We’re a nation founded by workers and protestors

Bill Knight column for 6-29, 30 or July 1, 2020

                       

This Independence Day, one remembers 1773’s Boston Tea Party, where Americans angry about the British Empire’s “taxation without representation” and the power of the British East India Company multinational corporation destroyed 46 tons of tea on three ships in the harbor.

One also recalls, after the uprising about the police killing of George Floyd on Memorial Day, the saying (and movie) “10,000 Black Men Named George,” about Black labor leader A. Philip Randolph and the union he led for decades: the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, with some 18,000 members.

As to the former: Property damage has proven effective sometimes (and it’s not “violence” – injuring or killing living things). Even if vandalism and looting during demonstrations for racial justice were misguided acts of outrage or “criminal shopping,” the focus should still be on African American victims of brutality.

The latter should remind us that organized labor at its finest stands with working people and against racism and inequality.

Historically, 17th century rebellions in the American colonies often led to black slaves and white indentured servants cooperating in fighting for freedom, struggles that led to “Slave Codes,” a precursor to the notorious Jim Crow laws making racism not just legal but mandatory.

But labor often saw common ground, maybe best shown in 1963’s March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, where labor leaders A. Philip Randolph and Walter Reuther from the Autoworkers walked alongside the Rev. Martin Luther King and future Congressman John Lewis.

            Recently, Teamsters president James Hoffa said, “Black people fear for their lives on a daily basis by the very institutions which are supposed to protect them. It may not be most of our truths, but we must acknowledge and understand this is the truth of so many Black and brown brothers and sisters.”

From before the American Revolution, after the failed Reconstruction, and into the 21st century, the status quo has used a “divide and conquer” strategy to subdue workers, Black and white, and racial prejudice has been one tactic.

“Racism in America, from colonial times to the Trump era, divides us to prevent an effective united front,” said organizer Andrew Tillett-Saks of UNITE HERE Local 217 in Rhode Island, writing in In These Times magazine in 2016.

In W.E.B. Du Bois’ 1935 book “Black Reconstruction,” the historian and activist wrote, “So long as the Southern white laborers could be induced to prefer poverty to equality with the Negro, just so long was a labor movement in the South made impossible.”

There’s popular support for action. Polls show that 54% of Americans back the protests that have unleashed unrest in dozens of U.S. communities, and 74% agree that Floyd’s death reflects systemic racism in policing

April Sims, the Black secretary-treasurer of the Washington State Labor Council, said, “The system isn’t broken. The system is operating exactly the way it was intended to.”

Days after the AFL-CIO building in Washington, D.C., was damaged after protests, federation president Richard Trumka said, “Racism plays an insidious role in the daily lives of all working people of color. We must and will continue to fight for reforms.

“We remind ourselves that peace is not the absence of conflict, but the presence of justice.”

Of course, talk is cheap, so it’s insufficient to offer “thoughts and prayers,” advice to vote in five months, or to buy commercials or relay on public relations.

Some police have showed sympathy to demonstrators, but reactions have been inconsistent, and there’s a growing schism between labor and police unions.

Organized labor must step up and recognize the crisis. As UNITE HERE President D Taylor commented about Floyd’s murder, “This is not normal. Except it is.”