There is no consequent fight against racism without fighting for the end of capitalism

There is no consequent fight against racism without fighting for the end of capitalism

Masses 624, Editorial, November 22, 2020

Racism is an ideological expression of class oppression suffered by blacks. Every form of social discrimination is an expression of class oppression. That is why racism manifests itself against working, poor and miserable blacks. This odious archaism of class society has not only been preserved, but has been aggravated in the disintegrating conditions of capitalism, in which the exploited in general, black and white, bear all their weight.

Bourgeois politics is divided between that which places the need to curb the virulence of racial manifestations and that which considers it unnecessary, as it does not see the presence of racism in discrimination and violence against blacks. The beating that led to the death of black worker João Alberto Silveira Freitas exposed this difference. The Bolsonaro government regretted the event, but did not admit the racial motive. Certainly, in view of the national and international repercussions, the racist government could not fail to lament, as an evangelical Christian. Representatives of the National Congress, the Judiciary and the  great press reported the murder of João Alberto, by two Carrefour property security officers, as a result of racism. Some lamented and condemned the discrimination against blacks; others urged the authorities to take public policies for the inclusion of blacks in society seriously; and still others recalled that racism is a crime in Brazil. On the other , there are those, like Vice President Mourão, who deny the existence of racism in Brazil.

These differences only appear in the face of barbaric events, such as the murder of João Alberto. After the commotion, racism ceases to exist as a national problem. Bourgeois racists and anti-racists place their differences below the economic power and the private interests of the capitalists. It is more than demonstrated that discrimination against blacks is an economic factor of enormous importance for the process of labor exploitation, extraction of surplus value and capital accumulation.

Statistics show the discrimination practiced by employers when hiring black and white workers, and black people, once hired, receive a lower salary. Poverty and misery are greater among the black population. Incarceration and homicides affect blacks much more, especially youth. In the class composition, only a small layer of blacks ascends to the middle class, and the bourgeoisie is almost entirely made up of whites. The working class is mostly black. Racism is only taken seriously if it starts with class composition and relations.

Intellectuals and representatives of the black movement correctly claim that racism is structural. Which means, to be consistent with the characterization, that discrimination and violence against the black population will only be eliminated if its structural basis is eliminated. They explain that the more than three hundred years of slavery determined the present racial conditions. However, they refuse to acknowledge that pre-capitalist slavery has become capitalist. The structural condition of racism has its historical roots in colonial slavery. Such roots remain in capitalism, since they are roots of class, exploitation and oppression. Evidently, modified by the transformations that led to the formation of capitalism in Brazil. Colonial slavery was replaced by wage slavery. What constituted the proletariat, made up of blacks and whites.

It must also be said that the white capitalist bourgeoisie has its roots in the slave owners. These roots remain in force, in the form of capitalist ownership of the means of production and the exploitation of labor, through which blacks are discriminated against. That is why racism, in fact, is structural in Brazil.

Capitalism must be transformed into socialism, through the proletarian revolution, to end discrimination against blacks and all kinds of class oppression. The black masses’ claim program clashes with the interests of the bourgeoisie. This is because it is part of the proletariat’s program. It is a question of the working masses taking the struggle to end racial oppression in hand.

It is symptomatic that an anti-racist petty-bourgeois movement was formed. The entry of a layer of blacks into the middle class served, in the past, and has been serving, at present, as the basis of the reformist movement, in which one of the fundamental problems is that of racial discrimination. The PT took charge of promoting the reformist thesis that it is possible to solve racism gradually, through a democratic and popular government and the adoption of public policies. The Racial Equality Statute was its main contribution. Centrist parties, such as PSOL, PSTU and others, cling to the racial issue, to follow the steps of reformism.

The farce of legal equality dissolves day by day, in the course of events, in which the murder of João Alberto is only one case among thousands (a fact is known that, every 21 minutes, a black person is murdered in Brazil). As the Supreme Court Minister Gilmar Mendes said, racism is a crime. It is with this type of mask that bourgeois racists and anti-racists maintain the capitalist order, which oppresses the exploited in general and the black masses in particular.

On the eve of Black Awareness Day, João Alberto was beaten and smothered to death in the eyes of Carrefour employees. The electoral festivity that the reformist and centrist left was preparing was affected by the blood of the black worker. Its organizers did not fail to fulfill their objective, but they were forced to transform the festive passivity into a protest action, mainly in São Paulo, Rio Grande do Sul and Rio de Janeiro. Politickers and partygoers will continue to condemn the violence of the protesters, who expressed their revolt by ravaging Carrefour. They refuse to learn from the violence of the white bourgeoisie against the exploited blacks. Although the demonstrations were limited, they reflected the hatred for the bourgeoisie represented by Carrefour. It is through class struggle – as opposed to class collaboration – that the exploited blacks and whites will bury capitalism, and with it oppression over blacks.

POR participated in Black Awareness Day, with the strategic banner of the proletarian revolution, which will definitely end the infamy of discrimination. Its Manifesto and its pronouncement in the tribune of the act were linked with the hatred that aroused throughout the country, in the face of the murder of João Alberto.