Eminent black revolutionary Malcolm X made the point:
soclely, we're such an underdog, 'e were diways mis way.. ".
Malcolm was, of course, ciode the myth that the Jim Crow svstem under which Blacks had been persecuted or 200 years Never since Ine slave trade at the end of the eighteenth - was in some wav a natural! It is a vital starting point existence. since the racism to which Blacks constantly subjected-either in the USA • britain - resis upon ine caretully -suilt assumption that they are 'naturally' terior and that inis interiority has aii ays existed.
snaterina inis mvin was. as Malcolm x ‹new, only too easy.
= meant ine systemalic oppression of a -ace on the grounds that they are subruman or interior is a relatively mooern phenomenum which only seing with the development of capitalist society. The indignity and humiliation to •nich diack people are suolectea today in the ghettoes of London or New York • a not exist ln pre-capitalisi limes.
Precedent George Brietman. a leading Black mar•'st, stresses this point in his Anti-Negro Prejudice' when suggesting : "at 'race prejudice' is a 'uniquely cap: alist phenomenum'. : -ai early slave-owning societies up to ¡eudal times were based on many diverse •arms or oppression - cultural, class c -eligious - but that this oppression was -e: er that of a race considered 'natural interior.
arielman gives numerous examples 01 -ace relations in pre-feudal slave soc= es to prove his point.
anthropologist Oliver Cox on _enminent me early Egyptians' who - :ne Negroes to the south of them. They e-slaved them and spoke scornfully : nem but', Cox adds, 'they were just as scornful of the Asiatic sand-dwellers or -moscalytes who were lighter than hat it was a cultural discrimination ir Evot can be seen.. Cox continues, *ac: that many of the Negroes, once cap.rec in baltle were chowed to •enerrate Egyptian society once they 'accepted' its • alues and became rnaroans inemselves. -ne cultural discrimination car equally de delecied in orner anning societies such as the Greeks or "omans were ina brown points out inat -e former'... had a cultural and not a -acial standard ot belonging so inat ine sasic alvision in ine worla was between Ereeks and Barbarians..'.
slave and master in nues that.. ine E-eece were usually of and there was no occasion shysica type win slave status'.
The same picture is true of all different socieles from the Roman empire dowr carian invasion of Europe. » the Moslems, in the era of political comination by the Catholic church. There •ere divisions, discrimination and antagonism of class, culture and of religior sut none along race or colour lines. ate as the 15th century, A:rican slave trade to Fortugal pegan, ine 'rationalisation! for enslavement Slacks was not inal iney were aui because they were not Christians. Racial Roots Racism - the idea that Black people were, in themselves, naturally 'inferior! Speaking to a large black audience on Afro-American history back in 1965, the proio have a balanced mind in this society without going into the past because, we're trampled upon, -othing. Now, if we don't go into the past and find out how we got this way, welll think trying to exmass antering trom are Racism - by which came into the 19th century.
pamphlet were sold to the This is not to deny manufacturers, shippers anke.
Tion of fifty million.
Contradiction He quotes the "looked down nowever waninet the other. It was Tons or slaves like callie, There 'justified' on the grounds siave -Brown conthe same race to associate thrown overboard'.
in the reign tradel for pillage the British Empire.
As when the West of Indoctrination Iblack' Sampie "It's impossible for you and me in this we're looked upon as almost began to develop at a later stage of soclai development. cox points out inal ine concept of 'natural' or biological races one anoiner mentalv as well as physically 'only began to grow firmly established by this time, its roots can in tact be traced back io ine blade and rape of Africa and India over a hundred years before by the newly emerging Itrading nations' of Britain and Holland.
These new trading nations found in the under-developed world enormous profits not on v in the excontan n dra sources but also of human beings whom Inev sniooed as saves. in inel millions to work on the vast cotton plantations of Carolina or sugar plantations in the West Indies. It was out of the vast profits gathslave trade that the new capitalist class was able to ¡financel its industrialisation process ir The process was simple. Manufactured goods were taken to Africa and traded lor slaves, ine slaves were sloped in their millions to the West Indies Southern States of America where thei sugar and cotton plantations and the ships returned to Britain loaded with sugar or cotton (for the manufacturing industry). The triangular trade cared proration pror tod plantation owners exact number of Africans who crossed the Atlantic in chains stands in the regThis barbaric trade in slaves created, La certain contradiction for the new trading nations that had broken out of the 'feudal stranglehold'. The break with feudalism had taken place under the of 'the rights of man' in which no human being was the property of andifficult to reconcile the "rents or man win inedi lace ot Atrica and Asia and the transportation of millto America to be soid, to the highest bidder.
ine growin or racism has its roots in the attempt to defend this barbaric system. Slaverv and the rape of Africa was that black people were suonuman' or 'uncivilised': their denial of elementary rights was "justitied' on ine grounas inat iney were 'naturally inferior', Dramatic evidence court case of 1873 where a captain had been accused of throwing overboard 132 slaves through shortage of water. The judge ruled that !.. the case of the Slaves was the same as if horses had been It was on the basis of this ideology that countries such as Britain not only continued to reap profits out of the 'slave many vears but to extend their of the 'Third World' over the centuries that went into the creation of A moral support for inis laeology was round in pseudo-scientific trappings and Biblical quotations, many of which are still with us today.
The anti-black virus took some time in taking hold of the working population... During the American Civil War, for exLancashire cotton workers organised massive protests against slavery in the Southern States despite the fact inal leopardised ineir loos.
years, however, the myth of black inferorly created to.Justlry enormous profiteering began to seep into all layers of society.
This was facilitated by the fact that the British workers' movement was able to enjoy, even in the worst periods of recession, a relatively privileged positior due to the enormous ruling class out of the exploitation of the 'colonies! workers ichaca to Dencrit out oTinisex. ploitation opened them up increasingly to racist ideas and enabled them to identify with the myth of the 'British Empirel & against ine independence struggles colonial workers and peasants.
This backward attitude on the part of the labour movement was pinpointed both Marx and Engels, in a letter of 1882 merrily devour alongside them (i. e. ruling class) the fruits of the British colonial monopoly!. 300 years of colonial rule have imprinted racism more on the British working class than perhaps or that of any other country.
This is not to sav. mass of workers go round insulting attacking black people. that many of them are still prey to a host of misconceptions about blacks which can be detected in the idea that 'we civilised 'them' or Ibefore we went to Africa, were swinging in the trees'. This of comment is only a popular version of the idea advanced by scientific quacks such as Eysank that Blacks are innately less intelligent than whites The poisenous feedback of racism into the workers' movement century mainly through the young con -script armies (made up of young workers) who fought in the colonial wars of Malaysia and Kenya. be indoctrinated with typical Imperialist contempt in the same way as the American Gls fighting in Vietnam who referred #peration rignters as gooks'. Feedback This feedback has been particularly Cancerous. nowever, Decause or ine heavy influx of blacks into Britain after ine war. encouraged Dy lory Ministers to fill the 'labour shortage' that was developing. Blacks were urged to emigrate to Britain particularly to fill the large laaps' growing in the service industries such as transport, health and catering The influx of Black immigrants (now 2% of the population) has tended to create a years. The innate racism of British soclely, created over suv years or colonia: rule, is no longer merely directed at the Icolonies! but at thousands of Black people who have been forced to settle in this country. plicit in the very immigration laws that discriminate against those trying enter on the basis of colour)affects the majority of black people at every level of their lives.
In the first place, they are discriminated against in employment, being limited generally to the most menial jobs on low pay and denied almost all chances of real promotion. Secondly, they are forced by uver the unemployment.
profits made by the The fact that British Luca to grow changing.
and La more ugly form.
by Ine later noting that '.. the workers Taster SOCIALIST ACTION stand up for their rights at work or more generally in society. attitude by TUC leaders - calling for Indeed, ine latest reduction in 'work permits! - quite openly blames blacks for being at the root Up until the present, apart from the sporadic race riots in Notting Hill in the 1960s, there has been little popular action based on race hatred. This was no doubt due to the fact that full employment and rising living standards continThis situation is rapidly With what seems a permanent jobless pool, worsening living standards deteriorating social services, the centuries of racial prejudice could take Certainly, that race hatred is being fanned by demagogues! such as Enoch Powell, and the refusal of the labour leaders to fight it - indeed to concede to it - can only fan it even