Our liberation is bound together

[TexasTowelie]

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, author of the forthcoming From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation, looks at the sources of Black power, in an article published at Jacobin.

ON APRIL 12, 1865, the American Civil War officially came to end when the Union Army accepted the unconditional surrender of the Confederacy on the steps of a courthouse in Appomattox, Virginia. The Union Army, led by 200,000 Black soldiers, had destroyed the institution of slavery; as a result of their victory, Black people were now to be no longer property but citizens of the United States.

The Civil Rights Act of 1866, the first declaration of civil rights in the United States, stated that:

citizens of every race and color, without regard to any previous condition of slavery or involuntary servitude, shall have the same right, in every State and Territory in the United States...to full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of person and property, as is enjoyed by white citizens.

There was no ambiguity that the war had buried chattel slavery once and for all. Days after the surrender of the Confederacy, Abraham Lincoln rode into Richmond, Virginia, the former capital of the slaveholders, where he stood upon the stairs of the former Confederate capitol building and told a large gathering crowd of Black people days into their freedom:

In reference to you, colored people, let me say God has made you free. Although you have been deprived of your God-given rights by your so-called Masters, you are now as free as I am, and if those that claim to be your superiors do not know that you are free, take the sword and bayonet and teach them that you are--for God created all men free, giving to each the same rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Read more: http://socialistworker.org/2015/11/02/our-liberation-is-bound-togeth

[lovemydog]

1. Thanks TT.

Very informative & moving.

The movie Lincoln focuses exclusively on Lincoln's insistence on the emancipation proclamation as a condition of ending the war. I think that was a great way of boiling down his life into the most significant days. He asked for a vote from his cabinet and I believe every person in his cabinet opposed it. He looked around, paused for dramatic effect, and said 'The ayes have it.'

[raouldukelives]

2. Great article.

Corporations, shareholders, Wall St and its assorted toadies are making the changes we want to see in this country and around the world nigh impossible.

For every individual working to change things for the better, there are legion invested in nothing changing at all and sadly, that wealth speaks louder than our deeds and every dollar in Wall St is a dollar against those trying to lift themselves us all up.

Just like slavery, they profit from our repression. Unlike slavery, it is making the world itself inhospitable to all lifeforms. How crazy is that? It is no secret to investors. They knew then, they know now, they fund the deniers and they continue.

Ending life as we know it on this planet, the only world we have ever known, the looming mass extinctions, is about the evilest goal those only concerned with personal wealth can collectively achieve.

Hell on earth. Some are for it, some are against it and some aren't sure yet. We can no longer afford to be unsure. If we don't stand together, we will surely all fall.

[JustAnotherGen]

3. Having gone to the article

I'm not sure what it is the author is saying -

At the end:

Perhaps at its most basic level, Black liberation implies a world where Black people can live in peace, without the constant threat of the social, economic, and political woes of a society that places almost no value on the vast majority of Black lives. It would mean living in a world where Black lives matter.

While it is true that when Black people get free, everyone gets free, Black people in America cannot "get free" alone. In that sense, Black liberation is bound up with the project of human liberation and social transformation.

Is the author implying that we should subjugate our movement for that of the Greater Liberalism?

Here's where I challenge that . . .

We are the single most successful Civil Rights attainers in America. I would think if a rising tide is going to lift all boats - the 'others in the others' category would/Should look to us for how to get things done with long lasting impact.

If the article is saying - Get behind the black folks because they have been making touch downs incrementally since 1898 - I'm all for it.

If the article is saying - Hey look. There was this shiny object called OWS and now all of those folks are supporting a specifici candidate and you 'others' need to get with the program . . . I'm not buying it.

We know what we are doing - I'm not so sure OWS has the success record I'm looking for in terms of allowing an ally leadership roles.

[WIProgressive88]

4. Socialistworker.org is published by the International Socialist Organization, which is a Trotskyist

group that is not too keen on liberalism nor Bernie Sanders-styled evolutionary democratic socialism, so I don't think that they would share an article intended to win support for Sanders's candidacy (although the article is originally from Jacobin, which is reluctantly pro-Sanders). The second paragraph you quote links to this article: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/06/black-lives-matter-police-brutality-allies/, and I think maybe these paragraphs kind of help clarify what the author meant:

Class and racism are inextricably connected, in particular in the US. The oppression that flows from racism and the exploitation of the working class cannot be tackled separately. When this reality isn’t understood, our common oppressors win.

The most timeworn and effective card that the ruling class can pay is to divide the working class along racial lines. We have all heard the stereotypes meant to scapegoat black people for social problems: “minorities” who are stealing your job, “welfare queens” who are milking the system and taking advantage of “hard-working Americans.”

This is why we agitate fiercely to win working-class people who aren’t black to taking on anti-black racism as though their own futures depend on overcoming it — because they do. Building antiracist resistance throughout the working class is also the only way that the understandable distrust on the part of black people, who face the daily experience of oppression and isolation, can be broken down.

We don’t accept the idea that the best we can do is convince people around us to treat black people better. We refuse to accept as a goal anything short of black liberation — as a central component of the liberation of all oppressed people. That goal may seem far off now, but this makes it all the more important to set our sights on it. And with the re-emergence of the struggle against racism in Ferguson and the wave of resistance it inspired, we are one step closer on a long road to freedom.

To me anyways, it seems more that the author is speaking of the need for whites to embrace the cause of black liberation, and support anti-racist causes, rather than telling people of color to get behind any predominately white-lead movement. That's how I read it anyways.