The ideology of racism arose and developed with the beginning of the colonial conquests of Africa, Asia and Latin America. White chauvinism was designed to legitimize, among the masses of people, a policy of national oppression and colonial domination. With the advent of the slave trade and the slave system in the U.S., Brazil, Cuba and other colonial outposts of the British, Spanish and Dutch empires the ideology of white chauvinism became more refined, more elaborate and “scientific,” more intensively promulgated and ever more predominant in the consciousness of the populations of the oppressor nations. From the start then, racist Ideology was an international phenomena, inseparably linked to the expansionist tendencies of the bourgeois system of production.
The lynch-pin of all manner and form of white supremacist ideology is the thesis that the non-white races of the world are inherently inferior. The sociological theories of this Inferiority are only a modern day variant on the same theme. Through the lenses of white chauvinism the peoples of Africa, Asia and Latin America are portrayed as uncivilized, lacking in culture, prone to violence incapable of self-government, and motivated more by biological, animal instinct, than by human reasoning.
To the degree that one accepts these premises is the degree to which one would see as necessary and even beneficial the colonial subjugation imposed by the “superior” white Europeans, or for that matter see a benevolent, uplifting role assumed in history by the system of slavery, since at least, in the context of the slave system, productive work is performed and the “violent” impulses of the Black people are kept under control. In fact a great many Southern churches preached precisely such a defense for the slave system by arguing that the slave master was doing the work of the Lord,
by civilizing the Black, removing him from the brutality, danger, suffering of the jungle to the safety and serenity of the plantation, suffering patiently and indulgently his ”shortcomings, providing for him in infancy, illness and old age, opening to him the means of saving his immortal soul.
To carry out its colonial policies the British employed both the brute force of its armies and hired mercenaries, as well as its ideological warriors... the priests, the nuns, and other “civilizing” agents of ”advanced” British culture. Terroristic violence on the one hand, ideological domination on the other. Open race hatred and naked force as one pole, Christian “concern,” “kindness,” “sensitivity,” and European culture as the other. It is here that we can see, in its initial forms, the two classical expressions of white supremacy in action, the pole of overt racism, in its most uncloaked form, and the pole of racist paternalism. Each grows up on the basis of the doctrine of white supremacy, yet each plays itself out in what appears to its actors as two dimetrically opposite and contradictory relations with non-white peoples.
Imagine for example the mentality of the typical eighteenth century missionary. For the missionary Black people are viewed as “God’s poor forgotten children.” They are seen as unfortunate beings, victims of their own lack of culture and social development, Incapable of functioning on an equal footing with whites, incapable of development in the absence of the “guiding hand of whites”...yet they are people nevertheless... they deserve the “kindly assistance” of the church and its teachings. To the missionary the violence and force of the British cavalry was probably seen as repugnant, an inappropriate method of dealing with the “white man’s burden.”
Imagine now the commander of the British army stationed in a colonized Rhodesia. Here again the basic premises of white supremacy are operative, except that “frankness and realism” are what is emphasized. These are afterall “savage people” explains the British general. What they understand is force and force alone. Their “place” in the world is to toil on behalf of the British empire. We cannot afford to be sentimental about this...it quite proper and natural. We must train the natives in the ways and habits of our “superior” culture and “bring them the fruits of our industrial civilization.. .and we must train them under the watchful eye of our bayonets. To the commander of the British army the evangelistic zeal of the clergy is viewed as utterly naive, and Utopian, even more... a dangerous deviation in approaching the task at hand.
The bayonet, the whip, the burning cross, segregationism...or the missionary, the preacher, the social worker, assimilationism...these are historically characteristic of the two poles of racist ideology and on each develops dozens of gradations and variations of the same themes. Overt racism and paternalism are the two poles of white chauvinism and though they arise on the basis of the class interests of the bourgeoisie they find expression as well among the masses of people including those who may even be involved in an anti-racist movement.
The abolitionist movement grew up at the turn of the nineteenth century in opposition to the slave system. In the abolitionist camp there existed a range of perspectives and currents of thought on the sources and the resolution of the question of slavery. Few however in the abolitionist movement actually championed, or for that matter believed in full equality for Black people, rather their opposition to slavery was based on its being morally wrong, a blight on the American conscience, contrary to the ideals of liberty and justice for all, and frequently in conflict with their economic interests.
Within the abolitionist movement there existed expressions of both overt racism and paternalism. Many of the anti-slave societies of the North for example refused admission to Black abolitionists. But the predominant ideology in the anti-slave movement was racist paternalism. The mentality of the “missionary” type in the abolitionist movement can be seen in the writings of one of its chief representatives when he said:
Since you have left me I have been trying to devise some means whereby I might do something in a practical way for my poor fellow men who are in bondage; and having consulted the feelings of my wife and my three boys, we have agreed to get at least one Negro boy or youth and bring him up as we do our own, give him a good English education, learn him what we can about the history of the world, about business, about general subjects and above all try to teach him the fear of god.
Or again by the sons responce to his fathers explanation of the slave system.
One evening after he had been singing to me, he asked me how I would like to have some poor little Black children that were slaves come and live with us...He made such an impression on my sympathies, that the first colored person I ever saw, I felt such pity for, (my emphasis) that I wanted to ask him if he could come and live at our house.
It was this kind of mentality that shaped the relations between Black and white in the pre civil war period of the abolitionist movement. Yet since paternalism and overt racism each rest on the very same assumptions it was not uncommon to see many abolitionists go over from paternalism to overt racism in the context of changing circumstances. One such illustration of this phenomena can be observed in the relations between abolitionist leaders and Frederick Douglas, one of the leading Black anti-slave fighters of the day. In his early tenure in the abolitionist movement Douglas was employed as a speaker for many anti-slave societies in the North. And so long as he limited his talks to the conditions of life he experienced as a slave, all was fine with his white “allies.” Douglas was a fine example and one of their “best” friends.
However as Douglas began to develop an independent perspective on the anti-slave movement conflict and friction arose with his white allies. After one such address, where Douglas went beyond describing his experiences as a slave, John Collins, a noted abolitionist, remarked to him, “Give us the facts, we will take care of the philosophy.” As time passed Douglas more and more came to see the question of abolishing slavery as only the first step in the struggle for Black liberation and the unwillingness of the white abolitionists to take his leadership on this question eventually led him to part company with the white section of the anti-slave movement.
As the slave system became entrenched in the South and sought to expand its grip on the newly opened territories of the West and Southwest there developed an increasingly antagonistic relation with the rising bourgeoisie of the North, who itself was trying to consolidate a national market on the basis of commodity production and the exploitation of wage labor. This created the basis for a historically progressive alliance between the abolitionists and the radical Republicans, yet neither took up the struggle against slavery on the basis of a real commitment to equality, many in the Republican camp advocated the return of the Black people to Africa once slavery was abolished, believing that it was unnatural and unworkable for Black and white to coexist on an equal footing. In the famous Lincoln Douglas debates of 1858 Lincoln expressed the views of the Northern bourgeoisie when he remarked that “he was not in favor of the social and political equality of the white and Black races,” and believed that “physical differences would forever forbid their living together on terms of equality.”
In the pre civil war period the ideology of the liberal bourgeoisie on the national question, personified by the radical Republicans and the abolitionists, played an objectively progressive role in the class struggle and the struggle against racism. But today, in the imperialist epoch, in the epoch of socialist revolution, bourgeois liberalism on the national question is a retrograde, backward tendency. Yet this ideology enters the workers and communist movement through the radicalized section of the petit-bourgeoisie and it is critical for us to be able to identify its modern day features if we are going to effectively wage ideological struggle against it within the ranks of the PWOC.
The ideology of bourgeois liberalism is a two-headed monster. On the one hand it is characterized by relations of paternalism toward Black people. The bourgeois liberal may view the conditions of the Black masses as a by-product of historical and environmental rather than biological factors, but nevertheless still holds to the premise of the inferiority of the Black race; which is in need of “uplifting,” “civilization,” and “culture,” all of which can be attained only through the good will of white people. To the bourgeois liberal Black people are irresponsible, but only because they have never been given responsibility, lazy and shiftless because they have not been given employment opportunities, prone to violence, crime and drugs because of the misery of the ghetto.
In the eyes of the bourgeois liberal the culprit in this matter is of course racism, but what is meant by this, is essentially the racism of the white workers, symbolized in their eyes by the lynch mob, anti-busing forces, the Archie Bunkers, and the slovenly, beer-consuming construction workers. For the bourgeois liberal the Black people need help, not Black liberation, for the bourgeois liberal the Black people need a champion, a friend...to fight the backwardness of the white masses, not a socialist revolution against the class rule of the bourgeoisie. To the bourgeois liberal what the Black people need most of all is to become white!
The ideology of bourgeois liberalism was forcefully expressed in the report of the Kerner Commission on the urban rebellions of the 1960’s. First the most pathetic image is created to elicit as much sympathy as possible for the plight of the Black masses. Then we are told that the, “events of the summer of 1967 are in large part the culmination of 300 years of racial predjudice.” (my emphasis) The report then goes on to account for this racial predjudice historically and gives example after example of events like this:
The most violent of the troubles took place in New York city draft riots in July 1863, when white workers, mainly Irish born, embarked on a three-day rampage. In East St. Louis, Illinois, a riot, in July 1917 claimed the lives of 39 Negroes and nine whites as a result of fears by white working men that Negro advances in economic; political and social status were threatening their own security and status.
This paternalistic, anti-working class ideology found its way into the mass movements of the 1960’s and influenced many activists who were part of the New Left. For many in the New Left the Black people were the only heroes...downtrodden, oppressed victims of racism in need of the assistance of petit-bourgeois white radicals. This romantiscism and paternalism stood unchecked, irrespective of the politics and beliefs of various sectors of the Black community. The villians, in this typically American saga of good and evil, were oftentimes the white workers. With all of the moral indignation of an 18th century crusader, or 19th century abolitionist, elements in the New Left tailed after every twist and turn in the political evolution of the Black liberation movement. One day these friends of the Black people were militant integrationists, the next the most vosciverous defenders of separatism and cultural nationalism. When the Black Panthers proclaimed in 1970 that it was time for armed struggle than so did many paternalistic forces on the Left. Beating their breasts at every opportunity, they would castigate the white workers for their incorrect thinking on the national question and in some cases demanded that all white worker must first give up their skin priveleges if there were to be any discussion of class unity in the struggle.
While dressed up in more radical garb and willing to engage in a more radical practice those in the New Left who fell sway to the ideology of bourgeois liberalism were marching in close tune with every social worker, radical preacher, and bourgeois professor who look “progressive” positions on the race question. In each case, while militantly condemning the racism of the white workers none stood within ten feet of a white worker to take up the question. At the same time these anti-racist fighters behaved very “nicely,” “kindly,” and “sensitively,” to every Black person they knew. The bourgeois liberal is “concerned” about the Black people, morally outraged by the conditions of life in the “ghetto” and where formally their historical antecedents argued that “some of my friends are Black,” our modern day heroes insist that all of their best friends are Black, thereby demonstrating their anti-racist “credentials.”
Had this sector of the New Left had genuine respect for the Black liberation movement, had they really appreciated the enormous political significance this movement represented and had they been really commited to the struggle against racism they would have recognized that their own responsibility was not to be cheerleaders but rather the task of waging a vigorous and uncompromising struggle to win other whites to a similar point of view.
The ideology of bourgeois liberalism, in its various guises was prevalent in the New Left and it is quite natural as a result that it would find its way into the new communist movement as well. One of the most common variants of bourgeois liberalism in the communist movement is the politics and practical orientation of both the RWHQ and the PSO. In each case we continue to see a marked tendency toward tailism with respect to the Black liberation movement, paternalism in the relations between white comrades in these organizations and their Black counterparts and a profound underestimation of the white workers with respect to the struggle against racism. Here bourgeois liberalism must accomodate Marxism-Leninism so rather than see the white workers cast as the enemy of the Black people we see a total liquidation of the struggle against racism, a reflection still of the liberal line on the white workers, a line which holds that their racism is so ingrained that their is little if any up of genuinely combatting it.
While the PWOC holds a Marxist line on the national question the ideology of bourgeois liberalism has nevertheless penetrated the ranks of our organization. It asserts itself with a vengeance in our practice and in our internal political and social relations. PWOC cadre tend to be very “sensitive” to their Black comrades, and to Black workers in their mass work, so much so in fact that they expect nothing from them. PWOC cadre tend to be quite outraged by overt racism, so much so that they keep their distance and avoid any sharp struggle with the white workers around this question. The ideology of bourgeois liberalism is predominant, at present, within our organization, but it co-exists and frequently goes over to more overt forms. In this paper we will make a concrete analysis of racism in the PWOC, examine its various manifestations, look at the question of racism and sexism, at liberalism in the ideological struggle against racism, and the interplay of racism and inter-racial relationships.