This got me thinking about how many Black revolutionaries in both the U.S and abroad during the 60's and 70's embraced communism thinking that it would be the solution to racism or racist exploitation. Cuba's example shows that even under communism racial biases and discrimination can still exist.
while your wonderful country is free of that scourge, huh ? Cuba's example ? then please give us some of these 'examples'. communism is incompatible with racial discrimination because it is color- and race-blind, proof of that being its Internationalist vocation. In Russia there was a huge campaign against the traditional antisemitism and if you want to babble about race biases why don't you tell us of the story of the Ethiopian Jews and their troubled existence in white (I'd be tempted to say Arian) Israel. Or go to Selma , Alabama. It is to say the least outrageous that you anticommunists insist in describing every possible communist society as a distillate of the worst evils. Wash your ass before calling people shitty.
No Did you read the link? There are certain jobs Black Cubans can't get. You say communism is incompatible with racial discrimination. That sounds good on paper. Any system can have people with racial biases. A Communist individual can have racist attitues just like someone who advocates capitalism. Anyway my point is that embarcing communism or maoism didn't end racism the way the Black Panthers for example seemed to believe.
The Panthers were right to embrace communism :cheers2: Back then so called democracy was designed specifically to exclude blacks and other minorities from participating in the grand scheme While it didn't end racism in america it offered hope for a better life Hotwater
I don't think embracing communism and maoism was the answer. Instead the Panthers should have been reading the views of Marcus Garvey instead of Karl Marx and Mao. Garvey had more realistic ideas on economics in my opinion. Garvey didn't reject capitalism. Capitalism is how you build wealth. Anyway,we've seen the failures of communism,right(the Soviets,North Korea,Vietnam etc)?
Also can someone point to a Communist country that was a democracy? Can you liberate people with a non democratic system?
i dont see how communisim would stop raceisim i would think it would cause there to be more of it because people wouldnt be able to descriminate over class so race would be all that was left
During reconstruction there were many african americans seeking the dream that is capitalism; only to be beaten back at every turn. In almost each instance from starting their own plantations in the south to the founding of western frontier towns, they were confronted by racism; Garvey wasn’t a visionary; he was a fool Hotwater
Racism was the problem here not capitalism. You can have racism regardless of the economic system. The American and Cuban examples show that. America is capitalist and has racism. Cuba is communist and has it's brand of racism. If Blacks today did more of those things that they did during reconstruction they wouldn't have the same racist experiances today because America's racial climate is different than it was during reconstruction and legal segregation. I think capitalism is a good way to put racist in check. Why did boycotts work during the civil right era? Because the boycotts hurt the profits of racist business owners. In a capitalist system racism can be bad for business. Garvey wasn't a fool as far as his economic views. Every economicly self sufficiant group in America has made use of America's free enterprise system. Jewish and Asian Americans aren't going to abandon free enterpise as the way to build wealth for their families and expand economic opportunities for their communities.
YouTube - Milton Friedman - Government Regulation Milton Friedman makes an interesting observation of the Jim Crow south.
When The Revolution banned seperate facilities for White and Africcan Cubans it closed down social clubs. This had the intended consequence of putting the Communist Party in the place of the social clubs. They sought to constrain any orginization that might have a voice independent of The Party. The racial separation bit is just window dressing on closing down independent civic orginizations.
We need to start dealing with all persons as humans, not black, white, yellow, brown, or other variations. Is it going to be divide and conquer or combine and prosper?
Since the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965, equitable representation on elected governing bodies has been a matter of intense and controversial interest. In recent years racially gerrymandered districts have come under increasing attack, and advocates of more broadly inclusive representation have begun to examine alternatives to single-member legislative districts. Overlooked has been a considerable history of electoral system experimentation with municipal legislative bodies predating the passage of the Voting Rights Act. Starting in 1915, Proportional Representation (PR) was used for extended periods in a number of cities in Ohio, New York, Massachusetts, and several other locations.
Black Panther Eldridge Cleaver, who spent many years in Communist nations, including Cuba, North Korea, and the Soviet Union, said his first hand experience of communism in practice left him homesick for the racist Oakland police he had been in shootouts with! Huey Newton, who fled to Cuba in 1974, chose to return to the US in 1977 to face murder charges and possible life imprisonment over 'freedom' in Cuba. Bobby Seale cynically described Marxism as 'his hustle', and admitted that when he and Huey were selling copies of Mao's 'little red book' to white student radicals on the UC Berkeley campus (to raise money to buy guns), they'd never even read it themselves and had no interest in doing so. The Panthers' Marxism had more to do with manipulating naive white activists and securing support and potential safe places abroad beyond American influence to flee to if necessary (which indeed many did) than a sincere ideological commitment.
I think it shows a basic flaw int he Marxist dialectic. Environment doesn't completely determine the condition of human consciousness. You can argue that consciousness also plays a roll in affecting environment. I think the issue of nature vs. nurture is dealt in too much of a black and white way. I think we all have free will, to a limited degree, and if we collaborate, the affect of human free will can become even more powerful. I side with Hagel in that I see the state as a symptom of the condition of the human spirit. Any racism or prejudice that crops up systematically is just a result of how people treat and view each other in their day to day lives. If you want to fix the problem, work on yourself first and the relationship you have with family and other people on a day to day level. That's not to say we shouldn't try to actively change systematic injustice on a larger level, but it should all start at an individual and spiritual level first.
