The other day I sent birthday greetings to someone that I have not seen or spoken with in, quite possibly, decades. Nevertheless, he has been a Facebook friend. I try to send birthday greetings to FB friends, something that I have turned into a ritual, of sorts. Look, I’m sentimental.
Well, a few days later I received a note on FB from a mutual friend informing me that the person to whom I had sent birthday greetings had been dead for several years. I was stunned and embarrassed. But I was also angry. I was embarrassed that I did not know. I was saddened by the information. But I was angry with FB, specifically, why was my FB friend’s account still active?
I have had this experience at least one other time and it is very different from getting friend requests from “dead people,” i.e., friend requests where someone who has passed away has had their account hacked. I get that, it irritates me, but I understand that.
What I am concerned with is where the accounts are still active. I know that there are those out there who like the idea that the accounts stay active so that we can be reminded of our dead, departed friends and we can send birthday greetings. Maybe it is just me, but I am not one to say “happy birthday” to someone who has passed away. How is it happy? On the anniversary of the birth of my first born–who died three days after birth–why would I say “happy birthday, Bianca”? In what world would that be happy?
I hit this problem once before after sending birthday greetings to someone who turned out to have been dead. I received a nice, though strangely apologetic note from the family of the departed friend, regretting that I had not been informed of the death of their relative. I felt embarrassed by this and uneasy that the family had been put in that position.
My solution? It’s simple: if there is no activity on someone’s FB account for one year, i.e., if they have not posted or reposted or acknowledged a post, FB should send an email to their email account asking them to confirm their continued interest in FB. Should FB not receive a reply within a given time, e.g., one week, FB should close down the account. If it turned out that the person was carrying out an expedition in northern Greenland for a year and had no Internet access, they can always create a new account.
Forgive me. Maybe I just awoke on the wrong side of the bed.
]]>By Bill Fletcher, Jr.
I tend not to post personal matters, the exception being reminiscences. I am not the sort who posts on Facebook about something I have cooked (I am not a good cook), or a random thought, or an accident at home. Rather, I enjoy engaging with people regarding ideas and events, which is not to put down anyone who uses social media for other purposes (aside from nefarious forces who spread misinformation).
Addressing something personal, however, is what I do today. March 18-21st of every year since 1986 are the lowest points of my life. March 18-21, 1986 were the three days when my first born lived and passed away, an unexpected tragedy that has left a mark on my soul ever since.
Every year I attempt to note and honor the brief life of my first born. On two different years I had the strange experience of forgetting the significance of March 18th. I was so preoccupied with other matters. But on those two occasions I found myself experiencing inexplicable physical pain. Suddenly I realized that it was the anniversary of the birth of my first born. I cried and apologized to her spirit, and the pain almost immediately vanished.
I have written previously, in different venues, about the loss of my first born but something happened recently that has led me in the direction of writing this particular essay. It all started with a colleague of mine in a project where we are both engaged. This colleague is a wonderful person, but they have often been disruptive, unfocused, and sometimes losing their temper. I was discussing this situation with another set of colleagues when one mentioned, almost in passing, “…you know, they recently lost their grandchild.”
Immediately I straightened up and understood precisely what was going on.
Losing a child or, indeed, a grandchild, is probably the most painful emotional experience one can have. Whether the loss is expected or unexpected is next to irrelevant. It hits you with the force of a racing locomotive and leaves you emotionally shattered. And, while most people will be patient, if not supportive of you in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy, the depth of the trauma is frequently denied, if not lost on most of those who were not directly involved.
The impact of the trauma lasts for a long time. The symptoms are very common. You become impatient in a way unlike anything that you have ever experienced. The sadness seems to take you over. You become intolerant of things that are small and petty. You can become argumentative. And, complicating all of this, you may not mourn either in the same way or on the same timeline as your partner, which means that tension can grow between the two of you even when one assumes that you would be brought together by the tragedy.
This is all so important because your reactions or that of someone suffering this trauma can be misunderstood. My colleague, mentioned above, has never mentioned the passing of their granddaughter to me, but I can tell that my colleague is suffering. Years ago, an important social movement leader with whom I was familiar lost a child—unexpectedly—and proceeded to make some disastrous and harmful personal and political decisions even though they had been cautioned that they could not trust their own temperament.
It sometimes feels very lonely, in the aftermath of such a loss. You feel as if no one can understand what you are experiencing. To some extent, this is true. What is worse, though, is that we live in a society that neither prepares us for such tragedies, nor prepares us to assist and support those experiencing such tragedies. Those of us going through this trauma feel that we have to go it alone. And then, heaven forbid, when you do open up to someone regarding your anguish and they shut down or distance themselves from you, it confirms all of your worst fears. I lost one of my best friends in the aftermath of the death of my first born. He later confessed to a mutual friend that he did not know what to say to me in the face of my despair. As if I needed him to say anything.
Yet you come out of it. No, this is not about ‘getting on with your life,’ which you hear so many people say. With the right support—and sometimes this means receiving professional counseling—you can move forward. You never forget, but you come to accept that the tragedy is now a part of who you are. And you adjust to the pain that you will always feel. But you can find happiness and hope; all is not lost.
A final note. When I lost my first born, I was told by someone who had nothing but the best of intentions, that I should remember that I can always have another child. Well, not so quick. You may not be able to have another child. But, even if you do, that next child will never replace the one you lost. It does not work that way.
I was lucky to have had another child and I could not have designed someone as wonderful as she is. She is irreplaceable. But so, too, was her sister. I will love them each, and separately, until the lights go out. They are not interchangeable.
]]>By Bill Fletcher, Jr.
Northwest Africa heats up: Algeria breaks diplomatic relations with Morocco
By Bill Fletcher, Jr., September 2, 2021
Context is everything.
The break in diplomatic relations between Algeria and Morocco was a surprise to no one. The relationship between the two countries has been problematic since 1962 when Algeria first gained independence from France, and Morocco launched an invasion to claim territory. Over the years, Moroccan subservience to France and the USA has led to very tense moments between the two countries, exacerbated in 1975 when the Moroccans launched their invasion—dubbed the Green March—into the formerly Spanish-colonized Western Sahara.
The situation has become more intense ever since November 2020 when the Moroccan government broke the 1991 ceasefire that had existed between itself and the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (the government of the Sahrawi exiled and occupied populations, led by the Frente Polisario). This unilateral break led to a return to open warfare between the Moroccans and the Saharawis, also exacerbating frictions between the Moroccan and the Algerian governments. Ever since November there have been repeated warnings that this situation could get out of hand.
The declaration by the Algerian government of a break in diplomatic relations comes amidst the aftermath of Donald Trump’s illegal recognition of the Moroccan occupation of the Western Sahara; increased warfare in the Western Sahara and southern Morocco (between Sahrawi and Moroccan forces); and Moroccan efforts to secure more sophisticated military technology.
The Sahrawi/Moroccan conflict has been on most of the world’s backburner since the 1991 ceasefire. While Sahrawis have waited patiently for a just and non-violent end to the Moroccan occupation, little to no pressure has been placed on the Moroccan government even after the Moroccan government abandoned all pretense of accepting the principle of Sahrawi self-determination.
The current situation lends itself to multiple, potentially tragic consequences. A break in diplomatic relations between Algeria and Morocco could be the first step towards armed conflict between the nations. Were this to happen, what had been a Sahrawi/Moroccan struggle might evolve into a northwest African regional conflict involving Morocco, the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, and Algeria, not to mention the French (the prime supporters of the Moroccan government), potentially Spain and Mauritania, as well as a host of non-state actors, such as the various branches of Al Qaeda and Daesh (ISIS) operating in the region. Should this happen all bets are off.
Attempting to keep this struggle on the backburner is no longer an option. The pot is now boiling over. The time has arrived for an international demand for the recognition of Sahrawi self-determination and Moroccan withdrawal. A regional conflict will not leave anyone untouched, a fact that we should have learned many times over.
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Bill Fletcher, Jr. is co-coordinator of the Campaign to End the Moroccan Occupation of the Western Sahara. He is also a longtime writer, trade unionist and a past president of TransAfrica Forum.
]]>By Bill Fletcher, Jr.
It is now clear; it is no longer hidden. The Republican Party has announced itself to be the political party-for-dictatorship.
How do we know? In 43 states, Republicans in state legislatures are pushing initiatives in order to make it more—rather than less—difficult for citizens to vote. Legislation includes cutting the number of days for early voting; the number of drop-boxes for voters; and the amazing component of Georgia legislation makes it illegal for third parties to give food and water to voters on election lines! Added to this, of course, is a power grab in many pieces of the legislation to put the decisions about the validity of the elections into the hands of the legislature, ensuring that partisan corruption is almost certain to emerge.
What is this all about? Here is where the ‘comedy’ enters the picture. The Republicans claim that they are doing this to ensure the validity of the election process after the alleged problems of the 2020 election. But, wait a minute: there were only problems that were caused by Trump, et.al., making baseless allegations regarding the November 2020 election. As you know, court after court dismissed the frivolous allegations. We now have lawsuits against some of those Trump allies for defamation because of the extent of their alleged misrepresentations.
To put it another way, the Republicans are arguing the following: we sold the voters a bill of goods about the election allegedly being stolen; once our base was convinced, they lost faith in the electoral process; now we must prove to our base that the electoral process is secure, and we do that by ensuring that Democrats never win another national (or state) election!
The Republican Party, in pushing through voter suppression legislation, is saying to the public that if Republicans do not win, then that means that an election has been tainted. If Republicans win, then an election is legitimate. The name for this is “dictatorship”, and everyone must be clear about this.
The evolution of the Republican Party from being a hard, right-wing party to becoming a party-for-dictatorship changes everything. It means that they need to be electorally crushed in the midterm elections, given their approach towards elections and democracy. It also must mean that bipartisanship in Congress and in our state legislatures must be based upon the expansion of democracy rather than its contraction.
Trump opened the floodgates for authoritarianism. And now the toxic waste is flowing through our states. Only through the organized actions of those who favor democracy; only through a mass voting rights movement, can this situation be stopped.
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Bill Fletcher, Jr. is a long-time trade unionist, writer, and a past president of TransAfrica Forum.
]]>By Bill Fletcher, Jr.
You can’t miss it. The house sits off a main road in my county, about five minutes’ drive from my home. Three flag poles; three flags in support of Trump. And in a neighborhood that is overwhelmingly African American and pro-Democratic Party voters.
Yes, these are white folks and, yes, they have the absolute right to fly their flags. There is the First Amendment to the Constitution. But each time that I drive by their house, which I must do with frequency, I ask myself the same question: if this was a Black family in an overwhelmingly white neighborhood, dominated by pro-Republican voters, how long would they be able to fly a red, black & green, Black Liberation flag or to fly a flag in support of the Black Lives Matter movement?”
I think that you know the answer.
In my life I have found African Americans to be very tolerant of different political views (we can be somewhat less than tolerant when it comes to matters such as religion and sexual orientation, but that is for a different discussion). In many of our families we have wide differences from conservative to Black nationalist to communist, and it is recognized that there can be legitimate points of view.
White America, overall, is much less tolerant and this is certainly the case within conservative white America. It is more than lack of tolerance, that is at issue here. There is an assumption, as in the case of the family with the Trump flags, that they will face no ramifications for flaunting the images of a racist, sexist, xenophobic President in a predominantly Black community. No ramifications! Yet were the shoe to be on the other foot, it is highly likely that the family would have come under physical assault by right-wingers, and quite possibly run out of town.
Don’t misunderstand me. I am not suggesting that these white Trumpsters get run out of the neighborhood. I am suggesting, however, that white privilege plays itself out in ways that is always in our faces, but becomes invisible to most white people. An African American family flying a red, black & green flag in a conservative white neighborhood would be considered insane, provocative, and quite possibly having brought down the wrath of white conservatives on them deservedly…unless, of course, the commentators were, themselves, Black.
I am glad that Trump is gone. I wish that he was relocating to an iceberg in the Arctic, but such is life. I know, though, that the Trump flags of my ‘neighbors’ will probably not be lowered any time soon because the problem is not Trump, nor the flags. The problem is that there is a virulent right-wing populist movement, and Trump was only one of many manifestations of this evil.
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Bill Fletcher, Jr. is an author and activist. He is a past president of TransAfrica Forum.
]]>By Bill Fletcher, Jr.
I had not planned on turning my iPhone back on. I had earlier cut off both my phone and computer, and was getting ready for bed. But I impulsively decided that I needed to look something up, so back on went my phone.
Suddenly I received what felt to be frantic texts. I looked down and they were from my good friend, Denise Perry, the executive director of Black Organizing for Leadership & Dignity (BOLD). Leith Mullings, she indicated, had passed away.
This was no generic call. Leith, and her late husband Manning Marable, had been a very good friend and comrade. I was stunned. Cancer, Denise indicated, had taken her from us.
Dr. Leith Mullings, a noted Marxist anthropologist and activist, was a retired professor from the City University of New York-Graduate Center. Leith was a very warm, wise, and thoughtful person, someone who did not tolerate fools. She had a wonderful sense of humor and, as sharp as she was, never talked down to anyone. She was also an excellent debater.
I met Leith in 1993 but it was twenty-five years ago, just about this time of year, that she, Manning Marable, Barbara Ransby, Abdul Alkalimat, and I began laying the groundwork for the formation of what came to be known as the Black Radical Congress (in June 1998). Working with Leith was a wonderful experience given her wit and insight, as well as her interest in building a formation that was exceptionally broad. The five of us, plus a host of other great scholars and activists, were successful in the formation of the Black Radical Congress which, during June Teenth weekend in 1998, mobilized approximately 3000 participants over the course of two and a half days.
Leith was a serious scholar who also believed deeply in activism. In her last years she offered her assistance to the Movement for Black Lives as well as offered in depth analysis of the conditions faced by the African World (Africa and the African Diaspora) in this time of neo-liberalism.
The suddenness of the news of Leith’s loss shook me. I had been totally unaware of her illness and am very disappointed that I had no chance to say goodbye. But, as my friend Barbara Ransby noted, Leith was a very private person. I think that she decided to exit this plane of existence with privacy and dignity. I will miss her deeply but know that she has reconnected with the spirit of Manning Marable who, along with her children, was the love of her life.
]]>By Bill Fletcher, Jr.
When word broke of the President and First Lady testing positive for Covid19, an image flashed into my mind. The image was from the 1980s series St. Elsewhere, about a hospital and its staff in Boston. A major character, played by Mark Harmon, was a promiscuous doctor who regularly engaged in unprotected sex, regardless of the warnings. Ultimately, and to his great shock, the Harmon character tested positive for HIV/AIDS.
Why the surprise, one might ask?
The same question can and should be posed to not only the Trump family but to the Republican deniers who have ignored—flaunted—all the scientific warnings regarding the danger inherent in the Covid19 crisis.
I start here because there will be the tendency among some people to express sympathy and understanding to the Trump family for this tragedy. Such expressions of sympathy, while understandable, can lead one to misunderstand the nature of the current crisis and to also misunderstand the importance of voting Trump out on November 3rd.
Donald Trump ridiculed natural science. He encouraged his followers to discount all scientific recommendations regarding how to lessen the impact of the pandemic. Through public displays of contempt for mask-wearing and social distancing, Trump, in typical masculinist mode, attempted to display that his own strength and arrogance were sufficient to defeat the Covid19 plague.
It turned out that he was wrong.
As a result, the White House is currently in nothing short of panic, at least according to most media reports. They do not have a framework in order to understand what has been happening. After months of repeating and practicing the mantra that Dr. Fauci’s warnings were allegedly irrelevant, they now have the President, First Lady, and many other senior officials, plus several members of the Senate and House infected with the ‘bug.’ And the White House has no way of explaining it and, worse yet, no recommendations as to what to do since any reasonable recommendation would run contrary to the irrationalist rhetoric of King Donald.
As noted, in this moment there will be a tendency by some voters to feel genuine sympathy for the President and his family. Those same voters may wish to vote for him as an expression of support for him in this time of crisis. This would be a tragic mistake.
The sympathy which anyone should feel is towards the 209,000+ who have died from the Covid19 pandemic. 209,000+ people who might not have died had Trump not engaged in public denial of the nature and extent of the plague. 209,000+ people and their families who suffered, died, watched someone dying, or for those who survived, remembering their lost ones. Those and the millions of others who have been infected, often painfully suffering from the pandemic, should be the targets of our sympathy, not Donald Trump.
Though Trump did not create the Covid19 crisis, his actions accentuated the crisis. While he may seek to blame China, which is as stupid as if the world blamed the USA for the 1918-1919 flu pandemic (which is where it originated!), the real blame goes to Trump and his administration for its thoroughly incompetent and cavalier approach towards the pandemic. By actively encouraging millions of people to believe that Covid19 was nothing worse than a bad flu and that it was something that would go away on its own—in the absence of masks, social distancing, and, eventually a vaccine—Trump brought about more deaths in the last few months than the USA suffered in the entirety of the Vietnam War.
There is no amount of sympathy that I could ever muster to justify a vote for someone who refused to protect the people of this country and, ultimately and stupidly, refused to protect himself.
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Bill Fletcher, Jr. is the executive editor of globalafricanworker.com and a past president of TransAfrica Forum.
]]>By Bill Fletcher, Jr.
The principal discussion in the aftermath of the September 29th Presidential Debate, is less about who won and more about whether there should be any further debates this Election season.
Though there are some people who believe that Biden did not do well, such a concern misses the importance of what actually happened last night. We witnessed an exchange—one cannot call it a debate—unlike anything that any of us have seen at the Presidential stage in our lifetimes. There was no discussion of views. There was madness elaborated by the sitting President of the United States of America.
As I watched the debate I speculated on Trump’s objectives. There seemed to have been several. These included:
One, to create and demonstrate chaos. This is characteristic of his entire administration whereby he goes about generating a crisis and then offers himself as the only means of resolving the self-made crisis. By using the debate to suggest that everything is up in the air and impossible to understand, he then stands there as the alleged solution.
Two, he aimed to disrupt Biden’s arguments. There is a tactic that I learned years ago that is often employed in collective bargaining negotiations. When one side is talking, the other side interrupts. The aim is to disrupt the train of thought of one’s opponent and thereby disrupt their negotiation strategy. Trump attempted that last night, though with little success.
Three, making his attacks personal in order to force Biden to reply in kind. This was attempted several times and largely failed. When Biden could have tripped, he turned to the camera and spoke to the audience.
Four, to signal to fascist and quasi-fascist groups that he had their backs and would refuse to condemn them but would flip the script and make the Left out to be the problem. The most dangerous component of this was his continued suggestion that his supporters should turn out on Election Day to ensure that the vote is legitimate. Under certain circumstances this could have appeared neutral, but this was clearly aimed at voter intimidation.
There was something deeper about Trump’s performance. There was a madness in his eyes as he aimed to convince the people that the world is flat. The facts are so irrelevant to Trump’s discourse, as they are to most of his base. What he demonstrated, perhaps more than anything else, is that he is the President who wishes to herald the reemergence of the “white republic,” the construct around which the USA was originally founded. In failing to distance himself from white supremacy (and white supremacists); in defending quasi-fascist groupings; in proposing a mobilization that will intimidate anti-Trump voters, Trump made it clear that political democracy is an inconvenience in his efforts to both save himself financially and to advance the political and economic agenda of the now hard, right-wing Republican Party.
There will be those Republicans and Independents who realize that Trump is out of touch with reality; indeed, is maniacal. But they will convince themselves that despite all his failings, Trump will advance the agenda that they wish to see materialize. Similar such thinking influenced segments of the ruling circles in Italy and Germany to side with their respective fascist movements. In those two cases, and others, the capitalists have thought that they could ultimately control the actions of these despots. History played out in a more complicated fashion. While these circles largely thrived through authoritarianism, the arbitrary and criminal nature of fascist and quasi-fascist regimes created an unpredictability or instability in the system, contributing to varying levels of crisis.
Much of this can be forgotten or denied, but it is done at great risk.
The debate should settle the question of what liberals, progressives and leftists should do on November 3rd. There is no room for abstract intellectualism regarding whether Biden is the best candidate that the Democrats could have chosen. He may not have been the candidate that many of us would have wanted, but he is the only alternative to Trump at this very moment. Keep in mind, however, that what we are up against is not simply the candidacy of one individual. This is not a situation where a loss by Biden would result in a conservative, though fairly normal, administration. We are looking at something hugely different whereby a Trump administration has already made a de facto alliance with armed fascists.
Should we successfully defeat Trump in the Election, we then face two new questions. One, how (not when) to push the Biden administration out of their comfort zone in order to create greater space for the deep and profound reforms that must be introduced in order to address the economic, political and environmental crises of this era.
Two, how do we crush the right-wing populist movement in the USA that has Trump as its principal—though not only—spokesperson. Even if Trump is defeated, the right-wing populist movement is not vanishing anytime soon because, after all, this is the United States of America, a nation-state founded on settler colonialism, genocide, and the slave trade.
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Bill Fletcher, Jr. is the executive editor of globalafricanworker.com and a former president of TransAfrica Forum.
]]>By Bill Fletcher, Jr. & Jose Alejandro La Luz
The eruption of protests and rebellions following the murder of Minneapolis resident George Floyd sent shockwaves across the country; indeed, around the world. Suddenly, in the context of a pandemic unlike anything that we in the USA have witnessed since 1918-1919 and an economic collapse worse than the Great Recession, masses of people were on the move challenging the profound racial injustice demonstrated by law enforcement abuse against racialized populations and, specifically, against African Americans. “Black Lives Matter” became the renewed battle cry and, when it met with the response that “All Lives Matter,” the correct refrain was, all lives should matter, but the reality of the USA is that Black lives don’t matter. And, as we swept away the racial fog that surrounds so much in the USA, we discovered that other racialized populations were also regular targets of extrajudicial violence, including Native Americans, Chicanos, Puerto Ricans, and Asian Americans.
The moment in which we live is explosive because of the fusion of crises, including but not limited to the Covid19 pandemic, the economic collapse, the environmental catastrophe, extrajudicial violence targeting racialized populations, and a growing right-wing populist movement with a crypto-fascist President as its main spokesperson. In this situation, organized labor—the trade union movement—has been inconsistent; sometimes paralyzed; and at other moments outspoken. What it fails to acknowledge, let alone address, is that the political polarization of the USA has placed us in a situation that some commentators have described as a “cold civil war.”
How should we understand the term “cold civil war”? It means that the social, economic, and political contradictions in the USA have been brewing in such a way that there is a polarization undermining a so-called mainstream consensus within the democratic capitalist framework. It does not necessarily mean that we are in pre-civil war situation, i.e., it does not necessarily mean that we are on the verge of a military conflict, but it does mean that the antagonisms have bubbled to the surface and have moved outside of the generally accepted bounds of democratic capitalist politics. This includes the increased use of extrajudicial violence by the authorities as well as by paramilitaries. To be clear, the polarization that has emerged is between forces that are advancing right-wing, irrationalist authoritarianism, on the one hand, and those who favor democracy (subject, of course, to wide interpretations).
None of this should surprise us since the Republican Party has shifted dramatically, since the late 1960s, in a rightward direction and, particularly beginning in the 1990s, flirted more and more with right-wing populist movements as a means of driving forward their neo-liberal economic agenda and their anti-20th century social and political agenda.
Though the Republican establishment seems to have thought that they could control the right-wing populist forces, much like Dr. Frankenstein thought that he could control the monster, it has largely lost sway. The complete collapse of the traditional Republican establishment in 2016 in the face of the Trump juggernaut illustrates this point.
We now have an Administration that flirts with open fascists; articulates lies and other forms of irrationalism; and has threatened to ignore the results of the November 2020 election should they lose. All of this lays the foundation for, quite possibly, a series of confrontations between pro-democracy forces, on the one hand, and on the other, both pro-Trump forces of the State as well as pro-Trump mass movements and militias.
What must be done?
(1) Organized labor must pull its collective head out of the sand: Most immediately there must be a recognition of the toxic danger contained in the growing right-wing populist threat. While it is clear that the majority of the USA, including the majority of the US working class, has no interest in right-wing populism, it is also the case that right-wing populism represents a major threat to the working class movement specifically, and the USA more generally. Organized labor needs to speak openly about this threat and not act as if this is not a “labor issue”.
(2) Organized labor must advance a mobilization process that engages its members in supporting efforts to rethink, restructure, reallocate, and demilitarize law enforcement: This is not just a matter of transforming local police departments but also must include addressing the barbaric treatment of documented and undocumented immigrants and refugees by ICE and the Border Patrol. US authorities are treating migrants as cattle, completely ignoring the fact that many of these migrants are at our borders precisely because of the role of the USA in undermining the economies, environments, and sovereignty of their respective countries of origin. Contrary to the right-wing myth that these migrants are coming to the USA in order to have so-called anchor babies—as opposed to the industry created to facilitate just this for many East Europeans—migrants from the global South are arriving at our borders largely because of the damage done to their homelands.
(3) Organized labor must put into place pro-democracy volunteer brigades in preparation for the November election: We need volunteers who will assist with voter registration; mobilize in large numbers should law enforcement and right-wing militias show up at polling places in order to intimidate voters; block the right-wing from challenging legitimate voters and ballots; and lay the groundwork for massive civil disobedience should the Trump administration attempt to forestall the elections and/or refuse to recognize the results.
(4) Organized labor must join hands with other social movements in creating a broad front for democracy and against repression: Organized labor cannot do any of this work alone. It must reach out to potential allies with a focus on opposing the growth of authoritarianism. The ‘price of admission’ to this front or coalition must be low, i.e., we need to recognize that there are many things around which we shall disagree, but the time has come to join hands in the name of defending AND expanding democracy.
We may not get a second chance.
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Jose Alejandro La Luz is a lifetime trade unionist in both private and public sector unions in Puerto Rico and the US….La Luz was a National Surrogate for Senator Bernie Sanders campaign focusing his efforts mobilizing Latino voters in Nevada and Texas.
Bill Fletcher, Jr. is the executive editor of globalafricanworker.com, former president of TransAfrica Forum, and a lifetime trade unionist.
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]]>By Bill Fletcher, Jr.
It may be that I make a naive assumption about African Americans, i.e., that the depth of our history as victims of racist and national oppression; our history of resistance to profound racial injustice; and our experience with the underside of the so-called American Dream, makes us immediately able to see through the demagogic chicanery of someone like Donald Trump. It is sort of the naivete that many of us experienced when Clarence Thomas was up for his nomination to the Supreme Court: yes, I understand that he is a real conservative, many of us said, but you have to give the “brother” a chance; once he is appointed, he’ll do the right thing.
Events turned out differently.
In reading about the first night of the Republican National Convention, and hearing a clip from Hershel Walker’s speech, my heart dropped, and I felt this very profound embarrassment. I don’t think that either Walker or Senator Tim Scott are stupid. Not at all. But they have chosen to accept a world view that has a number of interesting features. Let me enumerate them.
One, the assumption that despite the open racism of Trump and the Republican majority, it somehow does not apply to them or the people that they care for. I read stories about a similar phenomenon happening in pre-Hitler Germany where many rich Jews thought that the anti-Semitism of the Nazi Party was rhetorical opportunism and only applied to the Nazi attitude towards poor Jews. The Black Trump supporters that I have encountered, including within my own family, ignore the racial buttons pushed by the Republicans and think that it is all directed towards ‘others,’ e.g., undocumented immigrants; do-nothing Black complainers.
Two, the assumption that racism is no longer a major feature of US society. This comes up again and again. It is the denial of the systemic nature of racism and, instead, the tendency to look at racism as simply a matter of individual interactions and bad behavior. This goes back to the thinking of Ronald Reagan who, in effect, declared that the era of systemic racism was over. For the Black Trump supporter, cries of “race” and “racism” are used as excuses by US African Americans and other racialized populations as an reason for not doing the hard work necessary in order to succeed. Many of these Black Trumpsters have succeeded so why can’t everyone, they ask.
Three, a form of Black conservative pessimism, i.e., white folks are going to be what white folks are going to be, so we had better get used to it. This is something that never occurred to me until I read more about the thinking of Justice Clarence Thomas. You could see a variation on this theme in other parts of African American history, e.g., the late 1800s, where the overwhelming force of white supremacy, e.g, Jim Crow segregation, led segments of our people to decide that it was impossible to overcome; therefore, we must accommodate. And in accommodating, so that one does not feel humiliated, one must find a justification.
I am certainly not trying to make excuses for Black Trumpsters. They are either delusional or trapped in a delusional bubble. As a result, trying to convince them, as individuals to wake up and smell the coffee tends not to work. Much like the impact of Covid19 on one’s loss of the sense of smell and taste, the Trump deception has blunted their sense of reality.
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Bill Fletcher, Jr. is the executive editor of globalafricanworker.com and a former president of TransAfrica Forum.
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