With the absorption of northern Mexico (1848), the complete subjugation of Native Americans by the 1880s, the implementation of anti-Asian migration statutes (and agreements) and the defeat of “Black” Reconstruction in the South (1876), the white republic conceptualization fully merged with the framework of “American patriotism.”(11) The white republic was the USA and the USA was, at its heart, the white republic. There were at least two ramifications for white majority organized labor.

First, adoption of US foreign policy became the patriotic duty of the official labor movement. With the partial exception of the Spanish-American War, endorsement of US foreign policy, including armed interventions, support for coups, etc., became a central component of the majority of official organized labor’s approach. It assumed a form of imperial consciousness, which was the logical extension of the framework of the white republic.

Second, and specific to the functioning of the trade union movement, the movement and its history centered around the activities of white workers, and particularly white male workers. Thus, while the US working class was multi-national/multi-racial, the movement’s identity was largely shaped by the assumption that it was a component of the white republic. This meant that the official movement was inviting in workers of color rather than uniting with workers of color.

Here’s a related analogy. In the late 1800s, the baseball system chose to segregate and openly exclude African American players and those Latinos who had demonstrable African blood. By the 1930s, the Negro Leagues, set up to organize Black baseball, were well down the road of considering the means to conduct a merger with (white) Major League Baseball, thereby desegregating and transforming the sport. This was never taken seriously by MLB. Instead, Branch Rickey, of the, then, Brooklyn Dodgers, chose to desegregate baseball by bringing on Jackie Robinson, a former Negro League player. This was followed by a process, conducted by multiple teams, of raiding of the Negro Leagues of their best players. Thus, the MLB was desegregated—a positive move—but on terms dictated by and to the advantage of the white owners of MLB.

To a great extent, official organized labor had a similar approach towards workers of color, including but not limited to Black workers. The fight for desegregation, a critical and necessary battle, largely took place in a context elaborated by official organized labor. It was an absorption into what existed, rather than a transformation of the nature of the movement into something different.

The battle against racist discrimination is not being undervalued in this essay. Rather, we are noting that the approach towards such a battle was and is essential in understanding the outcomes, or in the current situation, our objectives. As Michael Goldfield demonstrates in his must-read The Southern Key: Class, Race & Radicalism in the 1930s & 1940s,(12) there were vastly different approaches towards this fight against racism within the burgeoning Congress of Industrial Organizations. The Steel Workers Organizing Committee (SWOC)—later the United Steel Workers of America— ‘desegregated’ by its willingness to organize all workers into one union but failed to address the consequences of racist oppression in the workplace. Workers of color, particularly African Americans and Chicanos, were added to the white workers who were willing to organize. Workers of color were frequently in advance of white workers in their willingness and interesting in organizing unions. Nevertheless, they were regularly deprived of power in the organization and there was an overall lack of a demonstrable commitment by the union to directly attack racist discrimination in the workplace.

Left-led unions, overall, had a much better track record in taking on racist oppression in the working class, as a result of both a more sophisticated analysis but also the active inclusion of activists of color in the membership and leadership. In general, left-led unions recognized the importance of building alliances with other social movements—including within communities of color—and taking on racist oppression in the workplace.(13) But even in most left-led unions, there remained a tendency to see the official union movement as the focal point or gravitational center, rather than an instrument in constructing a movement that, even implicitly, was challenging the assumptions of the settler state.

Right-wing populism, organized labor and today’s challenges

The discussion of settler colonialism and the racial settler state are not matters for the preoccupation of historians alone. They have great relevance to understanding the evolution of social movements in the USA; the obstacles that they have encountered; the profound difficulties in developing an internationalist practice within the US working class; and the rise of the political tendency known as right-wing populism.

Right-wing populism is, as I am fond of saying, the herpes of capitalism. It is a virus in the system. It is not alien to capitalism, be it democratic or authoritarian capitalism. As Chip Berlet and Matthew Lyons have pointed out, it is a movement that rises as a direct counter to progress and progressive social movements.(14) It is a movement centered around revanchism, i.e., around revenge by those who believe that they have been displaced by an illegitimate force (usually a particular demographic, e.g., Jews, migrants).

Right-wing populism as a social force is highly ideological, grounding itself in irrationalism, racism, sexism and xenophobia.(15) But as mentioned earlier, its critical image is both the founding of the USA, but more importantly the era of the Jacksonian Democracy. As such, the white republic conceptualization is central to their notion of both the historical origins of the USA but also the direction the USA should follow into the future.

Right-wing populism represents a special threat to the US working class generally, and the labor movement in particular, because of its appeal to “justice”; opposition to elites; and this deep sense of being wronged. As I and others have repeatedly noted, right-wing populism can take and morph the language of the political Left in order to advance their own objectives. When they are successful at such articulation, right-wing populism can appeal to the same working-class base that the political Left is attempting to reach, or at least a portion of it.

For these reasons an historical understanding of the roots of the US labor movement, matters of racial settlerism, and language becomes especially important. And it is around all this that organized labor in the USA has been more than ambivalent. A few examples of the challenges may help.

The right-wing populist current that gravitated to Donald Trump was immediately taken with his reference to “America First.” “America First”, as a term, is multilayered. Though first used in the early part of the 20th century, it is more commonly associated with a right-wing isolationist movement led by the aviator Charles Lindbergh that was ‘soft’ on European fascism, generally anti-semitic and, until December 7, 1941, did all that it could to keep the USA out of World War II.

“America First” is not isolationist. It is a framework that proposes that the USA not be encumbered by treaties and other obligations. Thus, the USA should be able to do what it wishes, when it wishes. It is a program for unilateralism.(16)

“America First” also assumes who is an “American” and who is not. Nowhere in the history of the slogan has there ever been the assumption that the conception of “America” is anything other than the white republic. “America” is certainly not a reference to the hemisphere and is not a reference to all those who reside in the USA.

To the extent to which organized labor has failed to reject its foundational contradiction—or original sin—there are elements of “America First” that can be more than appealing, including protectionism. Additionally appealing is the suggestion that “America First” means prioritizing so-called natives (European non-immigrants).

Another arena that becomes very complicated for organized labor is foreign policy and the construction of patriotism. To the extent to which white organized labor either supported or was silent on the westward expansion; the annexation of territory; and/or the direct interference in the internal affairs of other countries, it has weakened its claim to anything that approaches international worker solidarity. But tackling this history means running the risk of being challenged as being un-patriotic, if not communist. The right-wing populists can challenge corporate America—opportunistically—as well as the political class for failing to be patriotic in their abandoning of the US (white) worker. All too often liberal and progressive forces in organized labor have no response. In some cases, e.g., the Teamsters in 2000, they can align themselves with right-wing populists who appear to share with organized labor common opponents.

In debates around immigration, by way of another example, rarely is there discussion of the conditions from which migrants, particularly those coming from the Caribbean, Latin America and Asia, face at home and what has driven them to migrate. Specifically, to what extent has US foreign policy contributed to migration? And, as a result, should not the USA be obligated to engage in repairing the damage that it created?

By way of conclusion:
can labor break the paradigm?

Restricting one’s self to opposing racist discrimination, while ignoring the legacy of the racial settler state, presents limitations for organized labor. One can recognize and oppose overt and covert acts of racist discrimination, while at the same time accepting many of the assumptions inherent in settlerism.

Take the struggle around the Keystone XL pipeline, or any number of other pipelines. The fact that a union has demonstrated a commitment to organize workers across racial boundaries, does not necessarily translate into their holding advanced views on tribal rights. Thus, unions such as the Laborers International Union of North America (LIUNA) could find itself at odds with a broad coalition of environmentalists, landowners and Native Americans in which tribal rights played a major role.

The example of immigration, noted earlier, contains issues that flow from settlerism and the conception of the white republic. Consider that the USA seized northern Mexico in 1848, thereby splitting a people, and not just land. What has often been described as immigration was, for much of the last 172 years, the transit in both directions of migrants seeking work and then returning home. This is a far cry from an invasion but instead is rooted in the construction of the United States.

There is another example that clearly demonstrates the current reality of racial settlerism. The matter of undocumented migration is frequently portrayed as a phenomenon of migrants of color, particularly those from Latin America. Yet undocumented migration has a long history which includes undocumented migration from Europe. In the last fifty years, undocumented migrants from Ireland and Eastern Europe, in particular, have entered the USA en masse and this was rarely described as anything approaching a social crisis. Indeed, Donald Trump’s announcement of running for President of the USA in, 2015 was directly linked to the fear-image that he presented of migrants from Mexico coming to the USA to promote crime. Such imagery has not been offered of Russian migrants (documented and undocumented), with whom the Russian mafia is associated, or Irish migrants (documented and undocumented) with whom various criminal gangs are associated.

The implication is that the danger that is presented by migrants is not from migrants but from specific migrants, i.e., migrants of color. Those from Europe are not only given a pass, but are given a ticket to whiteness.

Organized labor must adopt a different framework that starts with that difficult discussion about US history, not with the aim of creating a sense of guilt among so-called white workers but in order to lay the foundation for a different domestic and international strategy for workers’ rights and justice. This will be a matter of both internal education as well as a shift in the practice of trade unionism. And it will be a shift that will be met with my intense resistance, particularly because in the USA we actively are taught to oppose history and, instead, embrace myth. The myth of the foundation of both the USA and the foundation of US trade unionism are quite strong and compelling. They just happen to be wrong.

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Bill Fletcher, Jr. is the executive editor of globalafricanworker.com, a former president of TransAfrica Forum, and a long-time leftist trade unionist and writer.

Notes:
Japanese were not excluded by law but as the result of what was called the “Gentleman’s Agreement” between the USA and imperial Japan.
New York: Oxford University Press, 2020.
Two examples being the National Negro Congress, formed in 1936, and El Congreso de Pueblos de Habla Espanola (the Congress of Spanish-speaking Peoples), both formed with the major influence of the Communist Party and other Left forces. Though both organizations had a quasi-ideological connection with the more left-led unions, they also helped other unions. The NNC, for instance, was instrumental in the success of the Steel Workers Organizing Committee and the victory of the United Auto Workers, the latter in their unionizing of Ford workers.
Chip Berlet, Matthew N. Lyons, Right-Wing Populism in America: Too Close for Comfort (New York: The Guilford Press, 2000)
For a deeper look at right-wing populism, I humbly suggest reading, in addition to Berlet & Lyons, an article I wrote for The Socialist Register: ‘Stars & Bars’: Understanding right-wing populism in the USA, Leo Panitch & Greg Albo, editors, Socialist Register 2016 (London: The Merlin Press, 2015.
There is a long history to this unilateralism that can be situated in the approach of the USA towards the First Nations, i.e., the Native Americans. The attitude of the US government and white settlers towards the Native Americans and the construction (and destruction) of treaties is examined in detail in: Suzan Shown Harjo, editor. Nation to Nation: Treaties between the United States & American Indian Nations. Washington, DC: National Museum of the American Indian in association with Smithsonian Books, 2013.