After being held up by racist politicians on the floor of Congress, the Voting Rights Act extension finally passed at the end of July. For weeks, a group of white congressmen from Southern states held up the renewal of the VRA for racist reasons.
They opposed the component of the act that required all localities to translate ballots into other languages. This was a
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The VRA, originally enacted in 1965, is one of the most important pieces of civil rights legislation. It codifies the absolute rights of African American and other disenfranchised people to vote in state, local and federal elections, taking away racist impediments put up by many Southern state and local governments. It was the result of decades of struggle and was pushed to the fore by the massive African American-led Civil Rights movement.
The passage of the VRA extension has been roundly hailed, although some unlikely entities are taking credit for getting it though Congress.
Corporations for civil rights?
A July 25 article in The Hill, a Washington, D.C., newspaper, discussed the major role played by corporations in lobbying to get the VRA extension passed. Among the corporate executives who spoke in favor of VRA passage were senior officials from AT&T, CBS, Coca-Cola, Comcast, Eli Lilly, Freddie Mac, Pepsi, Tyco, Verizon, the Walt Disney Co., and Wal-Mart. Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer’s CEO, Hank McKinnell, also spoke on behalf of the Business Roundtable, a group of 150 chief executives.
The corporations couched their support in progressive-sounding but hollow phrases. They said that the VRA promotes “workplace diversity” and “promotes democracy.” Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott went so far as to write a letter to President Bush in June urging him to sign the VRA extension:
“Wal-Mart is the largest private employer of African-Americans and Hispanics and we, therefore, have a particular interest in this issue. On behalf of them as well as our millions of customers whose lives are touched by this landmark statute, we believe it is important to move forward expeditiously,” Scott wrote.
Why such benevolence from large sections of the ruling class and their managers?
With actions and language like this, people might think that these capitalist mega-corporations are “good corporate citizens.” It may seem like they stood up to the racist, backward congressmen and convinced them about the efficacy of civil rights. But this is hardly the case.
These corporations don’t care at all about people’s rights or fighting against racism. Corporations, especially those taking credit for the VRA, are actually the most racist, anti-worker entities one could imagine. Wal-Mart, a company known for employing many Black workers, is known for paying its workers low wages, giving few benefits, busting union organizing drives, and driving out local businesses in communities across the country. The others on the list aren’t any better.
Corporations are only paying lip service to civil rights to improve their stature in the Black community as a way to increase their already massive profits. They see it as a way to increase their marketability to people of color and thereby increase their markets. Meanwhile, corporations pay no attention to increasing social programs like access to health care, affordable education, or anything else of benefit to humanity.
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Congressman John Conyers (D-Mich.), member of the Congressional Black Caucus, noted on National Public Radio last week that the word spreads quickly about corporations that supported the VRA. He added that people of color will remember this support, essentially meaning that more people will buy products from these corporations when they go shopping.
Celia Wexler, vice president for advocacy at consumer group Common Cause, stated that supporting the VRA was a wise move for companies like Wal-Mart: “It’s not a bad idea from a public-relations perspective, especially for a company like Wal-Mart that has faced criticism for a lot of its practices.”
By promoting diversity and being seen as friendly to Blacks, corporations know they can improve their image. It’s a part of their massive marketing scheme to people of color. This is why Wal-Mart supported the VRA and why it recently hired civil rights icon Andrew Young to lead an organization created by Wal-Mart to promote its “role in the community.”
This pro-corporate organization will be used to combat the growing people’s movement across the country to force Wal-Mart to pay higher salaries and provide health benefits to workers.
The VRA is not the first time corporations have cravenly tried to claim support for civil rights. Several years ago, in the Grutter v. Bollinger case about affirmative action policies at the University of Michigan Law School, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce—the capitalist umbrella group for three million businesses—filed an amicus brief supporting affirmative action. Did the Chamber of Commerce care about promoting equality? Only inasmuch as it helped its members tap into unsaturated markets and gain false but lasting credibility with Black and other consumers.
These corporations are often aided by mainstream liberal organizations like the NAACP and the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, which stand on the shoulders of the heroic civil rights movement and claim to act in the best interest of Black people but are fully funded by corporations and promote them based on how much they donate to their particular group and the political allies of their leaders. These bourgeois organizations are often helmed by people whose class interests directly contradict those of their constituents. Current NAACP leader Bruce Gordon is a wealthy former Verizon executive.
All of this works to hide from African Americans the truly racist, exploitative role that corporations play within the capitalist system. Corporations, as essential components of the capitalist system, can never actually work in favor of people’s rights or for justice. As long as capitalism exists, they will always be obstacles to achieving full equality.
