A Spartacist Pamphlet $1.50 Black History and the Class Struggle ---- No.21 ---- From Slavery to Mass Incarceration PAGE 27 The Cold War and the Civil Rights Movement PAGE 35 Haiti: Mass Misery Under Imperialist Occupation PAGE 55 2 Table of Contents Introduction Break with the Democrats! In the first issue of Black History and order to better sell the big lie that racial For a Revolutionary Workers Party! the Class Struggle, published in 1983, we oppression is a thing of the past. Indeed, Obama Offers Facelift for wrote: "The fight for black freedom in the the "end of racism" lie and the burial of U.S. Imperialism . ............... 3 United States is inextricably linked to the struggle for racial integration are the the fight for socialist revolution against domestic side of the reactionary "end of Communist Organizing in the racist, imperialist capitalist system." communism" myth promoted by imperi­ the Jim Crow South Today it remains the purpose of this pam­ alist ideologues after the counterrevolu­ What's Not in The Great Debaters . ...... 7 phlet series to bring working people and tionary destruction of the USSR. youth to an understanding of this inextri­ Under Obama's administration the racist Oscar Grant Executed in Cold Blood, cable link, as part of winning them to a cops continue to perform their function of Black Oakland Under Siege Marxist program of struggle to bring the upholding the capitalist order against the Racist Police Terror U.S.A . ...... 15 working class to power at the head of all working class, including by intimidating the oppressed. displays of racist terror and murder on the The Man in the Mirror The articles reprinted here show that, streets. Immigrants have been rounded up Michael Jackson and as Barack Obama became a serious con­ and deported in higher numbers than Racist America . ............... 20 tender for the U.S. presidency heading under the Bush regime as scapegoats for toward the 2008 elections, the Spartacist the capitalist economic crisis. In a coun­ Break With the Tripartite Alliance! League clearly set forward our position try where a distinguished member of the For A Black-Centered Workers Government! refusing political support to all candi­ so-called "talented tenth" and personal South Africa: Mobilize Trade Unions dates of the bourgeois class enemy. Our friend of Obama's, professor Henry Louis Against Anti-Immigrant Terror! ... 22 revolutionary program begins from the Gates, can be harassed on his own front fight for political independence of the porch by a racist cop, much worse contin­ Caster Semenya-Leave Her Alone! working class from all capitalist parties ues to be visited upon the common peo­ Racist, Sexist Furor Over and state institutions. After the election, ple. The president underscored again that South African Runner . ......... 24 we wrote (Workers Vanguard No. 925, 21 nobody should expect him to stand up November 2008): "From the standpoint for black people when his administration From Slavery to Mass Incarceration of the international working class and fired Shirley Sherrod, a black woman Black Liberation and the Fight for oppressed there is nothing to celebrate in official of the Department of Agriculture, a Socialist America . ........... 27 Obama's victory and much to fear. Enthu­ after right-wingers alleged she had dis­ siasm among large sections of the bour­ criminated against a white farmer, a story For Black Liberation Through geoisie, on the other hand, is justified." revealed as a total fabrication almost as Socialist Revolution! Large numbers of black people were also soon as it had been purveyed. The Cold War and the Civil Rights Movement . ..... 35 celebrating, not least older people, who Obama made promises to the ruling had never thought a black man could be class, and he has kept them: to loyally elected president in this deeply racist serve and defend the interests of Wall Reformists Crawl to Obama and His Top Cop country. Street, to increase the number of U.S. Mumia Is an Innocent Man! Free Him Now! ................ 49 In contrast to our position, Workers troops raining death and destruction on World Party, one of the organizations that Afghanistan, to continue the so-called falsely claim to be socialist, wrote: "The "war on terror" which is a license for Down With Arizona's Racist Pass Law! election victory of Barack Obama will racist persecution of Muslims and others Full Citizenship Rights for All Immigrants!. .............. 51 go down in history as a triumphant step at home and the hypocritical justification forward in the struggle against racism for U.S. military adventures in the Near and national oppression in the U.S." The East. Obama bailed out the big banks All U.S./UN Troops Out! Haiti: Mass Misery Under illusions of workers and youth in Obama using billions of tax dollars and brokered Imperialist Occupation . ........ 55 are false consciousness, fed by the lying the rip-off "rescue" of the auto industry propaganda of the ruling class, and based by axing jobs, wages and working condi­ Shirley Sherrod Thrown Under the Bus on people's desperate desire to believe tions of unionized auto workers, with the Obama: CEO of things are getting better. To purvey such complicity of the sellout "labor states­ Racist American Capitalism . .... 58 false consciousness is the main job ofref­ men" at the top of the trade unions. He ormist organizations-those who believe has gone after teachers unions with a ven­ No Deportations! For Full Citizenship Rights! that the capitalist system can be reformed geance and redoubled the bourgeoisie's France: Down With Racist to "serve the people." attacks on public education across the Anti-Roma Campaign! .......... 60 Now these opponents of revolution pro­ board. fess to be disappointed at Obama's record. Supposedly "socialist" groups covered But Barack Obama promised nothing to their loyal support to American capital­ black people or the rest of the working ism's Commander-in-Chief with a fake masses. In acknowledging that slavery militant veneer of opposition (along the Spartacist Publishing Co. and racism have been at the center of lines that Obama will do good things if Box 1377 GPO bloody American history, Obama was only we put sufficient mass pressure on New York, NY 10116 February 2011 only using a bit of undeniable truth in continued on page 63 3 reprintedJrom Workers Vanguard No. 920, 12 September 2008 Break with the Democrats! For a Revolutionary Workers Party! Obama celift for U.S. Imperialism As the glittery red-white­ the reformability of capital­ and-blue media circuses of ism and a vote against the the two bourgeois parties' need for socialist revolution. presidential nominating con­ Nor would we run for execu­ ventions in Colorado and tive office-president, gov­ Minnesota faded away, the ernor or mayor-ourselves last whiffs of police tear (see Spartacist [English­ gas dissipated, and the last language edition] No. 60, police barricades were dis­ Autumn 2007). In the U.S., mantled, official U.S. un­ the president is the top cop employment hit a five-year responsible for the most high of 6.1 percent, while massive military power in the actual business of Amer­ history and for the domestic ican imperialism continues machinery of repression unabated. The occupation that maintains social oppres­ of Afghanistan-supported sion and exploitation. by both capitalist candi­ AFP (top); Reuters To the U.S. rulers, dates-heated up as the Top: Imperialist candidates Barack Obama and Joseph Biden Obama, the son of a Kenyan U.S. killed or wounded 500 at Democratic Party convention in August 2008. Obama calls man and a white American people in one week alone. for 10,000 more troops to Afghanistan. Above: Afghan vil­ woman, is an acceptable Meanwhile, U.S. commandos lagers mourn two children killed by U.S.-led troops in Kabul choice for president because openly made incursions into on 1 September 2008. he would refurbish the tat- Pakistan on September 3, tered image of U.S. imperi­ the sort of action advocated by Democratic against Iran over its nuclear program. alism. Obama serves as a very powerful Party presidential nominee Barack Obama. As Marxist opponents of this racist propaganda weapon for the bourgeoisie, With bipartisan unity, Democratic vice capitalist-imperialist order, we stand for telling black people and the oppressed to presidential candidate Joe Biden's pro­ the political independence of the working shut up and stop complaining, because, posal for a $15 billion bribe to Pak­ class from the capitalist class enemy. you see, "the American dream" works! istan's new president to ensure compliance Working people need a party that fights Former Bush supporter and former New with further U.S. incursions was supported for their class interests, a workers party Republic editor Andrew Sullivan pointed by the Bush administration. The Joint committed to sweeping away the mur­ out in promoting Obama: "What does he Chiefs of Staff have recommended shift­ derous imperialist order through social­ offer? First and foremost: his face. Think ing some troops out of the Iraq quagmire ist revolution. We are opposed to any of it as the most effective potential re­ in order to send them to Afghanistan, a political support to any capitalist politi­ branding of the United States since Rea­ move in line with Obama's recent call for cian-Democrat, Republican, Green or gan. Such a re-branding is not trivial­ 10,000 additional troops into Afghani­ "Independent." A vote for any bourgeois it's central to an effective war strategy" stan. And both parties continue threats candidate is a vote of confidence in (Atlantic Monthly, December 2007). 4 c Indeed, when Obama spoke in Berlin c on July 24, more than 200,000 Berliners, E'" waving U.S.