BROOKLYN, NY, December 17—To expose the racist ideologies of capitalism and broaden our fight against racism our church hosted a forum on Black Lives Matter (BLM). We wanted to unite with other community and faith based groups so we traveled from our middle class, downtown Brooklyn location to host it in a community, which has been repeatedly targeted by racist police attacks.
The host from our church began the panel with a story about our “Black Lives Matter” banner. Some antiracist church members hung up this banner to support the fight against racism. The banner was stolen overnight. Another one was put up, which was also stolen. Then one morning a “Blue Lives Matter” banner appeared outside the church. We took down this racist sign. Blue Lives Matter is a racist, pro-police reaction to the antiracist fightback. Such racism must be confronted everywhere, in every way!
The moderator was a Black pastor and professor who promoted the idea of Black Nationalism. The panelists consisted of a history teacher who has been fighting the racism in schools for 20 years, a recent college graduate who is involved in mentoring Black youth, and a young Black man involved in the Black Lives Matter movement.
The teacher gave a rundown of how racism was created to control and divide workers throughout history. She recommended a book by Black historian Lerone Bennett Jr. called The Shaping of Black America. He explains how in the early days of Colonial America Black and white indentured servants lived and worked together, intermarried and even united to fight against the plantation owners. In response to this, the slave owning plantation owners made a concerted effort to divide Black from white. From preachers who promoted racist ideas to laws which made all kinds of unity illegal, the racist rulers steadily built up racism over hundreds of years. Our task today is to smash all racist ideas and practices as we fight for a better world. Challenge newspaper was distributed to quite a few people at this forum as a small part of this anti-racist fightback.
The young man from BLM broke down his experiences which led him to the movement, sparked by outrage at the death of Eric Garner and Mike Brown at the hands of racist kkkops and Trayvon Martin who was killed by a racist vigilante. The college graduate spoke of how racist treatment in the school system inspired him to create a mentoring program focused on promoting “good” behavior. He realized that it wasn’t the fault of the students that they were unfairly singled out and criminalized because of their race. He also expressed an increasing frustration with voting.
During the open discussion many people expressed support for the anti racism of the BLM movement while questioning the nationalism and divisiveness. Some promoted white privilege theory. This idea serves to divide the working class. For some it may assuage guilt over the racist past of the US, but it also hinders a united, working class fightback against racism. In reality the whole capitalist system has to go. This can only happen with multiracial unity and, as some said during the forum, with an armed struggle.