Racism

Ravi Mistry looks at the cynical way in which exploitative big businesses present themselves as allies of oppressed groups in order to sell their products and make profits.

The Russian Revolution, 100 years ago, had a global impact on political consciousness. In the USA, the period was one of a developing militancy amongst African Americans. Claude McKay represented the overlap between the revolutionary Communist movement and that of the anti-racist, anti-colonial struggle.

Social media has been alight this week with responses to two incidents of racism from prominent politicians: first from a Tory MP and then from liberal poster boy Emmanuel Macron. In today’s world, where sensitivity to racism has never been so acute, how is it – Ben Gliniecki asks – that leading politicians still manage to unthinkingly spout such racist remarks?

With Trump’s electoral victory, cries of “fascism!” again fill the air. But whilst Donald Trump is a crass, bigoted, billionaire businessman, he is not a fascist. The secret to his win was the lesser-evil policy of the “left” leaders. With no class-independent alternative provided by Bernie Sanders, uninspired Americans stayed home, sick and tired of betrayal by the Democrats.

A little over five years since the shooting by police of Mark Duggan in Tottenham and two years since the beginning of the movement in the USA, Black Lives Matter (BLM) has finally taken shape in Britain. To commemorate Duggan’s death and continue to challenge police racism, big protests were organised in London, Birmingham, Manchester and Nottingham on 5th August, as well as smaller ones elsewhere around the country.

The question of instituitionalised racism has shot to the surface in the USA as a result of a series of unprovoked killings of black youth by police officers. Vigilante shootings of police officers have recently been seen in response. John Peterson of Socialist Appeal USA explains the background of polarisation that has led to these horrific exchanges.

A media storm has surrounded this year’s Oscars in Hollywood, as a result of the lack of ethnic diversity in the nominations for the acting categories. Similar criticisms have also been levelled at the Brit Awards, the main musical awards in the UK. Owen Walsh explores the question of diversity within the culture industry.

Over five-hundred reports of abuse and harassment were made to the police in Cologne, Germany, on New Year’s Eve. What exactly happened remains unclear. What is not uncertain is that the assaults in Cologne have been used by the ruling class and the right-wing media to attack and demonise immigrants, dividing the working class.

The ugly face of Obama’s “hope we can believe in” has been starkly revealed. The extrajudicial killings of Michael Brown andEric Garner, unarmed black males killed by white police officers, have set off an emotional firestorm of protests and outrage on a scale not seen in the US in many years. It is the task of the Marxists to help people draw out the revolutionary conclusions implicit within the situation.

The murders of Michael Brown and Eric Garner have reverberated loudly worldwide. From New York to Palestine to Mexico, young people are fed up with this racist system that sanctions the death penalty for stealing a piece of candy, and are connecting their struggle across borders. In London, too, thousands of young people have taken to the streets in solidarity, with Marxist students showing their support at the demonstrations taking place.

We publish here an analysis of the history and programme of the Black Panther Party – the militant organisation that was at the forefront of the Black Power movement in the USA in the 1960s and 70s – by John Peterson of Socialist Appeal USA. In the wake of the murder of Mike Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, now is an important time to ask: which way forward for the fight against racism and oppression?