The murder of Trayvon Martin has brought the subject of racism back into the center of national politics, a clear reminder that we are nowhere near a “post-racial society.” This May Day, as we struggle for immigrant rights and a fighting labor movement, and take on Wall Street, it is critical that we link arms with the anti-racist struggle.
Why did the killing of Martin, and the subsequent 44 days of freedom for George Zimmerman, lead to a spontaneous movement involving tens of thousands of youth? Martin, 17, who came “armed” with nothing but iced tea and Skittles, symbolized the routine experiences of Black and Brown young people across the country. Every person who has been deemed “suspicious” because of the color of their skin saw in Trayvon Martin a picture of themselves. That is why so many posted pictures of themselves wearing a hoodie on Facebook, and why so many came to march.
Immigrants under the gun
The struggle to end racist immigration laws has been a central theme of May Day demonstrations for the past six years. While our experiences and struggles are not identical, the immigrant rights movement can take a powerful step forward this year by uniting with the Black community in a common fight against racism and racial profiling.
On April 25, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments on Arizona’s racist antiimmigrant law, Senate Bill 1070. SB 1070 aims to empower Arizona cops to detain and question individuals that “look like” they could be undocumented. The blatant racism of the bill sparked nationwide outrage and action in immigrant communities. Just as marchers for Trayvon Martin wore hoodies and carried signs that said, “Do I look suspicious?” immigrant rights activists wore T-shirts that asked, “Do I look illegal?”
As with the federal investigation of the Trayvon Martin case, these mobilizations forced the government to step in, filing a temporary injunction with the Supreme Court to block the bill. The federal government stepped in not as a matter of fundamental justice, but because they were worried about how the bill would damage relations with Latin American countries.
However, this did not stop several other states from embracing the spirit of SB 1070. Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, South Carolina and Utah have all passed similar legislation in the last two years. We need a national struggle to keep these bills from proliferating. The natural allies in such a struggle are not the Supreme Court or Congress, but the masses of Black people and other oppressed people who face criminalization on a daily basis. The labor unions and multinational working class must rally in the spirit of an injury to one being an injury to all.
Congress and racial profiling
In the summer of 2001, Congress held hearings on anti-racial profiling legislation, and the phrase “driving while Black” became common across the United States. Even President George W. Bush, standing in front of Congress in February 2001, said racial profiling was “wrong” and that “we will end it in America.” But, following Sept. 11, the End Racial Profiling Act was dropped, and Congress took no action when it was introduced in 2004, 2005, 2007 and 2009.
Instead, we have seen racial profiling become ever more normalized and institutionalized over the last decade. Police forces have developed policies like New York City’s “stop and frisk,” which targets poor Black and Latino neighborhoods for routine harassment. Muslim, Middle Eastern and South Asian communities have been spied upon, targeted and stereotyped as “terrorist” threats. Fascistic state laws, backed up by racist politicians, as well as state and vigilante violence, have targeted Latino immigrants as scapegoats for the economic crisis.
On April 17, for the first time in over a decade, the Senate again held a hearing on racial profiling, and the End Racial Profiling Act has been reintroduced. While the criminalization of racial profiling would clearly be a positive step, it is extremely unlikely to pass. We cannot expect the representatives of the capitalist class to declare war on their own police, immigration enforcement agents, prison system and courts, all of which carry out racist criminalization as part of their dayto-day functions.
The targeting of Black and Latino neighborhoods is part and parcel of the mass incarceration phenomenon, which itself is a product of a phase of capitalism marked by mass and chronic unemployment. Reversing these trends requires a new system, not just a new bill.
Moreover, when the capitalist state talks about ending profiling, this usually comes with the expansion, not the elimination, of surveillance. For instance, when civil rights lawyers once argued that hand-held metal detectors in schools were used in a discriminatory fashion against Black and Latino students, the police responded by installing walk-through metal detectors that the whole student body would have to enter. That is their “answer” to profiling: Surveil and criminalize everyone.
Carrying the struggle forward
Today, race and racial profiling are more intertwined with public policy and law enforcement than ever before. In the Peta Lindsay/Yari Osorio PSL Presidential Campaign, we pledge to make the issues of racism and mass incarceration of utmost importance this year. We challenge the other candidates to do the same.
U.S. capitalism was built on the superexploitation of enslaved Black workers and the exploitation of all wage-workers, the expropriation of Native land, and the subjugation and colonization of the peoples of the “Third World.”
Racist ideology has always been used to justify these processes, backed by the fragmentation of the working class along the lines of white supremacy. White workers generally enjoyed greater access to services, jobs, housing and citizenship, while special forms of oppression, violence and discrimination were reserved for Black, Latino, Asian, Arab and Native communities.
For communists, the struggle against racism is fundamental to the struggle against capitalism, and we look for all ways to unite anti-racist and all working-class forces into a movement to challenge the system as a whole. The current economic crisis has revealed the extent to which workers of all nationalities are being forced into a “race to the bottom.”
But this social process creates the basis for common struggle among the working class, which is thoroughly multinational.
On May Day, let us all reaffirm our commitment to build a true class-wide movement that struggles for workers’ common interests, and takes a militant stand against racism, anti-immigrant bigotry, racial profiling and mass incarceration.
Let the unemployed worker, the union member, the victim of police brutality and the undocumented stand together. On May Day, let Wall Street, the anti-immigrant bigots and the George Zimmermans of the world tremble at our unity.
